The Outer Worlds 2

A weak showing by Obsidian.

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To make a long story short just don't buy this game. Please don't pirate it either you'd just be wasting your time. I enjoyed Outer Worlds 1. It was a perfectly ok game, one I enjoyed playing but had zero desire to go back to. The Fallout 3/New Vegas style gameplay was familiar, fun, and the writing was strong enough to keep me interested. I agreed with the common complaint that the game was front loaded as in more of the interesting and funny stuff was at the start. I was hoping The Outer Worlds 2 would be more of the same but better. This was more of the same but worse. The trouble started at the main menu. It just looked bland, like a placeholder. Just what looks like arial text over a picture. The Moon Man mascot character has some funny lines here. Treasure them you won't get many more. On my third session he said the new game feel was wearing off. Boy was he right. The prologue was actually fairly strong. I doubted my initial poor judgement of the game based on only the main menu. There is a strong hook and the first companion, Niles, is pretty interesting and enjoyable to have in your party. Then I land on the first planet. The radio is on by default, apparently Obsidian was proud of their work here. The music ranges from ok to awful. The radio jockeys repeat annoying, canned propaganda. The same joke is made over and over. I didn't laugh the first time. Hell, most of the time the jokes are bad enough they don't even register as jokes. I had a few laughs with the first game but I'm pretty sure I spent my entire playtime with The Outer Worlds 2 staring stone faced at my screen. The strength of the prologue fades and you go from being excited to help Niles make things right after 10 long in game years to having to endure a cavalcade of cartoonish characters who never stop talking. I'll start with The game's stronger aspects, the parts which were good to mediocre. Graphics - I rarely care much about graphics so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Graphics were good to fine. Art direction for the first planet seemed a bit over the top and some of the rocks looked weird. But the characters all looked good. Some of the animals were ugly but nothing bad enough to drive me away. Gameplay - Is fair but nothing special. Some others may complain about too many fetch quests. I was honestly driven away by boredom brought about by the game's setting and writing before the fetch quests got to me. Shooting things was fun enough at least. One big problem is the game, which I had to look up, is that it gives you tons of skills but only enough points to max out 3 of them. This wouldn't be a problem if maxing out skills wasn't important. But by the end game you need maxed speech or engineering to make checks. 16/20 won't cut it. This is especially odd by how casual many other features are. You have infinite inventory space. I don't think the game ever stopped me from dashing around. Why are the skills so stingy when the rest of the gameplay elements seem so focused on being easy and casual? It's like there is no over arching vision for if resources should feel plentiful or not. Story - To blatantly steal a comment I saw online: "Part of the reason I dislike the game, it's toothless and has nothing to say while posturing as if it does." The initial hook is strong. Sure a revenge story is cliche but at least I know why the character I'm playing as cares about this world. It's the side quests that really bog everything down. Generic, done for forgettable or annoying NPCs that you just wish would shut up already. Your ability to effect the world is just pathetic. In the first town I discovered a crime boss. Can I try to turn them in to the authorities? Shake them down for cash? No, Obsidian is so proud of this incredibly generic NPC that your choices are to accept their quests or ignore them. Or to shoot them and steal pitiful loot. Companions have strong opinions on the things and are vocal about them. The issue is it's hard for me to care for the setting so their strong opinions are just plain obnoxious. Setting - The previous game had 2 mega corporations. The sequel has one. Naturally, the less entertaining company took over. The Protectorate are a parody of monarchism or communism or religious collectivism or something. Doesn't matter, you're not allowed to like them or do many quests for them. Only 3 factions in the game and you can't even meaningfully interact with one of them. Where did all the development time go? Bad jokes, generic gameplay, shallow interactivity, skill system that actively punishes you for daring to interact with the game, and apparently they were insane enough to try and fleece 80 dollars out of people at launch. It's still 70 dollars! I paid 35 on sale and I still feel robbed. I would have felt robbed at 20. The game feels unfinished in a far worse way than New Vegas, KOTOR 2 or Tyranny ever did. This is no hidden gem. Sales were low for a reason. Apparently the game ends with a teaser for another one. I hope Obsidian backs down from this threat.