🔗 Share this article

Bigger isn't always improved. It's an old adage, yet it's also the most accurate way to sum up my feelings after investing 50 hours with The Outer Worlds 2. Developer Obsidian added more of all aspects to the sequel to its 2019's sci-fi RPG — more humor, foes, arms, characteristics, and locations, every important component in games like this. And it works remarkably well — at first. But the weight of all those daring plans makes the game wobble as the hours wear on.

A Strong Initial Impact

The Outer Worlds 2 makes a strong opening statement. You belong to the Terran Directorate, a do-gooder institution focused on restraining dishonest administrations and corporations. After some major drama, you end up in the Arcadia region, a outpost fractured by war between Auntie's Selection (the result of a merger between the previous title's two big corporations), the Defenders (communalism extended to its most dire end), and the Ascendant Brotherhood (like the Catholic church, but with mathematics in place of Jesus). There are also a number of tears creating openings in the fabric of reality, but at this moment, you absolutely must access a transmission center for critical messaging reasons. The challenge is that it's in the middle of a warzone, and you need to figure out how to get there.

Like its predecessor, Outer Worlds 2 is a first-person role-playing game with an main narrative and dozens of optional missions spread out across various worlds or regions (large spaces with a lot to uncover, but not fully open).

The opening region and the process of getting to that relay hub are spectacular. You've got some humorous meetings, of course, like one that features a farmer who has given excessive sugary cereal to their preferred crab. Most guide you to something useful, though — an unforeseen passage or some fresh information that might unlock another way ahead.

Unforgettable Moments and Lost Opportunities

In one memorable sequence, you can encounter a Guardian defector near the bridge who's about to be killed. No task is tied to it, and the exclusive means to find it is by exploring and paying attention to the ambient dialogue. If you're fast and alert enough not to let him get slain, you can rescue him (and then save his runaway sweetheart from getting eliminated by monsters in their lair later), but more pertinent to the task at hand is a electrical conduit concealed in the grass nearby. If you trace it, you'll find a hidden entrance to the communication hub. There's an alternate entry to the station's drainage system hidden away in a grotto that you could or could not detect depending on when you undertake a specific companion quest. You can encounter an simple to miss person who's essential to saving someone's life down the line. (And there's a plush toy who indirectly convinces a squad of soldiers to support you, if you're nice enough to rescue it from a minefield.) This beginning section is dense and thrilling, and it seems like it's full of substantial plot opportunities that rewards you for your exploration.

Fading Expectations

Outer Worlds 2 fails to meet those opening anticipations again. The next primary region is organized comparable to a location in the first Outer Worlds or Avowed — a expansive territory dotted with notable locations and optional missions. They're all story-appropriate to the conflict between Auntie's Option and the Order of the Ascendant, but they're also mini-narratives separated from the central narrative in terms of story and geographically. Don't anticipate any environmental clues guiding you toward fresh decisions like in the opening region.

In spite of pushing you toward some tough decisions, what you do in this region's secondary tasks is inconsequential. Like, it genuinely is irrelevant, to the degree that whether you allow violations or lead a group of refugees to their demise results in nothing but a casual remark or two of speech. A game isn't required to let all tasks influence the plot in some big, dramatic fashion, but if you're making me choose a group and acting as if my choice is important, I don't feel it's irrational to anticipate something more when it's finished. When the game's already shown that it can be better, any reduction feels like a concession. You get more of everything like the team vowed, but at the cost of substance.

Ambitious Concepts and Absent Stakes

The game's second act endeavors an alike method to the central framework from the initial world, but with clearly diminished flair. The concept is a bold one: an interconnected mission that extends across multiple worlds and motivates you to request help from different factions if you want a smoother path toward your goal. Aside from the repeat setup being a somewhat tedious, it's also lacking the tension that this type of situation should have. It's a "bargain with evil" moment. There should be hard concessions. Your association with either faction should be important beyond gaining their favor by completing additional missions for them. All of this is absent, because you can simply rush through on your own and complete the mission anyway. The game even makes an effort to hand you means of achieving this, pointing out alternative paths as secondary goals and having allies advise you where to go.

It's a side effect of a larger problem in Outer Worlds 2: the apprehension of allowing you to regret with your decisions. It often goes too far out of its way to ensure not only that there's an alternative path in many situations, but that you are aware of it. Locked rooms practically always have several entry techniques signposted, or nothing worthwhile within if they don't. If you {can't