The Outer Worlds 2 Review (XSX)
Summary: A roarcus space-fairing romp that would make Douglas Adams proud.
4.5
Don't Panic
The Outer Worlds 2 is a smart and charming RPG that playfully thumbs its nose at the sorry state of the modern world in the way that only decent science fiction with a keen eye for satire can.
A standalone sequel, The Outer Worlds 2 broadens the scope of its mockery beyond corporate malfeasance to now include religion and the monarchy.
After a hostile takeover sees Auntie Cleo’s and Spacer’s Choice merge to become Auntie’s Choice, the new terrifying megacorp decides to invade the Arcadian system, run by the Protectorate, a totalitarian monarchy with a monopoly on the technology used to power skip drives used for interstellar travel.
This comes at the worst time imaginable for the Protectorate, who are already engaged in a civil war against The Order, a group of fanatical scientists and mathematicians who believe existence is governed by a single equation that rules over everything.
Basically, it answers the question of what would happen if Mumcorp from Futurama invaded a system ruled by an absolute monarchy with a penchant for Orwellian mind control in the midst of a civil war against its formerly state-sponsored religion that knows the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is 42 and is desperately trying to figure out the equation that supports this.
You play as a member of the Earth Directorate. Somewhere between The Federation and Police Squad, sent to the system to investigate a huge rift in space-time that has cut the colony off from the wider Galaxy.
After a botched mission sees you take an unexpected sabbatical for 3,468 days, you awake to find yourself stuck in Arcadia and swiftly drawn into the political quagmire while uncovering a grand conspiracy that could have dire ramifications far beyond the fractious colony.
After slapping together a beardy weirdo in the fairly straightforward character maker out of a nice selection of pre-made parts (No sliders or pallettes here, I’m afraid), I set to the important business of what kind of person I wanted my hero to be.
Just like its predecessor, you can play Outer Worlds 2 as straight or stupidly as you like. You can be a former prisoner, a brilliant scientist, a decorated law enforcer, or, (as I chose), a roustabout who somehow stumbled into being the commander of an Earth Directorate ship and this important mission. Although he’s routinely called useless by his fellow agents, who nevertheless always gets the job done through a combination of dumb luck and fast talking.
While creating your character, you pick your background, which occasionally comes up in conversations and affects how different characters react to you. Then up to two traits: positive skills that give you buffs with some fun results on the side. I chose to be lucky, which has some things just work out, and brilliant, which lets you start with two specialized skills instead of one.
If you choose two traits, you have to balance things out with one of three negative traits: Sickly, which reduces your health and poison resistance; Abrasive, which caps your reputation with any faction at neutral; or dumb, which locks off half the available skills.
It’s optional, but in my opinion, the best way to play.
Next, you need to set your starting skills; there’s a decent selection to choose from that allow for all kinds of builds and includes the usual variety of specialisations from things that aid combat builds like melee, guns and speech to more sneaky handy builds like hacking, lockpicking and engineering (which has a delightful animation for opening busted doors that sees you carefully oil it, delicately trace your hand down it looking for the fault, before whacking with the correct tool. (Remember, kids: always use the right tool for the job. The right tool is always a hammer).
Depending on which skills you put points into, you can unlock perks that confer further buffs and other cool abilities to flesh out your desired build further. My personal favourite is Survivalist. This makes creatures you kill drop food, and Nature’s Friend, which lets you tame wild animals and set them on your foes like a space-age Pokémon trainer.
There are more than 90 perks available to unlock in the character screen, and even more given to you as rewards for completing certain side missions. This results in an absolutely crazy level of character customisation and allows you to play the game and approach each situation any way you like, from sneaking and speaking to just tearing the doors off and blasting everything inside.
Throughout Outer Worlds 2, your character also accrues flaws: optional negative traits, activated based on how you play. Most give you a minor perk in exchange for a drawback of some description. For example, Wasteful lets you collect ammo from every enemy you defeat, but ramps up the cost of items bought from vendors by 25%.
Some seem like a straight-up hindrance. Honestly, who wants bad knees when you’re trying to play a stealth build? I already have dodgy knees in real life, having the damn things now creaking, slowing me down, and giving away my position when I’m trying to sneak up on guards in the virtual world as well, doesn’t fill me with joy.
Then there are flaws designed to cause absolute havoc, that the game even warns you not to accept on your first playthrough. Delights such as Kleptomania that make you automatically steal items you come near without you knowing, but let you sell them for double the cash. Understandably, this makes your life unbearable if you go near a town; no one likes a thief, especially the town guard.
There’s even a flaw called Flawed that allows you to get extra perks every five levels, but you have to say yes to every flaw offered to you. I am already looking forward to my second playthrough using this as a basis for more hairbrained adventures. Though I’m not sure at what point this will make the game borderline unplayable.
Being a jumped-up space cop, it’s inevitable that at some point, even your best attempts at diplomacy fail, and you’ll end up in a gunfight or smacking fools about with the heaviest object you can find.
The best thing I can say about the combat mechanics is that they make putting skill points into melee and guns seem almost pointless if you are a decent shot. There’s a ton of weapons to choose from, with a whole armoury packed full of firearms ranging from basic pistols and shotguns to experimental contraptions that spew toxic sludge at foes.
The shooting is responsive, and iron sights actually improve your aim. Taking cover is something you need to do if you don’t want to be gunned down very quickly. Chucking grenades is also a fun way to cause chaos, and each feels distinct and useful against different types of targets. The action is certainly justified in this action RPG.
Meanwhile, melee weapons like knives, shock batons, and a literal moon on a stick are great to take down unsuspecting enemies if you want to be stealthy. Whether you succeed is based on how tough you are compared to the grunt you’re about to brain.
Your companions are also useful in a pinch, and each has a specific action you can equip that lets you distract enemies, set traps, or gain a quick boost of health.
You also have access to a trio of gadgets that slow down the action to help you hit foes’ weak points, a gun that disolves dead bodies, and a helmet that lets you trace wires back to cable boxes and see invisible enemies.
One quibble I do have is that the difficulty could use some tweaking. Normal is very challenging unless you opt for a combat-focused build, and Story (Easy) is an absolute cake walk regardless of where you place your skill points. It’s a shame there isn’t a way to customise different elements to tailor your experience further, considering the amount of effort that has been put into accommodating different playstyles.
When you’re not fighting, you’re exploring Arcadia with your rag-tag crew, getting into all kinds of scrapes, and navigating the political minefield you’ve been thrown into. Aside from the main campaign, there are loads of silly side missions to stumble into, including a quest to retrieve a cuddly toy from a literal minefield, settling a disagreement between two monks about the necessity of war by finding the right sources (during an attack on their monastery), and deciding who should be second in command to the giant insect that was promoted to an officer as a PR exercise before the top brass in town were killed.
Outer Worlds 2’s quests (especially the ones found a little off the beaten path) are weird, wonderful, and often laugh-out-loud funny. Backed by some of the best dialogue and world-building I have seen all year, with a cast of complex, likable characters with their own motivations and inner conflicts.
This is doubly true of your crew, which slowly expands as you explore Arcadia. They’re a ragtag group of outcasts from the system’s main factions and a slightly deranged medical robot.
Much like Avowed (review here), spending a little downtime with your crew and getting to know their inner workings is well worth it. There’s your loyal second in command, Niles, who wants answers about the fateful night that sent our hero into deep space for a decade. Tristan, a Protectorate Arbiter investigating the death of his mentor, Aza, a crazed cultist who wants to know why she has been marked for execution by her fellow acolytes… and several others that might ruin the plot if I talk about them too much.
Initially, allies of convenience, mostly from opposite sides of this strange conflict. However, as the plot progresses, and they spend more time together, the group slowly learns to trust each other and forms into a bona fide crew with hints of found family for good measure – less Starfleet and more Firefly.
Arcadia offers some beautiful places to explore with plenty to see and do. Every new area you land on feels uniquely alien and begs to be explored. From the war-torn, polluted Golden Ridge with its rivers of toxic sludge, decimated tram station, and bombed-out wastes, to the mostly lawless Free Market space station constructed from a ship that crashed into an asteroid field, the home of an infamous information broker that gives off serious Space Western vibes.
There are some genuinely beautiful environments, with great use of textures, especially on the huge crystalline rock formations that jut out of the landscape, and the brightly coloured flora and fauna that inhabit the wilds between Outer Worlds 2’s settlements, monasteries, and industrial complexes that themselves are sprawling and surprisingly smart affairs with many keeping the same gorgeous art nouveau stylings from the original.
The weird and wonderful inhabitants that populate Arcadia also look fantastic, in particular the strange creatures and giant insects that you stumble into while exploring each planet. They’re brightly coloured, characterful, and more often than not, terrifying. The fantastic anatomical drawings of Arcadia’s wildlife displayed during The Outer Worlds 2’s loading screens are also lovely and show the level of thought that went into the local life forms.
Likewise, the factions of humans vying for control of the system each have a distinct look, so you can tell which one they belong to from a distance. When you talk to them as well, their cultural differences also play a part in trying to parley with them. For example, members of Aunties Choice respond well to cash or trying to make a mutually beneficial deal; members of the Protectorate are obsessed with following rules, and The Order are suckers for anything mathematical or stacking the odds in their favour. Knowing these quirks is often vital if you want to walk away from some dicier situations with both your creaky knees intact. It’s wonderful stuff.
The sound design is also ace, and the voice acting brings the rock-solid script to life with even minor characters feeling like they have a proper sense of place and a clear affiliation.
Final Thoughts
I’m not sure how Oblivion has done it. Most studios might put out one decent RPG every few years. But two in less than a year is absolutely astounding. First with the spectacular Avowed, and now with the Outer Worlds 2, it has cemented its reputation as a top-tier RPG maker.
Outer Worlds 2 is a smartly written, sophisticated RPG with its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. It’s hard not to see the parallels to real-world events played out thousands of light-years away, against a backdrop that is both at turns ludicrous but weirdly grounded, presided over by a cast of likable characters and a bevy of ingenious systems and branching paths that make for wildly different adventures Let me put it this way, I’m already planning my next trip to Arcadia.
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