Outward 2 Preview
Game development is hard, and I sure don’t envy the team at Nine Dots Studio. Outward 2, the sequel to 2022’s Outward, is poised to enter a closed beta test and release in July. Outward 2 is an open-world RPG with survival and crafting elements, which means it has a lot of competition. Rather than try to play in the same space with games like Elden Ring or Crimson Desert, Outward 2 focuses on hardcore mechanics and a no-handholding approach to gameplay. A lot of action RPG fans are good with this kind of challenge, and they enjoyed Outward for that reason. At the same time — and not unlike the first game — Outward 2 has a few frustrating or technically unpolished elements in its present state.
Upping the Game
Neither Outward nor its sequel is a power fantasy, at least at the start. Quite the opposite. You play as a nobody, a low-level character who begins the game with only enough power to barely survive. You do have some control over your starting character, stats, and backstory. This time around, there’s a bit more customization to a character’s appearance. If that sounds a little like Gothic and its upcoming remake, you wouldn’t be wrong.
At least in the demo/closed beta version, you awake in a sprawling, detailed city, with a weak weapon and a few starter quests to track down NPCs. While there’s a map this time around, you still spend a lot of time running around, getting lost, and being stymied by dead ends and closed doors. Once you do find the quest giver, the unvoiced dialogue is entirely expository, giving little emotional weight to your journey. This is a step backward from the original, which had voice-acted text.
Switching to Unreal Engine 5 has allowed for much more detail, more realistic water, and impressive lighting. Unfortunately, the lush urban environments don’t extend to the countryside. The barren landscape of the starting zone looks dated, with flat textures and little life. The occasional enemy will wander by, most likely able to one-shot the player. That’s not a bug, but a feature. This is a game about making incremental progress.
Tarnished Blades
Combat in Outward 2 has moved closer to that found in other action RPGs and Soulslikes. You have a dodge roll, block, and parry, light and heavy attacks, and a stamina-draining sprint (even when in town or not in combat). You can dual-wield weapons and carry an off-hand weapon, but being over-encumbered reduces your movement to not just fat-rolling but a walking crawl. Like in the original, magic and spellcasting are multifaceted (or cumbersome, depending on your point of view) processes but powerful, too.
Outward 2 makes some deliberate design decisions that will either attract or infuriate players. For example, being significantly injured or dying in combat can result in a fracture, which limits movement for many real-time minutes unless you’re carrying a craftable splint, which speeds up the healing process. Of course, most RPGs have status effects and debuffs, but dying or resting usually resets them. Not in Outward 2.
Combat in the original Outward felt relatively undercooked, with floaty movement and very little feeling of weight, momentum, or contact. Combat in Outward 2 is better, but it can’t come close to some of the better games in the genre. While there’s no structured tutorial mission, there is a separate area that allows players to try out different weapons and learn about the game’s basic systems.
Counting Down
The version I tried was, I believe, the same as the upcoming closed beta. Technically, it’s still pretty messy, with a ton of framerate issues, menus that won’t open properly, and lots of other bugs. Hopefully, those are the kinds of problems that will be addressed before launch. But the original Outward took quite some time to be technically stable.
Games that purposely take away or limit options in one area need to balance that decision with something rewarding or exceptional in another. So, for example, if the player has to remain injured and unable to fight effectively for several real-time hours, there should be opportunities for other engaging content that doesn’t require combat at all. Maybe it’s exploration or crafting, a beautiful world, or diving into an emotionally riveting narrative. Judging by the slice of the game I played, I’m not sure Outward 2 aligns with this idea. Even with its move to more familiar action RPG combat mechanics and a modest bump in visual fidelity, Outward 2 is much the same-feeling experience as the first game. This will be great news to many fans — and maybe a disappointment to others — when it releases on July 7, 2026.
***PC code provided for preview***
