The Outer Worlds 2 review: A sequel that hasn't moved forward
By Ryan Woodrow

When Obsidian first released the original Outer Worlds, the company was riding a high of hype on the idea of a Bethesda-style RPG made without Bethesda’s input, and it led to that game’s success in 2019. However, all these years down the line, it seems Obsidian hasn’t moved forward at all, and The Outer Worlds 2 is an unfortunate encapsulation of that.
Regardless of the state of its modern games, one thing Bethesda RPGs do incredibly well is establish a rich and engaging world that captures the imagination of just about anyone who plays their games. This year, Obsidian has released two major RPGs – with Avowed in February – and neither of them showcased a world I wanted to know more about. That’s an especially dire statement for Avowed, which was working in the usually deep and interesting Pillars of Eternity universe.
Take the anti-capitalist humor in the Outer Worlds games, for example. In 2019, its satire on corporatization and how that would work in the space age was biting and made for a lot of good jokes. However, in the years since, that kind of humor has become trendy and done to death, and The Outer Worlds 2 doesn’t make any attempt to push its jokes forward from the first game. Aside from a brief opening bite at corporations merging into mega-entities, it’s all the same anti-capitalist jokes from 2019.
It also doesn’t help that this game gives us a faction that is unequivocally the bad guys in the Protectorate, who wear futuristic nazi-style armor straight out of Wolfenstein and literally brainwash their subjects to keep them in line. No shades of grey, no moral ambiguity, they are the evil faction.
That isn’t a bad thing on its own – tell the story you want to tell – but the consequence is that, rather than a more careful choice between the moral grey zones of the many different factions and choosing which one aligns more with your personal goals and ideals, it’s instead much more of an “us versus them” situation. You may not like the horrifically capitalistic mega corporation that rules a large portion of the galaxy, but hey…at least they’re not space nazis, right? That basically makes them good guys, right? Or you can side with the math cult, I guess.
While it doesn’t make for a particularly great world, it does present you with some interesting characters. Your first major companion is Niles. You meet him in the opening mission as a doe-eyed, optimistic recruit, but after that mission goes awry and you spend ten years in cryostasis, you meet him again, having undergone a significant transformation. Now he’s a man who’s spent ten years making his own way through the harsh galaxy and is still struggling with navigating how he can still cling to these ideals in a universe that punishes him for it at every turn.
That’s a properly engaging premise for a character’s struggle, and several of the companions in this game have similarly interesting setups that you get to explore in their personal questlines. The problem is that generally, these are the only side quests I found exciting. The problem is a lack of follow-through. Plenty of side quests give you choices of how to resolve them, but then don’t have a visible impact on the world.
Characters might tell you what the consequences will be in dialogue, but you almost never actually see them happen. A few major side quests get a mention in the final cutscene wrap-up, but that’s underwhelming. I want to actually see some change in the world state based on my decision. It doesn’t have to be a huge change, but I’d frequently finish a quest, and rather than it have any meaningful impact on the characters, they’d just become lifeless NPCs who you can’t even talk to anymore.
What I did enjoy was the basic “go place, shoot things” gameplay loop, which is tighter compared to the first game. This time around, you’ve got a greater variety of weapons, and rather than relying on pure looting to improve your gear, it’s much more about crafting and applying mods to your weapons to bring out the best in them. It can make the system a little overwhelming if you’re someone who just wants to pick a good gun and get shooting, but there is a good amount of depth if you’re someone who enjoys customising your arsenal.
I also appreciate how the game forces you into very specific character builds – being a “jack of all trades” really isn’t an option in this game – you have to specialize and accept that there are some things you simply won’t be able to do. There are over 15 different skills to invest points into, and you only get two points every time you level up, which means that you can only realistically invest in two or three to a significant degree and have to leave the rest untouched. It fills the character-building process with some genuinely difficult choices.
Speaking of, the Flaws system is surprisingly impressive. While playing, the game tracks just about everything about your playstyle and will periodically offer you a character flaw. These flaws give you one big upside in exchange for a penalty, and I kept being surprised at what I was being offered.
Very early on, I got offered one because I did a lot of sneaking that would let me move faster while sneaking in exchange for crouching, making more noise, but they can get a lot more complex than that. Around the mid-game, I got offered one because I would frequently reload while I still had bullets in my clip that would increase my magazine size, but give me a combat penalty if I ever emptied it completely. They can even break fundamental mechanics of the game, as after I quickly skipped through a bunch of boring side quest dialogue, I got offered a flaw that would randomly select dialogue options for me for the rest of the game in exchange for a permanent 15% XP boost.
It’s a really fun system that actively adapts to your playstyle and isn’t afraid to have a laugh at your expense. To be honest, the biggest laughs I got in the game were from these flaws suddenly popping up after I did too much of a certain behaviour.
It puts the game in an unfortunate position, as while mechanically it has a lot going for it, the writing really lets it down. No matter how much I enjoy running around planets shooting things, I’m not going to stay engaged without compelling reasons to do so, and the game doesn’t give me enough of them. It also doesn’t help that the world itself isn’t particularly well-designed. Hope you enjoy the standard pattern of grass-world, desert-world, ice-world, because that’s really all the planets have to offer – it’s not exactly a sci-fi universe to marvel at.
The simple fact is, if you played the first game, you know exactly what you’re getting with The Outer Worlds 2. There are some mechanical improvements, but the story doesn’t impress, and the side-quests lack enough bite or consequence to create a world I want to spend more time in.
The Outer Worlds 2. 7. RPG. PC. The Outer Worlds 2
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