Outer Worlds 2 Doesn't Quite Achieve the Heights
More expansive doesn't necessarily mean better. It's a cliché, however it's the truest way to sum up my feelings after investing five dozen hours with The Outer Worlds 2. The creators included additional everything to the follow-up to its 2019 sci-fi RPG — additional wit, adversaries, weapons, attributes, and locations, every important component in titles of this genre. And it works remarkably well — for a little while. But the load of all those daring plans causes the experience to falter as the hours wear on.
A Powerful Opening Act
The Outer Worlds 2 establishes a solid initial impact. You belong to the Terran Directorate, a do-gooder agency dedicated to restraining dishonest administrations and companies. After some capital-D Drama, you find yourself in the Arcadia region, a settlement fractured by conflict between Auntie's Choice (the product of a union between the original game's two big corporations), the Defenders (groupthink pushed to its most dire end), and the Ascendant Brotherhood (reminiscent of the Church, but with mathematics in place of Jesus). There are also a bunch of rifts creating openings in the universe, but at this moment, you really need get to a transmission center for pressing contact purposes. The challenge is that it's in the heart of a warzone, and you need to find a way to get there.
Similar to the first game, Outer Worlds 2 is a first-person RPG with an overarching story and numerous side quests spread out across different planets or zones (large spaces with a much to discover, but not sandbox).
The first zone and the journey of reaching that communication station are spectacular. You've got some funny interactions, of course, like one that includes a farmer who has overindulged sugary cereal to their favorite crab. Most guide you to something useful, though — an unexpected new path or some new bit of intel that might unlock another way forward.
Unforgettable Moments and Overlooked Chances
In one unforgettable event, you can find a Defender runaway near the bridge who's about to be executed. No task is linked to it, and the sole method to find it is by exploring and hearing the background conversation. If you're quick and sufficiently cautious not to let him get slain, you can save him (and then protect his deserter lover from getting killed by creatures in their lair later), but more connected with the current objective is a energy cable obscured in the undergrowth in the vicinity. If you track it, you'll locate a hidden entrance to the relay station. There's an alternate entry to the station's underground tunnels stashed in a cave that you could or could not notice depending on when you follow a certain partner task. You can encounter an simple to miss person who's key to preserving a life much later. (And there's a plush toy who subtly persuades a squad of soldiers to join your cause, if you're nice enough to save it from a minefield.) This beginning section is dense and thrilling, and it feels like it's overflowing with deep narrative possibilities that rewards you for your curiosity.
Diminishing Anticipations
Outer Worlds 2 doesn't fulfill those opening anticipations again. The second main area is structured like a level in the initial title or Avowed — a large region dotted with key sites and side quests. They're all narratively connected to the clash between Auntie's Choice and the Ascendant Order, but they're also vignettes separated from the main story in terms of story and location-wise. Don't look for any world-based indicators leading you to alternative options like in the first zone.
In spite of forcing you to make some difficult choices, what you do in this region's secondary tasks has no impact. Like, it truly has no effect, to the point where whether you permit atrocities or lead a group of refugees to their end leads to only a passing comment or two of speech. A game doesn't have to let each mission impact the narrative in some major, impactful way, but if you're making me choose a faction and pretending like my selection is important, I don't believe it's unreasonable to anticipate something additional when it's over. When the game's previously demonstrated that it can be better, anything less appears to be a compromise. You get expanded elements like the developers pledged, but at the price of depth.
Daring Plans and Missing Tension
The game's intermediate phase attempts a comparable approach to the primary structure from the opening location, but with clearly diminished panache. The concept is a daring one: an interconnected mission that covers two planets and motivates you to solicit support from assorted alliances if you want a more straightforward journey toward your objective. Beyond the repeat setup being a slightly monotonous, it's also just missing the suspense that this sort of circumstance should have. It's a "pact with the devil" moment. There should be difficult trade-offs. Your association with either faction should be important beyond earning their approval by completing additional missions for them. All of this is lacking, because you can simply rush through on your own and complete the mission anyway. The game even goes out of its way to provide you ways of achieving this, indicating alternate routes as optional objectives and having partners inform you where to go.
It's a side effect of a broader issue in Outer Worlds 2: the anxiety of letting you be unhappy with your selections. It regularly overcompensates out of its way to guarantee not only that there's an alternative path in most cases, but that you realize its presence. Locked rooms practically always have several entry techniques indicated, or no significant items within if they do not. If you {can't
