The Outer Worlds 2 Review – Technical Hiccups Can’t Dull the Shine

The Outer Worlds 2 Review

Sequels are always tricky, invariably pleasing some and disappointing other fans of the original. Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds has become almost a cult classic. However, even its most ardent advocates acknowledge that it had some flaws. Some of the storytelling was underdeveloped, and the combat was a little weak. Not everyone loved the game’s sense of humor. The Outer Worlds 2 successfully addresses the problems of the original. It’s a more mature and fully-realized version of what made the first game stand out.

Now, mature can also mean stodgy or self-serious. The Outer Worlds 2 is neither of those, nor is it as brash or joke-a-minute funny as the original. The tradeoff is worth it.

Arcadian Adventures

As it was in the first game, the star of the show in The Outer Worlds 2 is Obsidian’s talent and passion for world-building. The game takes place in the Arcadia system of planets and moons. It’s not an open-world game, but “open zone” and there’s a great and interesting diversity in environments. The step up to Unreal Engine 5 means that the various biomes are drenched in light, and shimmer and shine with detail and intensity. The Outer Worlds 2 is always visually engaging. As it usually does, Unreal Engine 5 brings some issues. We’ll get to that.

Obsidian’s art direction is at its best when it comes to architecture and design detail. Like the first game, The Outer World 2 takes place in a universe where technology and style is rooted to a pre-digital early 20th century. The art deco/nouveau motifs are a shorthand for American decadence, and the overbuilt and over-designed machinery suggest the industrial revolution taken to absurd lengths. It’s a world that, by and large, is incredibly consistent and filled with detail and character. We often use the term “environmental storytelling” to talk about random scraps of paper left by the developers in place of a coherent narrative. There are lots of things to pick up and read. But the real storytelling comes from the excess of design.

One delightful detail that can be completely overlooked are the game’s faction-based radio stations, playing a steady stream of period-sounding music, propaganda, advertising, and the occasional bit of well-hidden subversion. Like it is with the game’s dialogue and characters, the humor is rooted a little deeper and has more subtlety. The announcers fold in news that’s keyed to player actions.

The World Has Character(s)…

I’m not going to go into too much detail about the narrative for several reasons. First, I don’t want to spoil anything. Second, aside from the main story, everyone’s experience is going to be slightly — or significantly — different. Like the first game, there are a staggering number of branching dialogue choices and character modifications that shape the story arc. Nearly every decision has resonances that appear later.

The essence of storytelling comes down to putting people in difficult situations and seeing how they behave. You play as an agent of the Earth Directorate, sent to Arcadia to investigate why faster-than-light skip drives are suddenly creating disruptive rifts. This description is like saying the Lord of the Rings is about some lost jewelry. In other words, complications abound.

You immediately discover that there are several factions vying for power. The Protectorate is the dictatorial de facto ruling party, the inventors of the skip drives. The Order of the Ascendant is a science-based, seemingly benevolent faction, and Auntie’s Choice (a merger of megacorps Auntie Cleo and Spacer’s Choice from the original game) is the corporate interest. Additionally, there is a mystical rift-worshipping cult called the Glorious Dawn.

As the game progresses, you will unlock six possible companions. Each has a connection to, or conflict with, one of the factions. Like the first game, The Outer Worlds 2’s loop is basically a series of difficult situations in which you are trying to balance or disrupt your relationship to the different factions and the factions to each other.

…And Character Matters

Like most RPGs, you start by creating a character, both cosmetically and choosing a series of attributes. The system is a bit streamlined from the first game, but still impactful, and players should think through their starting decisions. You pick a background, traits (both positive and potentially negative), and skills, basically specializations. As you play and level up, you unlock perks. Finally, there is an interesting new mechanic called Flaws. Flaws are buff/de-buff combinations that arise from patterns of behavior. Once accepted, they will remain permanent throughout the game.

Nearly every moment of exploration, combat, or dialogue is tied to a quest. There are main and side quests, tasks, companion quests, and faction quests. This means that there’s little wasted time as everything is earning coin, XP, gear, or shaping your relationships. Especially in the opening hours, though, all those gears move pretty slowly. It takes quite a bit of time to feel powerful or competent. And, like in the real world, there will always be skills that the player never has.

As in other Obsidian RPGs, your character creation and game play choices interact with dialogue options, determining your success or challenges in navigating the world. Those choices have real consequences. Quite often a decision made too quickly resulted in long-lasting consequences or paths being permanently closed. In totality, The Outer World 2’s systems mesh well, but now and then I broke a quest chain by completing tasks out of order.

Fight, Fight, Fight

Combat has been refined and broadened in The Outer Worlds 2, supplemented by a much-requested third-person perspective. As before, there are perks and specializations that will make ranged, melee, and other approaches to combat more effective. For most of my playthrough I used ranged weapons, because while it has been improved, I still found melee combat to be imprecise and not especially rewarding. The new third-person camera works well enough and the game could easily be played that way from start to finish. I think that most players will stick to first-person.

As I noted above, combat is pretty challenging for a long stretch at the beginning, until some points have been poured into specialization and perks. Players who simply want to mainline the primary narrative quest will be frustrated, because their character will be perpetually under-leveled. The Outer Worlds 2 requires players to engage with a large number of its systems and stories. It’s a game that demands patience and unfolds slowly.

With complexity comes the potential for technical issues, and they’re certainly part of the experience right now, as they were with the first game. I had a number of crashes to the desktop, freezes, framerate stutters, and pop-in. There was a persistent audio bug that never went away. However, the audio is also another place where the game shines, thanks to an attractive musical score and consistently good acting.

Written in the Stars

Like the recent Borderlands 4, The Outer Worlds 2 has shifted a lot of its humor to the side. It can still be incredibly snarky, satiric, and ironically dark but the thrust of the story, characters, and dialogue is more serious. Without being too heavy-handed, the premise of commercial, authoritarian, and pseudo-religious factions vying for power remains sadly too relevant.

There are a few ways in which The Outer Worlds 2 doesn’t improve on the first game. It’s bigger, deeper, and more complex. The story and characters are more satisfying. Combat has been refined. It takes its time and demands players be patient and engage in all its systems, and overlook some technical issues that pop up somewhat frequently. I can’t imagine a world — Outer or not — in which fans of the original won’t enjoy this new experience.

***Xbox code provided by the publisher for review***