Obsidian's Sequel Doesn't Quite Attain the Stars
Bigger isn't necessarily improved. It's an old adage, however it's the most accurate way to sum up my thoughts after spending 50 hours with The Outer Worlds 2. The creators added more of each element to the next installment to its 2019 science fiction role-playing game — additional wit, adversaries, arms, characteristics, and settings, all the essentials in titles of this genre. And it operates excellently — at first. But the weight of all those daring plans causes the experience to falter as the game progresses.
An Impressive First Impression
The Outer Worlds 2 makes a strong initial impact. You are a member of the Earth Directorate, a do-gooder organization committed to curbing dishonest administrations and businesses. After some serious turmoil, you find yourself in the Arcadia sector, a settlement fractured by war between Auntie's Option (the result of a combination between the original game's two big corporations), the Protectorate (collectivism taken to its most extreme outcome), and the Ascendant Order (similar to the Catholic faith, but with mathematics instead of Jesus). There are also a bunch of tears causing breaches in the universe, but at this moment, you urgently require reach a relay station for pressing contact reasons. The challenge is that it's in the middle of a battlefield, and you need to find a way to get there.
Following the original, Outer Worlds 2 is a first-person role-playing game with an main narrative and many side quests scattered across multiple locations or zones (expansive maps with a lot to uncover, but not open-world).
The first zone and the process of accessing that relay hub are spectacular. You've got some funny interactions, of course, like one that involves a rancher who has overindulged sweet grains to their favorite crab. Most direct you toward something helpful, though — an unexpected new path or some additional intelligence that might unlock another way ahead.
Unforgettable Moments and Missed Possibilities
In one notable incident, you can come across a Protectorate deserter near the overpass who's about to be executed. No task is linked to it, and the exclusive means to discover it is by exploring and hearing the ambient dialogue. If you're quick and careful enough not to let him get killed, you can rescue him (and then rescue his deserter lover from getting killed by beasts in their lair later), but more relevant to the immediate mission is a electrical conduit concealed in the foliage in the vicinity. If you track it, you'll find a concealed access point to the transmission center. There's a different access point to the station's drainage system hidden away in a grotto that you could or could not detect based on when you pursue a certain partner task. You can encounter an simple to miss character who's essential to preserving a life down the line. (And there's a plush toy who indirectly convinces a group of troops to join your cause, if you're nice enough to rescue it from a minefield.) This initial segment is dense and engaging, and it feels like it's full of rich storytelling potential that benefits you for your curiosity.
Waning Expectations
Outer Worlds 2 never lives up to those early hopes again. The following key zone is structured like a location in the initial title or Avowed — a expansive territory dotted with key sites and secondary tasks. They're all narratively connected to the clash between Auntie's Option and the Ascendant Order, but they're also mini-narratives separated from the primary plot narratively and location-wise. Don't expect any world-based indicators directing you to alternative options like in the opening region.
Regardless of compelling you to choose some difficult choices, what you do in this area's optional missions is inconsequential. Like, it genuinely is irrelevant, to the point where whether you allow violations or direct a collection of displaced people to their death leads to merely a throwaway line or two of speech. A game doesn't need to let every quest impact the plot in some big, dramatic fashion, but if you're making me choose a side and pretending like my decision matters, I don't think it's unreasonable to hope for something additional when it's finished. When the game's already shown that it can be better, any reduction seems like a trade-off. You get additional content like the team vowed, but at the expense of complexity.
Ambitious Plans and Lacking Stakes
The game's intermediate phase tries something similar to the main setup from the opening location, but with distinctly reduced style. The concept is a daring one: an linked task that extends across multiple worlds and urges you to solicit support from assorted alliances if you want a smoother path toward your goal. Aside from the recurring structure being a little tiresome, it's also lacking the tension that this kind of scenario should have. It's a "deal with the demon" moment. There should be difficult trade-offs. Your connection with either faction should matter beyond making them like you by doing new tasks for them. All of this is missing, because you can just blitz through on your own and achieve the goal anyway. The game even goes out of its way to hand you means of achieving this, pointing out alternative paths as optional objectives and having companions advise you where to go.
It's a side effect of a larger problem in Outer Worlds 2: the apprehension of permitting you to feel dissatisfied with your decisions. It frequently goes too far out of its way to ensure not only that there's an alternative path in many situations, but that you realize its presence. Secured areas nearly always have various access ways marked, or nothing valuable internally if they don't. If you {can't
