The Outer Worlds 2 Doesn't Quite Achieve the Heights
Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better. That's a tired saying, but it's also the best way to encapsulate my feelings after spending many hours with The Outer Worlds 2. The creators expanded on each element to the next installment to its 2019 science fiction role-playing game — increased comedy, adversaries, weapons, characteristics, and settings, everything that matters in such adventures. And it functions superbly — for a little while. But the burden of all those ambitious ideas leads to instability as the hours wear on.
A Strong Opening Act
The Outer Worlds 2 establishes a solid opening statement. You are part of the Planetary Directorate, a do-gooder agency dedicated to restraining unscrupulous regimes and corporations. After some capital-D Drama, you end up in the Arcadia system, a settlement splintered by war between Auntie's Choice (the result of a union between the first game's two major companies), the Guardians (collectivism pushed to its worst logical conclusion), and the Ascendant Brotherhood (like the Catholic church, but with mathematics rather than Jesus). There are also a number of rifts causing breaches in the fabric of reality, but at this moment, you absolutely must reach a communication hub for critical messaging reasons. The challenge is that it's in the middle of a warzone, and you need to figure out how to arrive.
Similar to the first game, Outer Worlds 2 is a first-person RPG with an central plot and many optional missions spread out across different planets or areas (big areas with a lot to uncover, but not open-world).
The first zone and the process of accessing that comms station are remarkable. You've got some humorous meetings, of course, like one that features a rancher who has given excessive sugary cereal to their beloved crustacean. Most direct you toward something beneficial, though — an unforeseen passage or some new bit of intel that might provide an alternate route onward.
Unforgettable Sequences and Missed Opportunities
In one notable incident, you can come across a Defender runaway near the viaduct who's about to be eliminated. No task is linked to it, and the sole method to locate it is by searching and listening to the background conversation. If you're quick and sufficiently cautious not to let him get killed, you can save him (and then rescue his defector partner from getting killed by beasts in their hideout later), but more pertinent to the current objective is a power line hidden in the foliage nearby. If you trace it, you'll locate a secret entry to the relay station. There's another entrance to the station's underground tunnels hidden away in a cave that you might or might not detect contingent on when you follow a particular ally mission. You can locate an readily overlooked person who's crucial to preserving a life 20 hours later. (And there's a soft toy who indirectly convinces a squad of soldiers to support you, if you're considerate enough to rescue it from a danger zone.) This beginning section is dense and exciting, and it seems like it's full of deep narrative possibilities that benefits you for your curiosity.
Waning Hopes
Outer Worlds 2 never lives up to those initial expectations again. The second main area is organized like a map in the original game or Avowed — a expansive territory scattered with key sites and side quests. They're all story-appropriate to the conflict between Auntie's Option and the Ascendant Brotherhood, but they're also short stories isolated from the primary plot narratively and spatially. Don't anticipate any world-based indicators guiding you toward alternative options like in the initial area.
Regardless of forcing you to make some difficult choices, what you do in this area's optional missions doesn't matter. Like, it genuinely is irrelevant, to the point where whether you allow violations or lead a group of refugees to their demise leads to merely a passing comment or two of conversation. A game isn't required to let every quest influence the story in some significant, theatrical manner, but if you're forcing me to decide a group and pretending like my choice counts, I don't think it's unfair to anticipate something further when it's finished. When the game's earlier revealed that it can be better, any reduction seems like a concession. You get more of everything like Obsidian promised, but at the expense of substance.
Ambitious Concepts and Missing Stakes
The game's middle section tries something similar to the main setup from the first planet, but with noticeably less flair. The notion is a courageous one: an interconnected mission that spans several locations and encourages you to request help from various groups if you want a more straightforward journey toward your objective. Beyond the recurring structure being a little tiresome, it's also just missing the tension that this sort of circumstance should have. It's a "deal with the demon" moment. There should be hard concessions. Your connection with each alliance should be important beyond making them like you by completing additional missions for them. All of this is lacking, because you can just blitz through on your own and complete the mission anyway. The game even goes out of its way to hand you methods of achieving this, pointing out alternative paths as additional aims and having companions tell you where to go.
It's a side effect of a broader issue in Outer Worlds 2: the apprehension of permitting you to feel dissatisfied with your decisions. It regularly goes too far in its efforts to ensure not only that there's an alternate route in most cases, but that you realize its presence. Locked rooms almost always have several entry techniques marked, or nothing worthwhile within if they do not. If you {can't
