Outward Definitive Edition

This Review is for you, that like me, love challenging and hard games and was willing to overlook a few of the negative comments to give this game a try. The problem with this game is NOT in its difficulty. With Outward 2 coming out already, I doubt this review could change anything, but I wanted to warn other players on what they are actually getting into. The survival system is awesome, it's great to see a game bringing the craft system into a Must Learn situation, and tieing it with the exploration mechanic - so you explore to find items that let you explore even more! That is the cern of adventure, and the feeling is VERY welcoming! Battling climate as much as fighting against a strong enemy is very very satisfying. The problem for those unaware is: This is not a save-reload-after-failing game like Gothic, or a check-point-to-point system like Dark Souls. In this game, death is canon. Everytime you are defeated you get a random event that moves things around. So if you get a really strong enemy and you are defeated while learning its move set, it could mean, for example, that you are captured by a group of bandits and sent to work on a mine as a slave. This is cool, it's a different take, but it can be very frustrating because now, to have another shot on that enemy, you kinda need to play an extra half an hour of a diferent history to be able to leave the imprisioment. It's still entertaining, since you are seeing a "quest" that you're not going to see if you weren't defeated - but other situations like "You've been found by a hunter and brought back to your home town" means that you will waste about an hour of gameplay just to walk back to the point where you were defeated, to try again. This is NOT "difficulty", this is TEDIOUS. The game actively makes you WASTE time - both ingame and of your real life. This is not why I'm playing. (It can be worse, seeing some comments said there are quests tied to in-game time). I'll give you a full example that happened to me: 12h of gameplay in the first area, gathering resources, forgin equipment, training, cleaning up. Got to a new area - started fighting a fire-lizard that was clearly overleveld from myself, but that is okay, dodge-dodge-repeat. During the fight, two bandits come over and start attacking both me and the lizard. Managed to kill both bandits but lost to lizard. Got the "Bandits took your equipment away and stashed it over a house in the north." event. Wake up naked next to a new cool sword (cool, at least got something) - walked north to try and find my 12-hours-investment, have to fight the bandit protecting the stash - WAY stronger than the previous ones - lost. Got the "God saved you from death, you wake up seeing its light" waking up in a random area of the map of that new area I just came in. So I didn't know where I was, didn't know where the bandits took my equipment, and just felt completely ripped off. Again, this is not "difficulty" this is tedious. It means griding those 12h again to get to that same point? Is this fun? Not even FromSoftware is this brutal punishing players. I decided to delete that character and start a new one - now with the knowledge I had of those 12h. I have to tell you - after another 9h of forcing myself to give this a try, I realized I was not having fun. I really wanted to like this game, there is a lot about it that makes me want to play, but NOT having fun... the game becomes a chore, and that makes no sense at all. So if you still think about giving a chance to this, I would say go ahead - now you are aware. But for the reason stated, I cannot recommend this game to someone. Maybe co-op could save you from the tedious parts? I don't know, but if you plan on soloing this, now you know.

The concept of the game is top-tier. The idea of an action RPG with intense survival mechanics and realistic progression deeply resonates with me. However, a game that prides itself on difficulty MUST ensure that the combat is extremely refined which is simply not the case here. Enemies frequently move in ways that defy physics, and hit detection is bizarrely inconsistent.

[h3]🏕️ Доброго пути, странник! ⠀⠀⠀⠀На связи — [url=steamcommunity.com/id/2o77x] [b]KΛRHΛD[/b] [/url][/h3] В Outward я забрёл не специально. Был в поиске не очередной RPG с маркерами и избранным героем, а найти что-то более приземлённое. Где мир существует отдельно от игрока, а не крутится вокруг него. Сначала игра мне вообще не понравилась. Вышел из стартового города, получил по лицу от двух бандитов, потерял рюкзак, замёрз ночью возле костра и очнулся чёрт знает где без половины припасов. Уже почти хотел удалить игру, но потом поймал себя на мысли, что давно не чувствовал в RPG настоящего путешествия, где выход за ворота города — это уже риск. Именно поэтому и решил написать обзор спустя трёх десятков часов. [h3]🗺️ О чём вообще Outward[/h3] Это RPG с сильным уклоном в выживание и исследование мира. Главное отличие Outward от большинства современных RPG в том, что игра [b]не пытается постоянно развлекать игрока[/b]. Тут нет бесконечных наград, уровней каждые двадцать минут и ощущения, что ты становишься богом после пары часов игры. Системы уровней здесь вообще нет. Ты становишься сильнее потому что: • начинаешь понимать врагов • учишься готовиться к походам • разбираешься в механиках • собираешь рабочий билд И это очень освежает. Карта тоже работает необычно. Она [u]не показывает твоё положение[/u], маркеров квестов нет, а игра любит говорить: «слушай NPC внимательно, дальше сам». Через какое-то время реально начинаешь ориентироваться по дорогам, маякам, горам и руинам. Да, иногда из-за этого уходишь вообще не туда. Один раз я перепутал направление, умер в болоте, попал в лагерь бандитов и потом ещё полчаса искал свой рюкзак. И вот странно — это не бесило, потому что игра не выглядела сломанной. Она просто показывала последствия моих решений. [h3]🏕️ Мир, который не подстраивается под игрока[/h3] Вот за это Outward я и запомнил. Большинство RPG сейчас очень боятся неудобства, поэтому везде быстрые перемещения, автосохранения и откаты решений. Outward почти всё это выкидывает. [b]Если провалил квест — провалил.[/b] Игра сохраняется сама. У меня, например, в какой-то момент уничтожили стартовый город, потому что я вовремя не занялся одним квестом. Вернулся — торговцев повесили, часть NPC мертва, дом разрушен вместе с сундуком, где лежал мой лут. Игра никак это не драматизирует. Мир просто пошёл дальше без меня. Причём многие события здесь скрыты. NPC могут между делом что-то упомянуть в таверне или дать совет, который окажется началом важного квеста с таймером. Игра не будет мигать огромной надписью «СРОЧНО». Она считает, что ты сам должен слушать. [h3]⚔️ Боевка и выживание[/h3] Первые часов десять боёвка ощущается деревянной. Особенно после Souls-like. Перекаты, блоки и стамина есть, но всё работает тяжелее и медленнее. Тут нельзя просто закликать врага. Два бандита в начале игры — уже проблема. А три — почти гарантированная смерть. Outward буквально заставляет тебя драться грязно: • ставить ловушки • использовать баффы и яды • расстреливать врагов издалека • убегать • возвращаться позже Сначала мне это казалось кривизной. Потом понял, что игра просто [b]не хочет делать из тебя героя-терминатора[/b]. Очень понравилась магия. Тут мало заклинаний в духе «нажал кнопку — полетел фаербол». Нужно комбинировать эффекты, ставить сигилы и готовиться к касту. Из-за этого магия ощущается необычно и действительно интересно. Система выживания тоже сделана хорошо. Нужно следить за голодом, жаждой, температурой, болезнями и состоянием экипировки, но игра не превращается в симулятор микроменеджмента. [h3]🤝 Кооператив[/h3] Вот где игра раскрывается особенно сильно. Мы проходили часть Outward вдвоём, и это был один из самых атмосферных коопов за последние годы. Появляется настоящее ощущение приключения: один следит за костром, второй варит еду, вместе делите припасы и обсуждаете маршрут. А когда вы вдвоём кое-как вылезаете из пещеры с остатком хп и последним факелом — это запоминается сильнее половины постановочных AAA-моментов. [h3]🌫️ Атмосфера и ощущение пути[/h3] Главное, что делает Outward особенной — [b]чувство дистанции[/b]. Когда уходишь далеко от города, реально ощущается, что ты далеко от дома. Потому что обратно придётся идти ногами. [i]Без телепорта. Без кнопки «вернуться». Без удобства ради удобства.[/i] Именно поэтому путешествия здесь запоминаются. Ночью начинается буря — ищешь укрытие. Заканчивается еда — начинаешь нервничать. Потерял рюкзак после смерти — уже думаешь, стоит ли вообще возвращаться за ним. Да, иногда игра перегибает с беготнёй, и некоторые задания превращаются в марафон через несколько регионов. Но атмосфера путешествия всё равно работает отлично. [code][i]Понравился обзор? Подпишись на мою страницу куратора — я регулярно делюсь интересными играми и рекомендациями:[/i] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45992773-K%25CE%259BRH%25CE%259BD-%25D1%2580%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BA%25D0%25BE%25D0%25BC%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B4%25D1%2583%25D0%25B5%25D1%2582/][b]KΛRHΛD рекомендует[/b][/url][/code] [h3]🟢 Плюсы[/h3] • Очень сильное ощущение путешествия и выживания • Мир не подстраивается под игрока • Интересные сценарии после поражений • Отличный кооператив • Хорошая атмосфера исследования • Необычная магия и система билдов • Решения реально имеют последствия [h3]🔴 Минусы[/h3] • Боевка местами слишком топорная • Интерфейс неудобный и старомодный • Многие механики игра объясняет ужасно • Много беготни • Есть баги и технические шероховатости • Игра легко может отпугнуть в первые часы [h3]🏁 Итог[/h3] Outward — очень неровная игра. Местами кривая, местами неудобная, но при этом в ней есть то, чего давно не хватает многим современным RPG — [b]ощущение настоящего приключения[/b]. Ты не избранный герой. Ты просто человек с рюкзаком, факелом и плохим планом. И почему-то именно это работает. ⭐8.5/10 — шероховатая, упрямая, но очень живая RPG ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── [h1][b]Если обзор был полезен — буду искренне рад лайку 👍, награде🏆 или паре слов в комментариях✍️ Это поможет в работе над следующими обзорами и просто будет приятно. Для ознакомления 👇[/b] ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[url=steamcommunity.com/id/2o77x/recommended/] [b]🎮 Мои Обзоры [/b] [/url] ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[url=steamcommunity.com/id/2o77x/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides] [b]📖 Руководства [/b] [/url] ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[url=steamcommunity.com/id/2o77x/screenshots/] [b]📸 Скриншоты [/b] [/url] ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[url=steamcommunity.com/id/2o77x] [b]🥷 Профиль Steam [/b] [/url][/h1]

Sadly while I liked the game for what it is, I simply cannot recommend this game to the average gamer. This game is very niche. On a first playthrough this game is pure tedium. It took 4 characters and several tries to get into it until I learned the mechanics. I had it for a long time in my library I had to force myself to finish it. If I was to describe the gameplay would be: 70% walking/running, 20% percent preping and inventory management, 5% exploring 5% combat. Until I found how to circumvent the excessive survival mechanics I was bored out of my mind with the gameplay. The loop was like this: run 10 min, drop backpack fight mob, pick backpack, run 5 min, sleep to recover burned stats, drop backpack, fight mob, pick backpack, run 10 min repeat, repeat, repeat, etc you get the idea. I have seen many people saying the game is unforgiving and that the combat sucks. From my experience this isn't true. The combat is very simple and for me was on the easier side of things. Enemies have very limited attacks and are easy to learn how to fight them. After I understood how the mechanics work, I became immune to dmg against melee opponents (with some exceptions ofcourse). Imo combat doesn't suck at all, it can be quite satisfying to overcome foes that previously gave you trouble. The art style for armor, enemies and weapons is absolutely lovely and is one of the things that made me interested in the game. The world looks beautiful. The game world itself sadly it's baren. There is very little to do in the game. The main quest for example has 4 quests in total. If you know what to do you can finish the whole game in like 6 h maybe even less. There is no incentive to go and explore. There is no exp and fighting things is actually discouraged. Unless you need a drop from a specific enemy it's actually better to avoid it. The main story is extremely bland. The writing is actually quite interesting but the exposition is so extremely bland that it made me lose interest in the events. The lore is actually quite good but is very hard to piece together. The friendly npcs are rare and they have little or no dialogue and they are 1 dimensional. There is no Diego or Milten, Liara or Garus, etc. There are timed quests and events, and most quests have a failure state in case time passed or the wrong dialogue is picked. The thing is there are no manual saves and if you are playing for the first time you have no idea what is what and where is where so you will more than likely fail a lot. This can be a good thing or an extremely frustrating thing with no in between. Instead of you making a choice the game will make it for you, with you having no agency over what is happening until it happens. The last thing I will address is the part with the game doesn't hold your had (which I personally love). This isn't true at all. There is vast difference between not holding your hand and a clear lack of information. The first time you will play you as a player will be confused as all hell and that is because there is a profound lack of information. You can alleviate this with the wiki or player forums but for me this is a huge minus. If you play blind there is a high chance you will quit the game before reaching the second big city.

> Bonked by a bandit > Woke in prison > All my stuff gone > Forced into hard honest labour > Week of being an obedient prisoner > Climbed my way up the prisoner career ladder > Not a lot of employment benefits but pay is good > Bribe dad's friend with honest hard earned funds > Dad's friend smuggles me out > Use remaining funds to upgrade my gear > Go get revenge on bandit > Get bonked again > Cry in prison 10/10

43.9 hours in and I think I'm done with the game. I started in the first zone, went through the intro and then to the first dungeon to farm troglodytes. I made some money running back and forth until there were no more mobs in there. I quickly learned that I'm not able to kill anything besides those troglodytes. Fine, I will buy some better weapon and armour. So I did and with those I could kill bandits. Sometimes. When they were alone. Then I discovered "the best armour set" I can get in this zone, so I farmed the material for it and got it crafted. Exploring the whole zone I learned that while I could kill bandits (and troglodytes) if I'm careful and buffed, I can't kill anything else. Therefore I went to the next zone thinking that maybe the game is not linear and some locations are just meant to be explored later. I quickly discovered that the difficult and unbeatable mobs from dungeons in the first zone are just regular mobs in overland here. Anyway, I tried to fight one of them and died. Woke up in a ruin and the game saying that my armour was stolen and is nearby. I explored "the nearby" and died by jumping to the poisonous water. Woke up somewhere else. Of course I had no idea where I was before, so my armour was lost. Then I died couple more times, but in the end I made it to the city. There were no better weapons or armours, even if I had money for them, which I didn't. I actually had to sell my only weapon to buy rations to get back to the first zone, because from the numerous deaths, everything rotted away and I didn't have anything else. Never mind, I made it back to the first zone, but died immediately to the first bandit, because I couldn't run away from them due to snowing and low stamina from all the travelling. Woke up in the inn and all my remaining money were gone. So here I'm, no armour, no weapon, no money. Back to square one. But this is not the end yet. I checked the internet for tips and tricks and found out that I should follow a "build". All right, I spent another 15 hours by farming money to buy the armour and weapon again, and for the trainers. I went to all cities and locations to unlock skills, breakthroughs etc. Finally I went back to the first zone with all this and ... I still can't kill anything besides troglodytes, bandits and hyenas. And there is no difficulty settings, so I'm just stack here, 43.9 hours in, in the first game's location unable to progress anywhere and explore anything. I would love to explore it, because the game looks beautiful and the survival mechanics are interesting, but nothing is fun, it's just tedious with difficult combat. I will just watch some play-through on youtube I guess. Pros: - Beautiful world and locations (from what I saw on the internet and some videos) - Interesting lore - Mechanically appealing and unique Cons: - The game requires meta game knowledge to progress, to get skills, recipes, basically anything - Blind exploration is extremely punishing and tedious - Combat is difficult, unresponsive and nothing is explained in the game - The game *looks* fun, but it's not 3/10

DO NOT BUY FOR CO-OP. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crazy bad game design where only the host of a multiplayer game can progress. You can mod the game to share/double the loot so the Guest player doesn't get ♥♥♥♥ all. But important things like joining a faction and receiving skills for it are Host only. Straight up stupid. And its not a bug its a design choice. Absolutely not coop-friendly. If you expected a game to progress together and have fun look elsewhere.

This is a game designed for a specific type of player. If you can appreciate a true challenge, hard save settings, hard survival settings then this is for you. It is a rare gem of a game that rewards the player for meticulous planning and clever thinking. Combat is great and meaningful, gameplay is superb. I shall give one example: I was scouting south/east of starting city at night, darkness total, music ambient, I decided to turn my lantern on as I could see the outline of a cave opening.... I was attacked by 4 hyenas from behind. killed one, knocked out by the others.... I thought that was it... no it wasn't. a loading screen came up and the writing was something like this (from memory) "You awake to the noise of flesh and bone being torn apart and devoured, you look right and see a half eaten leg beside you, you realise the hyenas have saved you for a later dinner...." I got up, realised only one hyena had stayed behind to feast picked up a shiny iron sword from the poor chap being eaten (now have first iron sword) absolutely battered that mother****** went outside and another 5 hyenas were just off to the right, so I snuck left and made my slow bloody, stamina depleted crawl back to my home Village THIS WAS AN EPIC EXPERIANCE! I am right at start of the game, basic weapons, leather armour, primitive backpack, no magic. Honestly I am a hardcore RPG single player gamer and this is a masterpiece, a welcome experience when most games hold your hand and make the whole journey about following markers and instant fixes. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the developers hard work. Roll on the rest of this epic journey.

First let me say this game is Not for players who who want to run around and shoot or cast spells on everything everywhere with lots of noise and flashing lights and loud soundtracks etc. However, if you want to play a game like you were really a simple human being and had to use your wits and maximize the use of available resources around you to Survive, then this game may be for you. Yes there are some bonuses in the game where you can get some cool gear, and potions, and skills, but you still have to think and plan to get the best of them. Basic necessary items you will find by 'adventuring' around and not getting killed. You Will Die in this game; very likely very often. There is no Saving this game where you can go back to a previous save and start over. When you die, you will Respawn at a somewhat random location in the given area/map you are in at the time of death. About 80% of the time or so you will respawn in a safe location. There are skills and magic and potions available to use, but you have to acquire, or craft, them and you cannot just use them all at once all the time. One of the challenging aspects of the game is your Stamina and storage space. You know, as a Human you will get tired. As a Human you cannot carry 500 pounds of stuff and run around at full speed forever. That is not reality. So, if you want to challenge yourself and find out if you can Survive in a hostile world using your Human brain and ingenuity then this game is for you. You will Die, Often. Get used to it. Have Fun. It's just a game.