🔗 Share this article

Larger isn't always better. It's a cliché, yet it's also the most accurate way to sum up my impressions after spending 50 hours with The Outer Worlds 2. The creators expanded on everything to the next installment to its 2019 science fiction role-playing game — increased comedy, adversaries, firearms, attributes, and places, everything that matters in titles of this genre. And it operates excellently — for a little while. But the weight of all those ambitious ideas makes the game wobble as the time passes.

A Powerful Opening Act

The Outer Worlds 2 establishes a solid first impression. You belong to the Planetary Directorate, a well-intentioned institution committed to curbing corrupt governments and corporations. After some major drama, you end up in the Arcadia system, a settlement fractured by hostilities between Auntie's Selection (the product of a merger between the original game's two big corporations), the Defenders (groupthink pushed to its most extreme outcome), and the Ascendant Brotherhood (reminiscent of the Church, but with calculations rather than Jesus). There are also a number of rifts creating openings in the universe, but right now, you really need reach a communication hub for critical messaging purposes. The problem is that it's in the middle of a warzone, and you need to find a way to reach it.

Following the original, Outer Worlds 2 is a FPS adventure with an central plot and many side quests scattered across multiple locations or zones (large spaces with a much to discover, but not open-world).

The opening region and the task of reaching that relay hub are impressive. You've got some humorous meetings, of course, like one that features a farmer who has fed too much sweet grains to their beloved crustacean. Most lead you to something useful, though — an unexpected new path or some fresh information that might unlock another way forward.

Notable Events and Lost Opportunities

In one notable incident, you can encounter a Guardian defector near the viaduct who's about to be killed. No mission is associated with it, and the only way to discover it is by exploring and hearing the background conversation. If you're swift and alert enough not to let him get killed, you can preserve him (and then protect his runaway sweetheart from getting eliminated by creatures in their refuge later), but more relevant to the immediate mission is a energy cable hidden in the grass close by. If you follow it, you'll locate a concealed access point to the transmission center. There's another entrance to the station's drainage system stashed in a cave that you may or may not detect contingent on when you pursue a certain partner task. You can find an easily missable character who's crucial to rescuing a person down the line. (And there's a stuffed animal who subtly persuades a team of fighters to support you, if you're kind enough to protect it from a danger zone.) This opening chapter is packed and engaging, and it appears as if it's full of deep narrative possibilities that benefits you for your inquisitiveness.

Fading Anticipations

Outer Worlds 2 never lives up to those early hopes again. The next primary region is organized comparable to a map in the original game or Avowed — a expansive territory sprinkled with notable locations and side quests. They're all story-appropriate to the conflict between Auntie's Option and the Ascendant Brotherhood, but they're also mini-narratives separated from the central narrative in terms of story and spatially. Don't look for any environmental clues directing you to fresh decisions like in the opening region.

Regardless of pushing you toward some tough decisions, what you do in this zone's side quests is inconsequential. Like, it really doesn't matter, to the point where whether you enable war crimes or lead a group of refugees to their end leads to only a casual remark or two of dialogue. A game isn't required to let every quest influence the narrative in some major, impactful way, but if you're compelling me to select a side and acting as if my decision is important, I don't believe it's unreasonable to hope for something more when it's finished. When the game's previously demonstrated that it can be better, anything less appears to be a trade-off. You get expanded elements like the team vowed, but at the expense of depth.

Bold Concepts and Missing Drama

The game's second act endeavors an alike method to the main setup from the first planet, but with noticeably less style. The concept is a daring one: an related objective that covers multiple worlds and encourages you to solicit support from assorted alliances if you want a easier route toward your objective. In addition to the repeat setup being a somewhat tedious, it's also absent the tension that this type of situation should have. It's a "bargain with evil" moment. There should be hard concessions. Your association with any group should be important beyond making them like you by doing new tasks for them. All of this is absent, because you can simply rush through on your own and complete the mission anyway. The game even takes pains to provide you means of achieving this, highlighting alternative paths as optional objectives and having companions inform you where to go.

It's a byproduct of a larger problem in Outer Worlds 2: the apprehension of permitting you to feel dissatisfied with your decisions. It often overcompensates in its efforts to ensure not only that there's an alternate route in many situations, but that you are aware of it. Secured areas almost always have multiple entry methods indicated, or nothing valuable within if they do not. If you {can't