The Outer Worlds 2 Made Me Really feel Dumb—And I Want Extra of It [Hands-On Preview]

With The Outer Worlds 2 dropping on October 29, Obsidian Leisure is releasing its third game this year after Avowed and Grounded 2 (in Early Access). Obsidian has all the time excelled in narrative-driven compact RPGs, providing one thing simple to digest in a world the place it looks as if open-world AAA RPGs are all over the place. And whereas it has experimented exterior that method a time or two, it is clear that is the place its specialty lies.

Courtesy of Microsoft, I’ve performed the prologue of The Outer Worlds 2 thrice now. I usually discover prologues arduous to guage as a result of they are usually little greater than important onboarding for gamers, and I get that, regardless of no matter grievances I could have. Popping out of The Outer Worlds 2, although, I had no actual grievances and am trying ahead to really enjoying the prologue once more come launch. I all the time take pleasure in seeing all of the out there paths in a recreation, and to my shock, this prologue had fairly just a few. I may have stored enjoying to find these, however I do wish to save just a few instructions for launch. Even the menu is fairly enjoyable, however I am going to go away that for gamers to find for themselves.

One among my favourite issues about an RPG is when the dialogue choices magically line up with what I am pondering, and there was an enormous story second the place this occurred. I believed it because the NPC spoke, it popped up in my dialogue choices, I gasped out of pleasure, and there it was—marked with my Dumb trait dialogue. Which. Nicely.

Character Creation is Enjoyable

The Outer Worlds 2 will not be going to make a play for the best character creator in an RPG ever, nevertheless it’s greater than serviceable. The oddest a part of it (for my part) is how moles and mole placement get their very own slider, whereas quite a lot of different facial options (scars, burns, baggage underneath eyes, and so forth.) are dumped right into a single one. In any other case, there are many slides and choices for every part from hair choices to backgrounds. On my first character, I discovered myself flicking via all of the out there choices till I came across the one best hairdo to ever manifest in a online game: the mullet. And thus, DurtE—my first Outer Worlds 2 character, who notably couldn’t spell “soiled”—was born.

Close to the top of character creation, gamers can both select one optimistic trait OR take two optimistic traits with a damaging one. I really like the unlucky penalties of my very own actions, so I selected the Dumb damaging trait for DurtE, after all, as a result of I meant to Joe Grime my means via The Outer Worlds 2‘s Arcadia galaxy. One among my optimistic traits was being persuasive, so I may simply dumbly discuss my means via stuff, and I simply now realized I made a himbo. I selected the Gambler background for him and joked to myself that he’d say “By no means inform me the chances,” just because he wouldn’t perceive the chances.

My second character had the Professor background and was devoted to the Earth Directorate, whereas DurtE was simply there roughly. She had the Sickly trait, which made her a bit of extra fragile in fight, and that was not a wise alternative on condition that I performed aggressively along with her. My third was an Ex-Convict who was as anti-Earth Directorate as a Commander of the Earth Directorate might be, and he was appropriately abrasive. I additionally selected to play on Very Laborious with my Ex-Convict to see how that modified the gameplay. With characters locked in, it was time to delve into the prologue correct.

No Backup was Coming – Story Impressions

The cinematic cutscenes of The Outer Worlds 2 had been fairly spectacular and nothing like I anticipated, but they match the retro sci-fi stylization of gameplay fairly nicely. Gamers are handled to a cinematic of the Earth Directorate that guarantees to guard everybody from corrupt governments, evil megacorporations, and corrupt governments teaming up with evil megacorporations*. I’d quickly be taught that my group and I arrived in Arcadia on an necessary mission round Skip Drives, the tyrannical Protectorate (which act underneath very strict guidelines, menace of re-education, and are very nationalistic) ((galacticistic?)), and rifts in time/house. The issue? We had been assembly up with Ahead Agent DeVries, however in any other case had no help on this mission.

*NOTE: The Earth Directorate’s response time is 6 months – 10 years, which was most likely probably the most sensible side of the group.

Whereas there have been some apparent tutorial markers as soon as I used to be enjoying The Outer Worlds 2, they handed tremendous rapidly, and I discovered myself infiltrating a Protectorate Area Station. I did get the possibility to fulfill two of The Outer Worlds 2‘s companions, the Earth Directorate agent Niles and the automech help drone Valerie, and see my expertise come into play fairly early. For instance, two of my characters had been in a position to get via a sure door. DurtE? He does not understand how doorways work, so he needed to go in via a vent. There have been additionally tutorial mission pop-ups, however by and huge, The Outer Worlds 2 will get gamers straight to the gameplay with minimal handholding.

Early on, we got the choice of convincing a Protectorate Agent that we had been allies to close down the Area Station’s automech defenses. DurtE managed to sweet-talk his means via; my professor did not even full this feature, leaping straight into the combat; and my ex-convict was a bit too abrasive to persuade the agent of the shutdown, all of which did barely matter a bit of later within the prologue. Noticeably, there have been a few possibilities for every of my characters to lean into their traits or background, which was actually enjoyable. For instance, there was a chalkboard that DurtE could not perceive, however my professor understood all of it.

As we made our means via the house station, there have been just a few surprises and one other alternative or two that had been earlier than us, however I am going to spare you the spoilery particulars. Suffice to say, I noticed little of Niles and Valerie, however each encounter with them had some fascinating and enjoyable choices. And, after all, DurtE being dumb was a spotlight of my time with The Outer Worlds 2. One among my favourite issues about an RPG is when the dialogue choices magically line up with what I am pondering, and there was an enormous story second the place this occurred. I believed it because the NPC spoke, it popped up in my dialogue choices, I gasped out of pleasure, and there it was—marked with my Dumb trait dialogue. Which. Nicely. The Outer Worlds 2 took me down by just a few pegs, because it does every part it satirizes, however I’m afraid I’ll by no means get well from this burn. What’s worse? I will give it extra possibilities to take action once I return on launch day, Dumb Mullet Himbo remade. The truth that my roleplay options swung from one excessive to the opposite, all whereas giving me unbelievable moments like this in its prologue, has me actually excited to see what the total recreation does.

Simply A Case of the Mondays…

The Gameplay Had Choices

Total, The Outer Worlds 2‘s gameplay is not precisely revolutionary. Throughout my playthroughs, relying on some decisions, I started with a pistol and will later get a shock rod, a knife, or a repeating rifle. I may decelerate time with the returning Tactical Time Dilation function and will heal up when my inhaler had meds for it. I didn’t get to expertise how the companions work, and there was clearly quite a lot of room for the gameplay to develop. Once more, I used to be within the tutorial, nevertheless it does not attempt to repair one thing that is not damaged—and for that, I’m grateful.

The place it did shine was in my doable avenues, even on this tutorial. There have been story-related decisions that impacted gameplay, together with one diverging path, however there was additionally quite a lot of nooks and crannies past that. As a result of DurtE had good statement, he noticed just a few out-of-left-field vents and paths that my different characters could not entry. My professor went in weapons blazing, and it differed completely from DurtE who talked via every part he may. And naturally, my ex-convict needed to take every part slowly as a result of the enemies had been tougher due to the problem spike. With every of my characters, I managed to search out completely different paths and avenues that made every playthrough really feel distinct. It was most likely extra like 2.5x completely different approaches than 3 full-on completely different approaches, however that is not even the spectacular half. There have been a minimum of 2-3 completely different areas I got here throughout, however couldn’t entry, as a result of none of my characters match the necessities. I clearly cannot say that they provided distinctive paths or avenues via the realm, however a minimum of considered one of them had the potential to take action. That has me actually excited for the total expertise.

On my Very Laborious playthrough, I needed to be extra tactical and choose my fights extra so than I did with DurtE or my professor. It could possibly most likely be simplified to enemies turning into extra like bullet sponges, nevertheless it nonetheless impacted the way in which I needed to work together with the assorted fight encounters. On Regular with DurtE and my professor, it most likely took 2-3 pictures to kill most enemies. Within the case of The Outer Worlds 2‘s hardest available difficulty, I needed to get the leap on everybody and primarily magdump them to get the kill. However this made me lean extra into its serviceable stealth choices as a substitute of simply brute-forcing my means via. It does not reinvent the wheel, nevertheless it positive does know the way to make a spinning wheel enjoyable.

The Outer Worlds 2 is a Lot of Enjoyable

If we boil down my first impression into one thing easy, it could be that The Outer Worlds 2 is quite a lot of enjoyable out of the gate, has some actually enjoyable story and gameplay choices, and in any other case feels just like the continued excellence of Obsidian Entertainment at its finest. It has put out a number of nice video games over time, with a few of my favorites together with KOTOR 2, Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Fact, Pillars of Eternity 1+2, Grounded, and Pentiment—and I foresee myself including The Outer Worlds 2 to that listing if it retains the trajectory I noticed in its prologue.

Recreation Rant acquired a Steam code from Microsoft for the needs of this preview. The Outer Worlds 2 releases on PC, PS5, and Xbox Collection X on October 29.