Poor Obsidian. Forever living in the shade of a giant Fallout: New Vegas shaped shadow. But New Vegas is really bloody good isn’t it? Despite being trapped inside Bethesda’s janky Oblivion engine, and an astoundingly brief 18 month development period, patrolling the Mojave wasteland somehow feels just as dangerous, kooky and atmospheric as it did back in 2010. Obsidian’s decision to go independent and publish their own RPG seemed like a no brainer. What we got, way back pre-covid in 2019, was The Outer Worlds, a Fallout inspired space romp through a human and corporation occupied star system. The response was lukewarm, to say the least.
I played through the game properly for the first time this year and was left moderately satisfied, the same kind of fullness you get from a kinda dodgy doner kebab and like a kebab I was a bit sad that it was over so quickly. Now under full Microsoft(ugh) ownership, Obsidian have a much much higher budget and years of ‘constructive criticism’ backing the series’ second entry. Have they improved on the first game’s drawbacks, honed in on its strengths and given us an experience that satisfies those with fond memories of a post apocalyptic Nevada?
An Earth Directorate commander and their crew are sent to the Arcadia star system, where dangerous rifts in time and space are being spawned by the inhabitants’ overuse of their spaceships’ skip drives. Investigating a laboratory researching these rifts ran by the oppressive Protectorate faction, they are betrayed by their undercover contact, who blows up the station and leaves the commander trapped floating in space in cryogenic stasis. Almost a decade later, they are saved by two surviving members of their crew and awake to find massive political and economic changes in the system. You are this commander, and it’s up to you to navigate this system, team up with or take down factions/corporations, make new friends and save the galaxy from the impending doom of the rifts.
The first game had a serviceable story and it’s the same here, albeit with higher stakes. It’s very typical sci-fi stuff, told through Futurama-esque satire and hijinks, the only difference is that Futurama knows when to stop talking. Taking place in a different galaxy in a different time period means that playing the first game isn’t mandatory, though it can be somewhat aggressive in name dropping aspects of its universe that aren’t really explained, making us cling to the crumbs of context we get. In the first game we are a stranger to the world, in this one we are an established force who’s expected to know this stuff.
My main gripe with the narrative is it’s overreliance on incredibly dense dialogue sections and reading diary entries on computer terminals to tell you about monumental events that have already occured, rather than directly showing us them. I understood there’d be lots of dialogue going in of course, I always prioritise the speech skill in these games, but it’s the quality of the dialogue that irks me. Every single character is so verbose and well spoken, as though they grew up masturbating to the Thesaurus. Booting up New Vegas on my Xbox and swapping back and forth, I was surprised how snappy and concise the dialogue was. It left deep conversation for when it was needed and when it made sense.
Here, everyone is up for a monologue about their life stories and their philosophies, there’s a distinct lack of character voice beyond the basic traits of the three big factions (giant corpo Auntie’s Choice, maths club The Order and Soviet-lite The Protectorate). Even the diverse companion characters you adopt end up feeling samey, the only exception being Aza, an ex member of a murder cult. She’s feisty and impulsive and says it how it is, sometimes just outright refusing to elaborate on her actions further. Some of them will ramble on about how dangerous they are and their infamous reputation, only to get downed 5 seconds into a combat encounter.
Quests seem interesting at first with plenty of options, but soon devolve into an endless series of fetch quests where you have to tediously hop between planets, culminating in the usual choice of getting more money or doing the ‘right’ thing. It just doesn’t help that I don’t feel all too emotionally invested in the first place. To give them credit, the Companion’s quests are a good concept, wherein witnessing your choices leads them to question their lifestyle and loyalty to a faction, choosing to adopt more independent thought. It just seems odd when the world they’ve occupied their entire lives is so comically harsh and evil, that a couple of tough decisions is what makes them question it. And on a more personal note, where’s the romance, love and sex?
If you’ve played a first person shooter then you know exactly how the combat gameplay feels. Rudimentary but functional, feels far better than what Bethesda are currently offering. You can throw grenades now, which I’m amazed was never a feature in the first game. Despite the trailers advertising the wacky new firearms, nothing ever feels as good as shooting someone in the head with a shotgun. Likewise the environments, while pretty and vast, feel static and empty under any form of scrutiny, with very little in terms of dynamic events or encounters. I feel like I’m in an amusement park talking to actors who can only follow a script, almost fitting considering the hyper corporate ownership of most of the galaxy.
Where the gameplay really shines is the new character building system, stripped down and much more focused. Gone are the very specific skillsets (e.g. short guns and long guns being separate skills) and introduced is a much harsher penalty for not investing in a certain skill. For instance, if you don’t have any points in lock picking, you can’t do it at all. There’s no minigame to attempt, you are completely locked out of it, with some of the later game locks requiring 20 points (you only get two when you level up) invested into the skill.
There’s none of that Bethesda ‘jack of all trades’ character path, if you try to balance out your skill points it will hurt you in the endgame. This not only encourages multiple playthroughs, but also pushes you to focus on a more defined character type. I’m a simple guy so I went with Guns and Speech as priorities, paired with the Lucky trait, meaning I played as a slick talking gunslinger archetype I named “Lucky Bastard”. To put a cherry on top, the new Flaw system (a type of trait/perk that pops up sometimes) will call you out on your bad gameplay habits and give you an option for a buff at the cost of a debuff. Have a habit of skipping dialogue? Accept this flaw and gain 15% more EXP, but you now only have 15 seconds to make dialogue choices. Brilliant stuff.
Despite my moanings, I had a pretty decent time with the Outer Worlds 2 and it is definitely better than the first game. Can it compare to Fallout New Vegas? No and stop comparing them, you gotta move on. Despite its verbal depth, its emotional depth feels pretty shallow and there’s perhaps too much reliance on the snarky anti corporate tone (ironic cos they wanted to charge 80 quid for this). They’re going for Futurama, but forgot that Futurama had its Luck of the Fryish and Jurassic Bark.
