The Outer Worlds Review

With all the news that certain RPG’s have been giving out lately, it’s safe to say The Outer Worlds has snuck past these titles and taken to the podium in first place in my eyes. What more do we need when this game has it all; mixing in the feel of RPG’s such as Fallout and Elder Scrolls, with a hint of Bioshock, The Outer Worlds is on track to be a massive success story.

The Outer Worlds is a new and fun first person driven RPG, full of witty banter between characters and manages to feel like an homage to older games in it’s gameplay and aesthetics. Lets talk about the different systems the game has to offer.

You’ll start off in a strange cut-scene with a man named Phineas; he is wanted around the galaxy for all sorts of reasons, but his current goal is to rescue a bunch of frozen people on a ship known as the Hope. When all starts going south, he is only able to save you, ejecting you abruptly off onto your adventure.

You create your own avatar, changing all sorts of aspects such as hair, eyes and face structure. This doesn’t truly matter as you end up wearing lots of masks and never really see your face, but it’s still great to be able to create something to your own tastes. You begin by getting dropped on to a planet to meet a contact who is supposed to help you. One botched landing later (and a bit of a… headache… for your contact) it doesn’t take much time before you get your hands on a weapon and start having to fight to survive. You’ll be killing all sorts in this game, from small bugs and humans to very large creatures with big teeth. No matter what you come up against in your travels you’ll be sure to gain some decent gear from exploring and killing, with plenty of weapons and armour to find as well as consumables in the game.

Along the way, there are a ton missions to keep you busy, with the main missions complimented by a whole host of side activities and quests. I must say I wasn’t truly impressed with the story overall, even if it did have it’s moments. You also get some side missions for your companions which I did enjoy – there’s a lot of funny missions with some great dialog involved. Overall, even though I felt the story to be a bit lacking, the missions themselves are great and there are a hefty amount to play through.

During your play through you will get to meet some fun and interesting NPC’s that will be companions and have your back on your journey. There’s a total of five companions to meet, all different and all with their own baggage of story and missions. One of the companions is also a killer robot which make me think it’s a nod to Knights of the old Republic. Each companion also comes with their own perks which boost one of your own stats, from being able to lie better in conversation to being better at engineering. You can also command your companion in combat by sending them to a specific location for tactical fighting, having them attack an enemy first so you can stand back and fight at range or even make your companion use their own unique special move once it has been unlocked which tips battles in your favour.

Overall the game play is something that makes or breaks a game; and this game is definitely not broken. I have enjoyed many moments of this, with the movement being quick and smooth, and the general gun play and attacks are put together nicely. The weapons come in three varieties; melee weapons, guns and special weapons. The choice is vast in each variety, from a spade to a double bladed sword in the melee category, hand guns, machine guns and plasma guns in the gun section and a shrink ray in the special weapon category. With all that variety there is plenty to keep combat interesting for when you want to change things up. There’s a slight Fallout nod with the ability to slow time allowing you to target individual parts of enemies. But combat isn’t everything and there is a lot of effort put into the conversations you have with characters. There are many attributes that can influence your conversations which can either make things easier, allow you to ask for more of a reward or even avoid combat altogether and come to a peaceful resolution. With a lot of the conversations having some comedy elements to them it keeps you interested in speaking to people rather than it being so gritty and serious like other big RPG’s.

Levelling up in the game doesn’t really take much, you will gain exp from everything – and I mean everything – from killing enemies, unlocking containers to completing a mission. Anything you do will reward you no matter how you play the game, whether you play as an arse or you play as a good guy out to help others, it doesn’t matter as you will be treated well. When you do level up you will get ten points to put into different attributes which you can allocate to specific groups like melee weapons, range weapons, crafting, conversation and leadership. Each sub attribute in the grouping has their own milestones to unlock other perks, so it makes you take an interest in how you want to level up your character. There also set perks you can unlock every few levels that can give you minor boosts like running faster, gaining exp from companion kills to gaining health when you kill an enemy. This game also offers you random flaws in your character, such as making you scared of robot enemies so you take aiming and damage penalties when facing them, in exchange for unlocking another perk.

Conclusion

As a recent addition to the Microsoft Game Studios family, Obsidian have put their best foot forward with The Outer Worlds. Solid gun play, an engaging story with great, likeable characters and a world that is fun to explore and interact with. Some missions let the side down a little and the game could be bigger but with so many nods to the great RPG predecessors and taking the best elements from them this is a great game to pick up.

This game was tested and reviewed on Xbox One. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.