The Outer Worlds 2

Just not fun or interesting: 4/10 Avoid. - Bland world design, forgettable characters, and a weak, preachy story. - Unfortunately, The Outer Worlds 2 comes across as another clear victim of "woke slop".

Glory be to the Sovereign! This game is good fun but has some tragic flaws that hold it back from being great. I do recommend it, but it can be frustrating. Basic gameplay loop is this: you explore areas, encounter minor baddies, explore some more, talk to people, read lil things, figure out lil things, encounter some bad guys, maybe sneak around a bit before starting combat, then get into a big combat sequence, then repeat. The game takes place across at least half a dozen different planets and space stations, but most of the playable area of the planets wasn't that big, and the stations were even smaller. So while this game is technically open world, it feels more like Disneyland--some sights and sounds that give the illusion of a larger world, but in really they're just paths between rides. I'm not saying any of this is necessarily a bad thing, I just think that calling this game an Open World seems like a bit of a stretch. Where the game really fails is in a fundamental question for game designers: Am I making a narrative choice, or am i solving a puzzle? Many questions are presented to the Player's character throughout the game, ranging from big and small decisions. They're often presented as a narrative choice, e.g. do you help the authoritarian socialists or the exploitative capitalists. Typically, these types of branching decisions are rewarded by the game design equally, perhaps each gaining the PC some reward relating to the faction they support. Sometimes, difficulty is added to the choice. For instance, do you choose to fight your way into the base the hard way, or go with a diplomatic option and talk allies into supporting you? In this case, the reward of going with the diplomatic route is that the combat sequence becomes easier. What this game does, on more than one occasion, is that it presents what seem like moral or personal choices to the main character, but instead of it being a subjective choice, it's actually a puzzle with only one real answer. For instance, on the first planet there's a conflict between the two established settlements, one run by corporatist Auntie's Choice, the other run by the authoritarian Protectorate. Helping one settlement or the other is a choice that is presented to the Player, and it made the most sense to me to help the Protectorate town. But by helping the Protectorate town, I was prevented from working with other Protectorate forces standing in my way. Essentially, without spoiling anything, what I thought was a narrative choice that I was making, was actually the "wrong" choice according to the game designers, and I was being prevented from continuing the story until I made the "right" decision. Here's the thing. A lot of bad things have been said about gameplay that feels like it's on "rails." Games that force you down a specific path, that don't allow you to explore or make your own decisions. But playing this game I found myself longing for rails. I never know what the game wanted me to be doing, and had to constantly run back and forth and back and forth between different characters. Oh, boy, what fun. I asked character A if they would help me and they said only after I get permission from character B but character B won't talk to me until I check in with character C and OH MY GOD WHAT AM I DOING? If you want me to do something, just make it my quest and I'll do it. Don't put in random choices as an option that don't end up working at all and stop the game. This game would've been far better if you stripped away all the extra choices and side plots and just told me what to do and where to go and who to shoot. Open world and free player choice is only good when the game has the world and design forethought to back them up. To quote the famous poem, I took the path less traveled, and the game blocked me and said i was wrong for going that way.