The game said “every choice matters.” So I spent 15 minutes deciding whether to steal a sandwich. I did. Whole planet hates me now.

It's a good game just more of the same which isn't bad for me I am actually having fun however charging £90 for this is a bit high.

its kinda like outer worlds, but better - more outer and more worlds

Its not the best choice, its not spacers choice! It is the woke choice! Woke game built by wokes for the wokes No FOV. No mouse sensi. Nuff said!

Game refunded because the character customization contains "body type 1 & 2" instead of the standard "male" and "female" gender selects. Those who possess the "body type 2" IRL also don't get to select any long hair for their character as everything is shoulder length or shorter and so you have to enjoy looking like a man AKA a "body type 1" as this game prefers to refer to us as. Aside from the facial features like the nose, there's no adjusting the body proportions of the character, either, which is unforgivable for a game that touts itself as an RPG. It sets the tone for the entire game when you see a lackluster character creator menu that has hardly any options, as the "customization" implies that there is actual customization. We can't trust that the rest of the game has been given any actual detail if the only way to make your character unique from every other cookie-cutter NPC didn't receive that attention. The game actually hints towards this decision regarding the character customization menu (see: wokeness) in the very beginning cutscene of some sort of TV show in this universe where we are immediately introduced to a female commander, who has a typical lesbian hairdo, slapping her male subordinate across the face for freaking out as they are about to crash land on a planet. Her face is squared and chiseled and not at all feminine. Regardless, even this cutscene is problematic and I doubt the developers were being tropey on purpose by having a strong female character and the pliable, weak male sidekick who she has to keep in line like we see everywhere on modern TV these days. It's just so odd to me that female characters are written to be very violent and aggressive and how people are OK with the stereotypes it is creating, especially when even male villain characters are not allowed to be violent and disrespectful towards female characters like that. But I digress, I can only imagine how the other female (sorry, body type 2) characters in this game will look when everybody has overly short hair, the same body proportions, masculine facial features, etc. I can only imagine how woke the rest of the game is when the only people you talk to in the first ten minutes of gameplay are seemingly high-ranking female characters while the male characters are shoved to the background. There's nothing wrong with female leading characters but there's a gross disproportionality to it where the representation is obviously being forced. It's a shame because I actually liked the first game despite how much of a critical failure it was for this studio, and in the first game, they had proper gender selection and not that body type 1/2 nonsense which goes to suggest that they have not removed the impostors among them since earlier this year when they dared to disgrace us with Avowed. If this studio doesn't want to suffer a shutdown like many other studios, they need to return to the era of normalcy. I skipped out on the disaster that was Avowed and gave them the benefit of the doubt with this game, but I won't be buying any other games from Obsidian Entertainment until I see the character creator labeling our character properly by actual gender.

Pretty fun. Unfortunate choice to make almost every character ugly but whatever I just ignored it.

Consider this a fairly mild "no". It's definitely not an awful game. But neither was its predecessor. But despite the hype around it, it largely has the same issues. Most of the "player choice" is for flavor rather than critically affecting the progression of the game story. And the story and characters are meh! And it shouldn't be; the idea of having a hyperindividualist faction and a hypercollectivist faction is such fertile ground for social commentary and story telling and they didn't explore much of anything with it. It very much has the smell of something produced by, well, a marketing committee at a huge corporation, ironically. Afraid to have any edge or do ANYTHING that might offend ANYONE. As a result, it is oddly sterile. This is a game that is OK at everything and great at nothing. Might be worth buying on sale but not at full price. If you're expecting "New Vegas in space but for real this time", you'll be disappointed. Obsidian, like Bethesda, is a zombie company now. Best get used to it. EDIT: Just to address some of the comments: 1) It's a review of a video game. You don't have to agree with it. Chill. 2) No, this is not an "anti-woke" review. No idea where people are getting that from. 3) Choices do affect the environment (what happens to characters, places, etc.) but not really the progression of the STORY. You could play New Vegas and finish it several different ways while having very different experiences. Not so here: basic progression through the plot is the same regardless. 4) I had played through a significant portion of the 2nd planet when I originally wrote this. I have since finished the 2nd planet and my opinions have not changed. I think 20 hours is more than enough to get a sense of a game that is probably < 40 hours long. 5) The thumbs down is because the price is a lot to ask of someone for a merely OK experience. I would really only recommend it to people who loved the original, since that means the faults (which are largely the same) won't bother them.

Something like Starfield. For an RPG game, the character editor is very poor. THERE IS NO PENIS CUSTOMIZATION!!!!!!!!!!!!! But you can make a bearded woman. On RTX 4090 at 60 fps on ultra settings, you have to turn on DLL and turn off ray tracing to get at least 120 fps. The shooting feels very good. But I'm terribly upset by games where you create a character and you don't see them in the dialogues. For me, Fallout 4 is the gold standard. On an RTX 4090 at 60 fps on ultra settings, you have to turn on DLL and turn off ray tracing to get at least 120 fps. The shooting feels very good. But I'm terribly upset by games where you create a character and you don't see them in the dialogues. For me, Fallout 4 is the gold standard, where the character even spoke in the dialogues, which immerses you in the game. What's more, the NPCs even pronounced the name that you ENTERED yourself! For me, it's still a controversial game, but because there is no penis editor, I dislike it. I have a small penis and I want more, at least in the game!

10 hours in and I can't help but feel like this isn't actually a role-playing game. As of now, I haven't been able to make any choices that meaningfully change the outcome of quests, the lore of the world is an inch thick - and this extends to the people inhabiting it. Skills amount to shallow stat-ups and skill-checks amount to locking you out of content- essentially punishing exploration. Just a few examples to demonstrate how anti role-playing this game is (spoilers): - You meet a defector to a group of religious zealots while in their stronghold. She is trying to sneak out, but a cave of monsters is in her way. In dialogue you can either lie and to send her into the monsters to her death, tell her to return to her order of zealots, or just leave. Playing a good character, i went and cleared out the monsters then returned to her, only to find she was now a basic zealot NPC and was hostile. - A quest involves a character that is framed for a crime. You conduct an "investigation" which hides clues behind skill-checks. In the end, whether you had sufficient skills for your character to interpret the obvious clues or not, the ending is binary - you side with the obvious framee and catch the framer or you kill the aforementioned framee. There is no punishment for not finding the clues and the determinant for finding those useless clues is having specialized in one or more of 12 skills - not your own deductive power as a player. You either kill the wrong person or, with or without the right clues, kill the right person. And yes, you can't even choose whether to spare the perpetrator or not - As the conclusion to the games first planet, the game, with no player input, crashes a space station onto a nearby town owned by one of the game's main factions - killing everyone in it. As a result of this you receive a minor decrease in reputation with that faction (not even enough to push you into a lower category with them) and nothing else. You aren't made to crash the station into one faction or another, aren't made to trade a prize or an important npc to prevent it, and aren't able to maximize the carnage for an evil playthrough - and for crashing a space station into a town you receive no punishment. Those are just a few - but they're a microchasm of the entire experience. What is this game? Why was it made? Who wanted to make it? This is an audiobook made one-for-one into a game. There is no choice; only npcs made to endlessly drone on until your ears bleed, your brain switches off and you leave and go make a sandwich. Don't buy this game - Go make a sandwich.

Recommended Hours Played: 40+ on Steam Deck OLED Playstyle: Stealth melee build Difficulty: Very Hard Performance: Smooth on Very High settings The Outer Worlds 2 doesn't try to reinvent anything, and that’s exactly why it works. It expands on the best parts of the original with smarter companions, sharper writing, and build flexibility that rewards creativity. I spent over 40 hours sneaking, slicing, and looting across Paradise Isle and beyond, and I’m happy to say the sequel nails what made the first game special. Character builds matter here. I went full stealth-melee and was rewarded with lethal sneak crits, strong synergy between perks, and meaningful quest variation based on my choices. Missing alternate paths due to specialization stung a bit, but the game offers enough alternate solutions to stay engaging no matter your build. Companions are standouts. Aza became my go-to: sarcastic, deadly, and hilarious. Crew members bring tactical variety too as you’ll swap based on enemy resistances or healing needs, which adds depth without micromanagement. Combat hits hard, especially on Very Hard. Stealth feels great, but mistakes hurt. One standout fight forced me to creatively trap a boss using terrain and grenades. It was rough, but satisfying. Crafting is a weak spot. You can only mod existing gear, not forge new weapons or armor from scratch. If you're running a sneak-melee build like I did, the loot pool feels mismatched for much of the game. Melee weapon variety is limited early on, which makes progressing toward the Anti-Consumerist achievement more frustrating than it should be. Side quests steal the show. Weird missions, dark humor, and faction subplots deliver Obsidian’s best writing since New Vegas. The absurdity never undercuts the stakes, and even small quests feel worthwhile. Runs great on Steam Deck. OLED screen makes the art pop, frame rates were stable on Very High settings, and battery life was surprisingly solid. Easily one of the best handheld RPGs I’ve played this year. Final Verdict: If you liked the first game or just want a smart, funny, and flexible space RPG that respects your time and choices, The Outer Worlds 2 is absolutely worth picking up. Full Written Review: https://nuxgameguides.com/reviews/the-outer-worlds-2-review/ Guides Hub: https://nuxgameguides.com/tag/the-outer-worlds-2/

It's not the best choice, it's spacer's choice

Edit: According to the notes, they patched this bug as of 10/31. For now I will keep it negative until I've had the chance to confirm it's fixed and play a bit more without any further issues. Edit 2: Nope. This bug may be fixed from trigger in the future but my town of Fairfield's dialogue has already been reset and there are no recent save files unaffected by it. The continuity/stability of my quests and overall play through is toast. ~6 hours lost. Probably just going to start again from the end of the intro that appears to be my cleanest manual save. Could be worse but it sucks to spend another day doing all of this again so the review stays negative. I think I'm just unlucky or everyone else is letting some of the red flags slide in their reviews. I've run into several bugs in my 8 hours. One in particular has made me stop entirely. The entire starting town of Fairfield has had it's quests and dialogues reset after already completing them. And now they continue to repeat their opening dialogues. This has made for some interesting softlocks and a strange conversations bug that have, without spoilers, completely stopped my progress. Regretting my pre-order on this one. Clearly needs some more bug fixing.

- Huge empty UE5 worlds which you just fast travel across. Anything you 'discover' is just crafting materials for the most part (not hidden characters, unique weapons etc). Somehow uglier than the first game... - Bizarre instakill fall damage system. The game gives you a huge landscape and jump boots then punishes you for using them. - Terrible healing system that both prevents you from healing too often but also requires you to craft / refill charges - Skill checks require you to specialise heavily right from the start or you will never pass a check - immense amount of visual clutter making combat almost impossible - When you do hit an enemy they take at least 5 hits, regardless of how many head shots you land - Stealth builds are pointless, you *will* get detected and rushed by melee enemies or bombarded with grenade spam - Hacking and Lockpicking useless unless you have minimum 5 points invested. In 10 hours I haven't hacked or lock-picked a single thing! - Weak story so far - Companions are a liability. Hopefully you like RP'ing as a medic! - Cringe millennial writing (expected but made me speed run through dialogue to get to the point) Honestly I've no idea where the positive reviews are coming from. I persevered with this but the combat and movement is so frustrating, relying on vaguely aiming at the huge status bar UI (forget headshots!). The story is so uninteresting I am just skipping through the dialogue, vaguely picking something that might gain me an advantage / item. There are some consequences to your choices but the game never makes you care about the people or factions so not the RPG experience I was looking for and falls down as an open world shooter because of all the combat issues.

A Woke, Soulless Mess That Proves Obsidian’s Done Updated review I can't even begin to express how utterly disappointed I am with The Outer Worlds 2, it's a lifeless, disgusting pile of garbage that's somehow even worse than the first game. I went into this game ,thinking it had this promise of deep RPG elements, you know? Like, it gave off that vibe of meaningful choices and immersive worlds, but nope, it was all smoke and mirrors, just shallow mechanics dressed up to look profound. The whole game feels dead inside, no passion, no edge, just a bland, preachy mess that's so in your face with its forced inclusivity and girlboss nonsense that it made me want to hurl. Representation? Sure, I'm all for it when it's organic, but this? It's insulting, like they think I'm too dumb to notice the agenda being shoved down my throat. Combat? Don't get me started. I felt nothing. Zero weight, no blood, no grit—just these pathetic blasters and enemies flopping over like they're taking a nap. Where's the intensity? The stakes that make you sweat? This is supposed to be an RPG, not some goofy cartoon for the fainthearted. My choices meant jack squat; everything was so fluffy and consequencefree that I was bored out of my mind within 40 minutes of playtime. The writing is also HORRIBLE. Look, people need to wake up and realize Obsidian isn't the studio it used to be back in the Bethesda days, when they dropped Fallout: New Vegas. That was peak gaming,brutal, thoughtful, with real depth that left you thinking for days. Now? The whole place is a woke loser cult, churning out this midtier Xbox slop that's more about virtuesignaling than making games that actually matter. The visuals are so obnoxiously bright and colorful, it's like they're screaming "look how GAY we are!" while forgetting to put any soul into the damn thing. I'm so done with this industry and its obsession with politics over fun. I want games that rattle me, that make me feel alive with their grit and complexity,not this generic, agendradriven trash that's killing everything I loved about gaming. Devs, if you're reading this, snap out of it and remember what made you great, because right now, you're just embarrassing yourselves.

I-i-i-i-i wwwwwwant to wwwwwrite a pppppositive review for ttttthis gggggame, but ttttthere is justtttt to much stttttuttttter. I wonder what all these games which came out recently have in common? Checks notes ... Right they use Unreal Engine 5. Micro stutter, frame drops, macro stutter, sssstttuttter? Don't worry this game has it all brought to you by Unreal Engine 5 - the worst engine in existence game devs just can't stop using. Now I can spend more money for getting motion sick!

If you loved and I mean really loved the first part and couldn't get enough of it, you will have some fun with this one. Pro: - longer then the first part - more locations and clear indication what skill is used for what in dialogue / exploration etc - graphics somewhat better than TOW1 - if you enjoy listening to people that love to hear themselves speak, that game will be a treat for you - there is a bit of silly humour in this game, that might be enjoyable to some Cons: - shooter part is still weak, basically no encounter design (no tatics, no cover system, almost no skill combos with companions, enemies jumping up walls they shouldn't be able to, other times enemy just stare/freeze, only a few boss fights with only one having some sort of what is supposed to be a boss mechanic... I'm not joking, sadly) - companions borderline useless (little control over them, barely customizable, no inventory on them, barely level up mechanics) - stealth part is.. meh. Stealth+melee is somewhat fun in the beginning and some indoor locations. Stealth+gun in the more open areas pretty much useless, just unload your MP or whatever on each mob and move on... why sneak around and position carefully to take out one of the ten mobs that you could have all killed in the same time with less hassle without sneaking? - no lone-wolf mode (was possible in TOW1 and somewhat fun/challenging) - crafting is worse than in TOW1, less mods, less upgrades, less everything but 50 different food items that all do the same - I switched weapons like three times, put one mod on it and used the same armor and hat for one playthrough start to finish.. let that sink in - exploration is little fun as there is basically nothing to find besides food and crafting items that you don't need (see above) - you can't pick locks unless you constantly put points in it, which means 50% of your skill points. Wow. Stupid. Worst lock pick system I've seen in ages - TOW1 allowed at least to open locks above your skill level and sacrifce picks - you can't do that here; then again those locked boxes only contain trash (food, ammo, junk) - in-game lore texts are bad, most of them read like ChatGPT generated filler texts with no relevant information or interesting story telling, just bland (e.g. no comparison to texts on vault terminals you may remember from Fallout 3/4) - most dialogue is of the category "long and rambunctious sentences with little real value to your current mission", you could go with skipping all dialogue and just read up the journal, much less hassle - character progression in TOW1 was limited and simple, but in TOW2 it's even more simplified and runs out of steam quickly, e.g. playing a gunslinger there are not even enough good gun perks to pick up to level 30 - just lazy design - loot progression does not exists, not even near the simple tier 1 to tier 3 system that was in TOW1 - as I said I used a pistol at start then switched over to the unique sniper rifle like 1/3 in the story. That is all the loot progression there was. What a step back from TOW1. Wow. I was shocked, given that the game is like 3x longer - companions are mostly bland and one-dimensional, Marisol was somewhat better written and a little more deep, but if you expect anything near Mass Effect 1/2 companions you wont find it here, I'm afraid (a 2007 game with waaaaaay smaller dev team, mind you) but much much better writers it seems - in-game puzzles are repetitions of "pick that fuse from over there and put it here" - "open worldish maps" can only be traversed on the very paths the map designer intended you to, meaning it's usually a bunch of locations you need to see for the main quest stitched together with long tubes you need to walk. But then again, nothing much to see outside those locations. The important locations look nice, though. Everything in between not so much. - touch water, die instantly - step over a cliff deeper then 5m die instantly - step to close to a gas cloud and die - make every location as vertical as possible so players can constantly die when "exploring" Really "fun" map design. I would fire those level designers instantly. But I'm afraid they are only interns that use ChatGPT. And I mean, look at TOW1 map design. It was not great, but it was okay. Way better than.. whatever this is. The game clearly aims on replayability (stealth vs gun vs leadership etc) but there is not enough "meat on the bone". Honestly, the game would have been better with less filler content and more actual (good) gameplay. It excels in not a single category. Obsidian used to be great at story telling. But this game is not. It's a middle of the road okayish game that you play through once, put aside and never think about again. But if you have 30+ hours to kill. Go ahead. Better than reading the newspaper, that's for sure. But nothing to write home about. If I had to guess, I'd say Obsidian's A-Team left the building a few years back and the B-Team that mostly seems to consist of people that don't play games or don't know what makes an RPG fun and enjoyable tried to wing it here. I hope I'm wrong. Maybe The Outer Worlds 3 in a few years will be great. Or maybe just another run-of-the-mill microsoft game pass experience. *sigh*

I failed multiple times to convice a dude to lower a bridge for me. I acutally had to think about what I would say to him and at some points I just couldn't convince him because I lacked the knowledge or I didn't meet the skill checks. I LOVE that. I don't want to be able to complete everything on one playthrough, I want the game to be challanging outside of combat. I want to have to think about my choices. Loving it so far. Thanks for all the clown awards ya f*ckin clowns lmao you're really showing Obsidian

I thought the game was fun but ultimately I refunded it because it's not worth $75. It's not the right choice. It's spacer's choice. Can't recommend yet - I'll re-buy it on sale.

This game is a colossal mixed bag with, thankfully, potential for improvement in almost all negative aspects of it. On one hand, this is a clear upgrade over the original Outer Worlds which felt more like a prototype or a demo of a much bigger and better game. The RPG system is much more robust now and provides a lot of meaningful (and meaningless as well) choices, the plot (and location) progression makes more sense, the combat is… well, it's alright — and actually pretty challenging on the highest difficulty. I also want to commend the voice acting, it's pretty good. Even the least important characters sound with conviction and effort, excellent job on that part. Unfortunately, all this goodness is absolutely swarming with bugs (this is a game by Obsidian, after all), which range from benign, such as subtitles disappearing mid-sentence, to frustrating (distraction grenades have tendency to fall through the floor or straight up not working at all, and your character keeps getting stuck in tight corners, especially if elevations are involved), to game-breaking (if you notice that other characters talk like they've never seen you before, just restart the entire game. Your story progression is broken now and it's just a matter of time before you run into a dead end. And what sucks is that it works backwards as well, your entire character is busted). Day one (or, I guess, day minus four) patch was, I think, six gigabytes, and surely a lot more coming. Better wait a while. But on top of that, the game is also ugly as all hell. And I'm not even talking about basic fidelity, although noisy shadows and whatnot are very distracting — and that's on highest settings. No, I'm talking about the visual impression as a whole, because it feels like no one was in charge of the outdoor areas. It's like there's no lighting at all, and distant objects lack any post-effects that would give them a sense of scale. Traversing this game feels like you're back at CTF_Face, and you're always one step away from falling into the muddy space texture. Ground looks very rough and has strange green-ish outline around it (especially visible opposite the skybox), it all just looks weird and unfinished. Oh, and have I mentioned screen tearing? Don't play this game without vsync. On the bright side, performance-wise it's not as bad as I expected, and the slowdowns are much less noticeable compared to, say, Borderlands 4 (which just stops dead at points), so there's that. So, I don't know. I want to play this game more but I have to start it all over with no guarantee that my new playthrough wouldn't get wasted. The fact that I spent seventeen hours on my no longer usable character fills me with contempt and anger. And because of that, I can't recommend OW2 in its current state.

lags a ton on the first planet. the other reviews are botted

I'm severely disappointed by all the people out there that so clearly have a tribal/political agenda against Obsidian and need to see this game fail to justify their worldview. Just look at all clown awards given to anyone who gives the game a positive review. That tells you all you need to know. Mindless groupthinkers who cannot formulate their own opinions...They get so unreasonably mad that other people are enjoying this game. What really matters is whether a game is good or not, not whether it ascribes to your worldview or political beliefs. And to me, and apparently many many others, this game is good. Not amazing. But it's totally worth playing in my opinon. It's a solid 8.5/10 from me. I wasn't coming in with expectations to compare it to anything except its predecessor. And in that regard, it shines. It is better in almost every way compared to OW1 except the companions. They are quite bland, and that sucks. A lot of systems have been streamlined and sometimes this can "fix what isn't broke", but in this case it removed a lot of gameplay bloat and padding from the first game that have become tired RPG tropes. Like excessive inventory management and hyper focus on looting. In this game, there is far less equipment and junk to loot and sell. There are no more tiers of equipment, just rarity levels that can be slotted with various mods. This removes the need to tediously upgrade and find newer and better pieces of equipment as you level. But they didn't streamline out the roleplaying elements that actually matter. Far from that, they got rid of the stuff that didn't matter, so the stuff that does can actually shine. Namely character building. No more jack-of-all trades characters. You have to commit to a role this time. And the flaws system acts a clever meta-roleplaying system that connects you the player to your character in a way that other games have not attempted (except OW1, but it wasn't as well thought out). The dialogue is funny and witty most of the time, but some characters talk too much. The combat is engaging and difficult in the right ways. The visuals are beautiful, but the performance isn't great. Needed a UE5 tuning mod from Nexus to get stable FPS.

SO. I will start by saying I enjoyed the first Outer Worlds despite the shortcomings. I didn't consider it nearly on the level of FNV, and I considered it a neat AA experience It's impossible to talk about this sequel without comparing it to the first game and/or FNV. I mean if you're reading reviews that's probably what you're trying to find out so here's my thoughts after like 20 hours: ---------------- 1) RPG Mechanics // The RPG mechanics are miles better than TOW1, and honestly even FNV. You actually have to choose specializations in your skills. You CANNOT be a jack of all trades, and you cannot max every skill so that you pass every skillcheck, especially late game skillchecks which require really high points in specific skills THAT BEING SAID, there are also traits (and even flaws and backgrounds) which come up in speech often. So even if you can't pass a skillcheck, sometimes you can just use your lucky trait, or dumb/sickly flaw, or your background as an ex convict or professor or whatever to pass those checks instead. So yeah. Hot take but it's better than FNV in this area. ---------------- 2) World(s) and Worldbuilding // I like space. I like sci-fi. I like space sci-fi. If you don't like these things.. well why are you even considering this game lol. I liked the charm of TOW1 but it felt like the areas were way too small, uninteresting, or just otherwise streamlined. This game is a complete upgrade on all of those aspects. The scope is huge, the factions are actually interesting, and the areas are cool. ---------------- 3) Gameplay, Gunplay, Writing, and Dialogue // Absolutely amazing. It plays smooth, the guns are FUN. The writing is fun. The dialogue is hilarious. TOW1 had some funny moments in dialogue and writing, but honestly this is 1000% better. Some of these scenarios and characters you come across will just have you laughing -- and I really have no idea how they came up with some of them but it's great and I'm totally here for it lmao. I would give details but it's better to just go in blind and experience it firsthand for yourself. ---------------- 4) WHAT ELSE?? // I don't know what else to put in this review. Do you really care about graphics if you're considering a bethesda/obsidian RPG? If so they're better than any of the others I've played. Are they cyberpunk77 graphics, or KCD2? No. But they're good. And honestly some of the dialogue facial animations are on the level of those games and feel way less stiff than TOW1 Did I mention this game is fun?? Now be a good consumer and buy it.

Overall Score: 54/100 Emotional note: I vent a lot before I get to what I liked about it. A game sold at AAA-game-budget pricing should deliver on AAA quality. I've played nearly every okay-to-legendary single-player RPG out there with a similar vibe, from Bioshock to Witcher to Cyberpunk and dozens of others. Yes, the game is more polished than the original Outer Worlds. But the story never quite hits home or elicits any emotional reaction. The Fallout-in-space art design concept is pretty cool - until you get to the second planet and it's more of the same, despite being an entirely different planet. The diversity of enemy types is lower than low, it's facepalm. Wanna know something that's fun in the moment, but a terrible reflection on game design? You can crouch behind a metal fence in many places and have human NPC enemies just stand where they are on the other side of the fence, waiting for you to reappear instead of charging you -- this is particularly sad when the first planet's final boss just stood there on the other side of a fence from me while I mowed him down through small spaces between fencing. Side quests that take a lot of effort and exploration often give trash rewards, while meaningless exploration, quest-related or not, yielded the only crazy loot finds - and the rewards never had anything to do with min-maxing any particular skills that you upgrade during level-ups. An explore-the-whole-friggin-planet-thoroughly side quest that takes excruciatingly long to complete without using an online guide gave trash EXP and item rewards, while some effortless on-the-way quests bestowed me with major upgrades to my armor and arsenal - again, never requiring me to focus on specialization. The post-prologue first planet was certainly fun in the moment. But in hindsight, I feel like it didn't have real ambition. If you're going to charge AAA pricing, get a better script writer (or a better team - one person for comedic relief, one for plot, one for character development, etc). I feel myself tensing up actually listening to or reading character conversational dialogue - it completely lost its appeal and I'm nearly ready to pray that I end up getting impressed a bit further down the line -- except review articles are already saying that planet 2 loses all immersion and excitement compared to planet 1, so hopes are low. I don't care about any of the characters. The game isn't as absurd or funny as Fallout. NPC motivations are discernible to 6 year olds if you take 2 seconds to consider your conversational responses. Weapon and armor mods are extremely limited and pretty bad. You could easily go the whole game never using one. I like the skill leveling system, but specializing isn't exactly rewarded with anything meaningful - you just have to either hope to develop the right skills to do certain things before you finish a quest or leave the planet.... but the only level 5 lockpicking spot on the first planet has a pretty bad reward. I think it may be the only place on the whole planet that required level 5 of a single skill to activate. Why not reward someone who went level 6 or 7 with lockpicking on the first planet with something awesome that was ALSO super super hard to get to, which reflects how many skill points they sacrificed in other areas to hit level 7 that early in the game? So, major specialization early on has zero benefits; medium specialization has minor benefits -- going jack of all trades seems to be the only thing that actually gets true immersive rewards, cuz you can access nearly everything, and read a guide after you leave the planet to realize those medicine and explosive checks you missed gave trash rewards anyways. Like, DEVS, CMON! Make me miss out on stuff through specialization so every choice gains one thing but loses another, inviting replayability! Jack-of-many-trades (but leaving a few skills at zero) is also the least risky investment, and that's not what devs should be rewarding the most. They should reward every specialization uniquely. But I know it's unreasonable to ask games outside of Baldur's Gate and Divinity: Original Sin to be so thoroughly thoughtful about rewarding all sorts of niche player styles and use-cases. Art Design: The first world was quite immersive and special, but the second planet felt like more of the same. I love the unique creatures and plants, but the diversity of creature types is disturbingly low. Basically felt like Fallout 4 in space with alien creatures, but with a less developed plot and narrative arc, no real character development, a less-compelling leveling and weapon/armor modding system, smaller overall space to explore.... if this game was $40, I'd be singing it's praises, but if you're charging the same amount as Baldur's Gate 3 and Call of Duty with enormous development budgets, then don't deliver a completely mediocre game that has all the fun and cozy entertainment of a $30-40 game, but the expectations of awesome that come with something like Witcher 3. Graphics: Decent, but Assassin's Creed has had better graphics for ~7 years. Having to pay attention to how you unlock a door if you have multiple options to do so for the same door, where each options provide different experience point rewards, is utterly insane. Just... no. One thing I love: dude, where you point your mouse, your gun moves. Aiming accuracy works like OG Counterstrike. I don't know why 80% first person shooters literally fail at making this happen flawlessly, but holy shit, Outer Worlds 2 aiming is legit. Well done there. Cinematics: Nope. First planet was fun, but exploring the whole planet was a chore with close to no rewards for doing so. Just level up less, hit the main areas, and move on, and you can enjoy this game more than me if the AAA pricing doesn't bother you. Or wait for a sale. Or play it, like me, to tide your time while waiting for the next proper AAA-budget RPG release, because gaming is how I introvert when I need alone time, and this game can definitely be fun and cozy despite having no ambition and offering nothing truly new.

Short version: Lower your global illumination and shadows from very high to high or medium and thank me later. Long version: On a Ryzen 9800X3D and 7900XTX i get around 60 FPS with everything to max with quality FSR at 4K but with lowering only shadows and global illumination from very high to high i go from 60FPS to 100+ FPS with almost no visible difference to visual quality. Now i am enjoying the game with 100+ fps without any crash so far, just completed the tutorial section. Game feels fun and like a true RPG as i have counted over 10 skill checks in the tutorial section alone.

Once again, Obsidian embeds the soundtrack in a separate program. If you were hoping to get a nice slice of western/space music to run in the background of everything else like I was, it looks like we're out of luck. Way to disrespect the target audience of your overpriced premium edition guys. There are also a whole slew of moderate to major bugs, including one game-breaking bug that suddenly, and permanently, prevents you from unholstering your weapon, ever again. So... yeah.