Obsidian's Sequel Doesn't Quite Achieve the Summit

More expansive isn't necessarily improved. It's an old adage, however it's the most accurate way to describe my thoughts after investing five dozen hours with The Outer Worlds 2. The development team added more of each element to the follow-up to its prior science fiction role-playing game — additional wit, adversaries, weapons, attributes, and locations, everything that matters in games like this. And it works remarkably well — at first. But the load of all those ambitious ideas causes the experience to falter as the time passes.

An Impressive Opening Act

The Outer Worlds 2 makes a strong initial impact. You belong to the Terran Directorate, a well-intentioned agency committed to curbing corrupt governments and businesses. After some major drama, you wind up in the Arcadia region, a outpost fractured by war between Auntie's Choice (the outcome of a merger between the original game's two large firms), the Defenders (communalism taken to its most dire end), and the Ascendant Brotherhood (reminiscent of the Church, but with math instead of Jesus). There are also a bunch of rifts tearing holes in space and time, but currently, you really need get to a relay station for urgent communications needs. The challenge is that it's in the center 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 main narrative and many side quests distributed across various worlds or areas (large spaces with a lot to uncover, but not open-world).

The opening region and the process of getting to that relay hub are spectacular. You've got some humorous meetings, of course, like one that involves a farmer who has fed too much sugary treats to their favorite crab. Most lead you to something helpful, though — an unforeseen passage or some new bit of intel that might unlock another way ahead.

Notable Events and Missed Possibilities

In one notable incident, you can encounter a Defender runaway near the overpass who's about to be executed. No mission is linked to it, and the sole method to discover it is by exploring and hearing the background conversation. If you're quick and sufficiently cautious not to let him get defeated, you can save him (and then protect his deserter lover from getting eliminated by creatures in their lair later), but more pertinent to the task at hand is a electrical conduit obscured in the foliage nearby. If you track it, you'll locate a concealed access point to the transmission center. There's a different access point to the station's underground tunnels stashed in a cavern that you may or may not observe depending on when you pursue a particular ally mission. You can find an easily missable person who's key to preserving a life down the line. (And there's a stuffed animal who indirectly convinces a group of troops to fight with you, if you're considerate enough to rescue it from a explosive area.) This beginning section is rich and exciting, and it seems like it's full of substantial plot opportunities that rewards you for your inquisitiveness.

Fading Anticipations

Outer Worlds 2 fails to meet those initial expectations again. The second main area is arranged comparable to a level in the first Outer Worlds or Avowed — a expansive territory dotted with points of interest and optional missions. They're all thematically relevant to the struggle between Auntie's Option and the Order of the Ascendant, but they're also vignettes separated from the main story narratively and spatially. Don't anticipate any world-based indicators directing you to new choices like in the initial area.

In spite of compelling you to choose some hard calls, what you do in this region's secondary tasks doesn't matter. Like, it really doesn't matter, to the point where whether you allow violations or guide a band of survivors to their death culminates in nothing but a throwaway line or two of conversation. A game isn't required to let every quest impact the story in some significant, theatrical manner, but if you're forcing me to decide a group and acting as if my selection matters, I don't think it's irrational to hope for something more when it's over. When the game's already shown that it is capable of more, anything less feels like a concession. You get additional content like Obsidian promised, but at the cost of complexity.

Daring Ideas and Missing Tension

The game's intermediate phase attempts a comparable approach to the main setup from the initial world, but with distinctly reduced flair. The idea is a courageous one: an interconnected mission that covers two planets and encourages you to solicit support from various groups if you want a smoother path toward your aim. Beyond the repeated framework being a little tiresome, it's also lacking the suspense that this type of situation should have. It's a "deal with the demon" moment. There should be tough compromise. Your association with any group should count beyond earning their approval by doing new tasks for them. Everything is missing, because you can simply rush through on your own and achieve the goal anyway. The game even goes out of its way to give you ways of accomplishing this, indicating alternate routes as optional objectives and having allies tell you where to go.

It's a consequence of a larger problem in Outer Worlds 2: the anxiety of letting you be unhappy with your choices. It regularly goes too far out of its way to guarantee not only that there's an alternate route in many situations, but that you know it exists. Locked rooms almost always have various access ways marked, or nothing worthwhile internally if they do not. If you {can't