The Outer Worlds 2 Doesn't Quite Reach the Stars

Bigger isn't necessarily improved. It's a cliché, however it's the best way to sum up my feelings after devoting many hours with The Outer Worlds 2. Developer Obsidian added more of everything to the next installment to its 2019's science fiction role-playing game — additional wit, adversaries, arms, traits, and places, everything that matters in such adventures. And it works remarkably well — at first. But the weight of all those grand concepts makes the game wobble as the hours wear on.

A Powerful First Impression

The Outer Worlds 2 establishes a solid opening statement. You are part of the Terran Directorate, a do-gooder agency committed to restraining corrupt governments and companies. After some serious turmoil, you find yourself in the Arcadia system, a settlement divided by war between Auntie's Option (the product of a combination between the first game's two major companies), the Protectorate (groupthink extended to its worst logical conclusion), and the Ascendant Brotherhood (like the Catholic church, but with math rather than Jesus). There are also a series of tears tearing holes in space and time, but at this moment, you urgently require get to a transmission center for critical messaging needs. The issue 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 first-person RPG with an overarching story and dozens of secondary tasks scattered across multiple locations or areas (big areas with a plenty to explore, but not open-world).

The initial area and the task of accessing that communication station are impressive. You've got some funny interactions, of course, like one that includes a agriculturalist who has fed too much sweet grains to their favorite crab. Most guide you to something useful, though — an unexpected new path or some new bit of intel that might unlock another way onward.

Unforgettable Events and Lost Possibilities

In one memorable sequence, you can come across a Defender runaway near the viaduct who's about to be eliminated. No quest is linked to it, and the exclusive means to find it is by searching and listening to the environmental chatter. If you're swift and sufficiently cautious not to let him get slain, you can preserve him (and then rescue his runaway sweetheart from getting killed by monsters in their lair later), but more pertinent to the current objective is a electrical conduit obscured in the undergrowth nearby. If you follow it, you'll discover a secret entry to the communication hub. There's another entrance to the station's underground tunnels stashed in a cave that you might or might not detect based on when you undertake a specific companion quest. You can find an readily overlooked character who's crucial to preserving a life down the line. (And there's a plush toy who implicitly sways a squad of soldiers to join your cause, if you're kind enough to rescue it from a explosive area.) This opening chapter is dense and thrilling, and it appears as if it's full of rich storytelling potential that rewards you for your inquisitiveness.

Diminishing Expectations

Outer Worlds 2 fails to meet those initial expectations again. The second main area is structured comparable to a location in the first Outer Worlds or Avowed — a large region sprinkled with notable locations and secondary tasks. They're all thematically relevant to the struggle between Auntie's Selection and the Ascendant Order, but they're also short stories separated from the primary plot in terms of story and geographically. Don't expect any world-based indicators leading you to fresh decisions like in the initial area.

In spite of forcing you to make some hard calls, what you do in this zone's side quests is inconsequential. Like, it genuinely is irrelevant, to the degree that whether you permit atrocities or lead a group of refugees to their death culminates in only a throwaway line or two of speech. A game doesn't need to let each mission influence the plot in some significant, theatrical manner, but if you're compelling me to select a side and giving the impression that my decision is important, I don't believe it's unreasonable to hope for something further when it's concluded. When the game's earlier revealed that it is capable of more, any reduction seems like a trade-off. You get additional content like the team vowed, but at the price of complexity.

Bold Concepts and Absent Drama

The game's intermediate phase tries something similar to the central framework from the initial world, but with clearly diminished flair. The notion is a daring one: an interconnected mission that covers several locations and encourages you to request help from assorted alliances if you want a easier route toward your aim. Beyond the recurring structure being a little tiresome, it's also just missing the drama that this type of situation should have. It's a "bargain with evil" moment. There should be tough compromise. Your connection with any group should count beyond earning their approval by completing additional missions for them. All of this is lacking, because you can merely power through on your own and achieve the goal anyway. The game even makes an effort to hand you means of achieving this, indicating alternative paths as additional aims and having allies tell you where to go.

It's a consequence of a wider concern in Outer Worlds 2: the fear of letting you be unhappy with your decisions. It frequently goes too far out of its way to guarantee not only that there's an alternative path in many situations, but that you are aware of it. Closed chambers nearly always have several entry techniques signposted, or nothing worthwhile within if they do not. If you {can't