Outer Worlds 2 Fails to Achieve the Heights
More expansive isn't necessarily superior. That's a tired saying, but it's also the truest way to encapsulate my thoughts after investing 50 hours with The Outer Worlds 2. The development team expanded on each element to the follow-up to its prior futuristic adventure — increased comedy, foes, arms, characteristics, and settings, everything that matters in games like this. And it operates excellently — for a little while. But the burden of all those daring plans causes the experience to falter as the time passes.
A Strong Opening Act
The Outer Worlds 2 establishes a solid initial impact. You are a member of the Planetary Directorate, a altruistic institution focused on curbing corrupt governments and businesses. After some serious turmoil, you wind up in the Arcadia region, a settlement splintered by hostilities between Auntie's Option (the result of a combination between the first game's two major companies), the Protectorate (groupthink taken to its worst logical conclusion), and the Ascendant Order (reminiscent of the Church, but with math instead of Jesus). There are also a series of rifts tearing holes in space and time, but right now, you urgently require access a communication hub for pressing contact reasons. The problem is that it's in the middle of a warzone, and you need to figure out how to reach it.
Like its predecessor, Outer Worlds 2 is a first-person RPG with an central plot and numerous optional missions scattered across different planets or areas (large spaces with a much to discover, but not sandbox).
The initial area and the task of reaching that comms station are spectacular. You've got some funny interactions, of course, like one that includes a rancher who has fed too much sugary treats to their favorite crab. Most direct you toward something useful, though — an unexpected new path or some additional intelligence that might open a different path onward.
Memorable Sequences and Lost Chances
In one unforgettable event, you can come across a Protectorate deserter near the viaduct who's about to be executed. No mission is tied to it, and the only way to discover it is by searching and listening to the background conversation. If you're swift and sufficiently cautious not to let him get defeated, you can rescue him (and then save his deserter lover from getting eliminated by creatures in their lair later), but more relevant to the immediate mission is a energy cable hidden in the undergrowth close by. If you follow it, you'll locate a secret entry to the communication hub. There's an alternate entry to the station's drainage system hidden away in a cavern that you may or may not detect contingent on when you pursue a certain partner task. You can find an readily overlooked individual who's essential to rescuing a person 20 hours later. (And there's a plush toy who implicitly sways a group of troops to join your cause, if you're nice enough to protect it from a danger zone.) This opening chapter is packed and thrilling, and it seems like it's full of deep narrative possibilities that benefits you for your exploration.
Fading Expectations
Outer Worlds 2 doesn't fulfill those initial expectations again. The next primary region is structured like a map in the first Outer Worlds or Avowed — a expansive territory dotted with key sites and secondary tasks. They're all story-appropriate to the conflict between Auntie's Option and the Ascendant Brotherhood, but they're also mini-narratives separated from the primary plot in terms of story and spatially. Don't anticipate any environmental clues directing you to new choices like in the opening region.
In spite of compelling you to choose some tough decisions, what you do in this region's secondary tasks is inconsequential. Like, it really doesn't matter, to the extent that whether you enable war crimes or lead a group of refugees to their demise leads to nothing but a throwaway line or two of conversation. A game isn't required to let all tasks impact the story in some major, impactful way, but if you're compelling me to select a group and giving the impression that my choice is important, I don't feel it's unfair to anticipate something additional when it's finished. When the game's already shown that it has greater potential, anything less seems like a concession. You get additional content like Obsidian promised, but at the cost of complexity.
Ambitious Ideas and Lacking Drama
The game's middle section attempts a comparable approach to the main setup from the first planet, but with distinctly reduced flair. The concept is a daring one: an interconnected mission that extends across two planets and motivates you to seek aid from various groups if you want a smoother path toward your goal. In addition to the repeated framework being a somewhat tedious, it's also lacking the tension that this sort of circumstance should have. It's a "deal with the demon" moment. There should be tough compromise. Your association with any group should matter beyond gaining their favor by doing new tasks for them. Everything is missing, because you can merely power through on your own and complete the mission anyway. The game even goes out of its way to hand you means of doing this, indicating alternate routes as optional objectives and having allies inform you where to go.
It's a side effect of a wider concern in Outer Worlds 2: the anxiety of letting you be unhappy with your decisions. It frequently goes too far out of its way to make sure not only that there's an alternative path in most cases, but that you are aware of it. Secured areas practically always have multiple entry methods signposted, or nothing valuable internally if they don't. If you {can't
