The Outer Worlds 2

It's okay, the writing isn't the greatest, but as many others have commented, you sometimes get a bug where you cannot save. It's been 7+ months since release, how this hasn't been fixed yet is beyond me.

This game is unfortunately frustrating in the worst possible ways a game could be. The devs have decided there are points where you are not allowed to save seemingly randomly, now I have to go through a whole 2 hours doing what I've already done. I don't know if I'm stupid or something but the writing in this makes my brain hurt and only gets worse by the time you reach the second planet. I don't care that they are a faction of mathematicians who can predict the future, stop talking. Unlike Starfield this is an actual game. Dialogue choices have consequences and I enjoy how the equipment mods function which makes up for the perk tree being sort of bleh. Maybe if I picked up a book and learned how to make video games, It will have made up for all ♥♥♥♥♥♥ games I've played. My other gripe is the lack of atmosphere and attention to detail that gives videogames that je ne sais quoi. Your footprints making different sounds that corelate with whichever material you're stepping on. Rooms with whirring fans, the sound of pipes leaking water. The lack of ambience makes the game feel empty in some departments. I am not immersed , I am distracted at how lifeless this game can feel. What happened to the guys behind the scenes sitting on the floor cracking celery and yelling through a vacuum tube. Bring them back please this game costs 70$.

Its really a shame but I cannot recommend the Outer Worlds 2 in its current state. Other reviews hit the nail on the head: - The beginning is very promising and then descends into a repetitive slog where any feeling to actually finish the game diminishes pretty early on (about the beginning of mid game) - The planets are big but empty, making exploring not worthwhile. I thought exploring before would help make the missions go easier...it honestly didn't make a difference just because so many missions were pretty far from fast travel locations. - Gunplay is good but eventually it reaches a point where only a few guns are worth using as enemies eventually become bullet sponges. - Companions are god awful, no depth no real character or personality. The side-quests felt like a trap, I thought I would get more quality content and was not welcomed to anything worthwhile. The Outer Worlds 2 is like Candy, its in a stylish wrapper, when you peel it back a little, it looks delicious..but none of it leaves you feeling good, just leaves you thirsty. I'll come back and edit if the two story expansions change anything for the better...but I doubt it. This isn't the Obsidian we grew up with.

One of the recent updates raised the minimum system requirements. When I purchased the game, I met the requirements. Now I don't. I think it's pretty messed up to raise the requirements after the game has been published and after people have already purchased it. I'm well past the two hour mark that Steam lets you refund a game, so I don't see a refund in my future. Just all around disappointed because I enjoyed the game a great deal. I can't recommend a game to you that might not be playable after an update.

I have no clue why is this game getting so many negative reviews. Reviewers seemed turned into food critiques, finding and exaggerating flaws with a microscope. This is a good game, fun, rewarding, with obsidian quality characters and story. Worth 35 quid I paid in discount already. If you played Fallout, this does the job with a nice victorian curl on top.

Currently, I do not recommend The Outer Worlds 2. The game is currently in a rough state, even after a few patches. The performance is rough, the game has some bugs where the mission just get stuck, and in my current hours I already had the game crash already a dozen times. This happened to me after creating a character every time on max settings, I had to lower my graphics and cap the FPS at a low amount for it to work. Also the game crashes a few times when reloading an older save, which becomes very annoying. The game itself is mostly is very mediocre. There is a lot of dialogue bloat, the writing is often boring, and drags on a lot, and the companions so far aren't interesting at all. Weirdly enough, I already had a better time with the first Outer Worlds than this one. But there are some good characters, quests, and in some cases the writing is funny and good. The gameplay itself is just... there. The shooting feels nothing special, the perks are kinda cool, and the return of flaws you get because of the things you do in game are fun. It also has a lot of RPG mechanics, where some dialogue choices or options in the world are locked behind certain skills and whatnot, but I feel they're overdone in this game. I'll save my full judgement for the game after I completed it, but so far thanks to the performance and crashes and bugs, I can't recommend it. I really hope they fix it fast, because it's getting really annoying. Update: Game got so boring, I decided to not finish it. The dialogue bloat became worse, the gameplay got repetitive, the companions are boring, and the locations didn't really feel fun to explore. So all in all, I don't recommend this game. If it looks interesting, play the first one, because it's better.

You will reach a certain level where the ambient radio dialogue will play constantly over orher NPC audio. I've spent multiple days just trying to deal with the hellscape that is the ACL. It became a horrible mess of noise. Wish I could refund this game now. It's absolutely crap compaired to the original game. DEEP sale or not at all, play the original. I'm dissapointed as the first game really made me laugh and feel something. This feels hollow and half arsed.

Thoroughly enjoyed this romp. Much like the first adventure. Had no problems with crashing or bugs (I had one crash throughout my 66 hours - probably not the game's fault). Good graphics on QHD (1440p). I'm 67 years old and managed to beat the game on the default setting so I'd say it isn't too hard if you're getting on a bit. 30 levels is about right for a level cap - good options for character development. Pretty decent voice acting (not exceptional however). All in all about 9/10.

tl;dr - Yes, I recommend TOW2. It's got a tighter gameplay focus than TOW, but I think that comes at the cost of some worldbuilding and certainly the depth of companions and their interactions. I struggle to decide if I like The Outer Worlds 2 more than the first game, and in a lot of ways I think that's a good thing. In others, I think it's damning. I can't quite say "If you liked the first one, you'll also love this!" TOW2 takes a pretty different tack than the first game, for good or for ill. It feels a lot more focused, like the devs really took to heart what about the gameplay of the first entry worked, distilled it, and gave use a cleaner and more updated vision. In a lot of ways, I really appreciate that. On the other hand, I think the things I really loved about the first game have become less prominent, been toned down, or are altogether missing. For example, the companion system. I feel like I as a player/character have more impact on my companions in TOW2 than in TOW - or at least, I have a much more direct impact. As we progress through the story and companion quests, there's more obvious and immediate inflection points. There are also just more *of* them, which is great for fleshing out who your character is. On the other hand, I feel like the companions are themselves less fleshed-out, which is a real bummer. In fact, I think I'm realizing while I write this why I'm so conflicted - the moment-to-moment gameplay is simply better, but the things surrounding it are marginally worse IMO. I suppose that brings me to the majority of the gameplay - it's better here, no doubt. Skills have been really tightened up with a corresponding shrink in the amount of skill points you can spend, but I think this helps force you to really roleplay and build a character with intent. There's a lot of replay value if you want to find new ways to do things. There are, if I recall correctly, fewer maps in TOW2, and they're bigger than in TOW - but they feel emptier. There's some quite impressive set dressing and you won't feel like the well of ideas has run dry, but it does sometimes feel like the maps are bigger for the sake of bigger maps. I wouldn't say there are any maps I want to return to just because I find the place narratively interesting here. The first non-tutorial map is probably the best put together in terms of narrative world-building, and that's a shame. The story also feels... incomplete. If I've read the rumors correctly, that's because it simply is. For example, one major faction just doesn't get the treatment it deserves to really flesh out this new system and how it works. It's a shame, because I think that could help the feel of the game significantly. I'm not complaining too much, things feel generally well-paced and the story is told well, but it certainly feels like a lot of the pages that aren't strictly necessary to the plot (but were vital to understanding the world) have been ripped out. I want to close by again saying yes, I recommend TOW2. I liked it - heck, I liked it a lot. I look forward to replaying it. But it's not really the same as the first game in a lot of ways. Read more reviews, watch some reviews, and then decide if you think you want to play it. Heck, maybe just wait for a sale. As I write this the game is on sale for ~$40, and I think that's pretty fair. $70 is simply too much - this isn't a triple-A game, it's a double-A game. And that's fine! Not everything needs to be on the cutting edge. But the price should really reflect what it is.

I like this game. I like when it lets me save even more. Sometimes it doesn't, and there goes over an hour of playtime when I died.