I heard mixed things about The Outer Worlds. My recollection is that people were somewhat disappointed by it, but I can’t remember any real specific critiques (other than it’s scope being more limited than some people were expecting). Anyone have a take on the game they’d like to share?
I have +1.5k hours across all the Fallout games, and in general love Tim Cain’s games, and so no surprise I liked Outer Worlds. It’s smaller in scope than some people wanted, but considering the size of the team that developed it, it’s got a lot packed into it. Writing is top notch, gun play is fun, only real knock against it was that it was too easy.
I found it fun. It reminded me of New Vegas in tone (unsurprisingly) but it also was fairly limited in scope. I’d say the open world reminded me more of Borderlands 2 more than any Bethesda game. The storytelling and dialog were really fun, the gameplay and world a little less so. I think with greater resources a sequel could really be special.
The Outer Worlds is like if you stripped half the soul and the content out of New Vegas, slapped a coat of paint on it and threw a brick on the accelerator.
Can you be more specific with what you consider the “soul” of New Vegas? I would consider it to be its embrace of Fallout 1/2’s tone and canon, as opposed to the fairly clean break between the rest of the franchise and Bethesda’s offerings.
Describing a soul is task for a philosopher. I merely recognize a familiar spark.
I quit playing partway in.
Imo writing was a major weakness. They were going for the sardonic Fallout-y tone, but didn’t get there. The humor wasn’t funny, and the writers didn’t appear to really have anything to say about humanity or capitalism - the themes the story was supposedly about.
This was definitely not helped by having every conversation be an extreme super close up with the npcs starting deadeyed straight in to the camera.
Combat was pretty meh. It has the worst weapon upgrade system I have ever seen. The player just pays money to make the number go up. Then in the next planet over, everyone has “pistol II” or “rifle II” which does way more damage anyway. I guess if one was being extremely generous, this could be interpreted as a gaming meta commentary but the game doesn’t earn this.
Overall, it just kinda felt like they were operating off of a “fallout in space” checklist, which made everything feel generic and boring.
It was an early game pass title, priced at $60 to get people to sign up for a $10-15 subscription instead. If it had been released at ~$30 like the AA game it was, I believe it would have gotten a lot more leeway in the player reviews.
I did enjoy one playthrough. Most obsidian games beg the player to go again, but it didn’t seem worth another 15-20 hours for a slightly different ending. Replay value is what’s really missing for me.
Expectations are key. It’s a pretty good game at the right price, but anyone expecting New Vegas in Space is left disappointed.
