The Outer Worlds (Xbox) review: A strong contender for 2019's best RPG
Obsidian Entertainment's latest game is an absolute delight to play.
I’ve been really, really excited for The Outer Worlds since its announcement at The Game Awards 2018. This is developed by Obsidian Entertainment, the folks behind Fallout: New Vegas - a game many consider to be one of the best open world role-playing games of all time. Needless to say, when they announced their next game was another open world RPG set in space - my interest was piqued.
This game is also, without a doubt, one of the best western RPGs I have played in a long time, and a strong contender for 2019 game of the year discussions. The Outer Worlds offers players so much freedom of choice, with care taken to make sure every single playstyle is accounted for and fully realised. It’s got an interesting story with relevant social critique, great voice acting and inspired world design. All that, and it’s funny too!
What happens when we let Disney take things too far
Phineas Welles woke you up - but he seems to be wanted by the entire galaxy. Could he be as well-intentioned as he says he is?
The Outer Worlds is set far into a very cynical future, where megacorporations have begun colonising and terraforming alien planets for human habitation - to varying results. What this means is that every world you go to is wholly ruled by a large company such as Spacer’s Choice, instead of a governmental hierarchy.
Obviously, a galaxy that’s ruled by capitalism is not a happy one. Citizens will often open up conversations by advertising Spacer’s Choice products, like it’s their version of saying hello. Everyone works for these megacorporations now, and those who don’t are considered deserters and marauders.
You start off by editing your character attributes while Phineas comments on your choices. For example, if you lower Strength, Phineas goes, "Remind me not to sneeze near you." I don't know why I remember that so fondly.
You, the player character, have been in cryosleep in a colony ship abandoned at the edge of the galaxy for a very, very long time. You're then woken up by a mysterious scientist, Phineas Welles, only to find that the rest of your friends and family are still in hibernation. Thus begins your journey across the galaxy's colonies to wake up the rest of the ship’s passengers, figure out what Phineas is up to, and find out how exactly the galaxy went to hell in a saltuna can.
Spare 'em or kill 'em?
Just as an example - early on in the story, you are presented with the choice to turn Phineas in to the law. This would kick off your relationship with the capitalistic faction of The Board - or you could just ignore them and side with Phineas. Your choice!
It’s not hard to single out what makes The Outer Worlds so fantastic - it’s the complete freedom of choice the game gives you. Right from the get go, the game does a Dungeons and Dragons-like character-building session. You get to choose what your character looks like, what their background is, what attributes they have and essentially, what type of player you want to be. You could funnel points into melee and long-range damage, sure. Or, you could funnel those points into dialogue skills, like persuasion, lying and intimidation - so you never have to get your hands dirty.
Of course, this freedom of choice would be nothing if the game’s story turned out to be a linear snoozefest. Thankfully, it isn’t. The Outer Worlds delights in offering you choices in almost every one of its questlines - be it in the main story, or side missions picked up from various NPCs around the galaxy. Storylines can branch out, change and even abruptly come to an end depending on your choices.
Often when damaging yourself too much a certain way, the game will introduce 'flaws'. You can choose to accept some minor debuffs in exchange for a perk point. It can be pretty tempting in the early game, but it's an easily ignored mechanic later when your character becomes all-powerful.
For example, you’ll come across a quest where you’re tasked with halting a town’s radio transmissions. Now, you can always just massacre the town and all of its inhabitants - they’ll stay dead, and you’ll get what you came for in less than five minutes. However, you can also build favour with the town (as one of the game’s many factions) by doing quests for them, and asking them to stop the transmissions on their own in return.
The Outer Worlds is so, so good at making you think each and every choice you make is the right one. You could massacre the town and gain tons of XP and items. You could also just do the quests and... gain tons of XP and items. Often, murder and mercy aren't even your only choices. You can hack, shoot, talk and find other ways to accomplish an objective - it’s entirely your choice!
The real Outer Worlds are the friends we made along the way
Parvati is the best. There's no shortage of great voice acting in this game, with actors like Ashly Burch (Chloe from Life is Strange, Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn) voicing Parvati.
You will meet a LOT of interesting characters during your time with this game. Sometimes, you even get to decide if they’re worthy enough to join the skeleton crew aboard The Unreliable - a ship you use to travel across the colonies. There are six of these companions, and you can bring out two at a time to accompany you, as you talk and fight through the game’s many quests.
You can always choose to play the game solo and leave your companions behind if you’d like, but you would be sorely missing out. The Outer Worlds handles these companions incredibly well, giving them all distinct personalities and backstories that make each of them uniquely lovable. Just hanging out in the kitchen and watching Ellie and Vicar Max bicker about biblical nonsense is worth having them around, honestly.
Side note: Look, it's a nice hat.
Honestly, I was wary at first about having companions around all the time. What if they were annoying? What if they got in the way? What if they bugged out? Thankfully, I was wrong on all counts. Your companions are perhaps the most interesting characters in the entire game - so you’ll want them around. They also have long quest lines with often deep character arcs, which end up being some of the best-written in the game. Obsidian treated them right. Having this band of misfits and outcasts on your ship just elevates the whole game to Firefly levels of good.
Outer Worlds’ outer worlds
Environments in The Outer Worlds are intricately designed. You'll often feel like your surroundings are much, much bigger than they are - but that's the illusion of good environmental design at work.
Almost immediately after a short introductory prologue, the game gives you a ship and a couple different planets to travel to. You can visit certain planets out of order, or play through the storyline, which organically gives you a tour of the galaxy and all its colonies. The Outer Worlds only features a sample of this galaxy’s planets, and a smaller sample of those planets to actually explore - but it never feels too small for its own good.
In fact, I’ve actually heard people call this a ‘small’ game, but I couldn’t disagree more. Each area you explore feels heavily curated, like Obsidian knew exactly how much they could accomplish with each planet under their budget, and went for the densest environments they could make. As a result, most towns and cities you visit feel impressively ‘lived in’, injecting your travels with no small amount of immersion. There’s a lot of detail in these worlds, so you’ll always be rewarded for exploring and poking around.
Borderlands 3, this ain't
Going into combat suddenly pulls all of this game's darkest flaws out into the light - the janky animations, poor gunplay and bad damage feedback pop out every time. It's not an issue at first - but after hours and hours of fighting, you might find yourself running away from fights instead of starting them, for all the wrong reasons.
This game gives you the standard assortment of guns and melee weapons, alongside some interesting Science Weapons, like the Shrink Ray, to play with. You can also enter a ‘Tactical Time Dilation’ state, which is pretty much just V.A.T.S. from the Fallout series. Time slows down, and you can check enemies weak points before shooting.
Unfortunately, combat is probably the most disappointing thing about The Outer Worlds. Guns feel floaty and lightweight. Shotguns should feel like small cannons, but here they feel like tiny BB guns. Melee weapons don’t seem worth using whatsoever, because enemies can generally be torn apart pretty easily with any pistol you have on hand. Enemy AI isn’t great, leading to situations where they just stand there and get shot at without reacting.
Side note: Ask the Moon Man about his hat. You won't be disappointed.
This game is also EASY. Combat is an absolute breeze, especially when you can collect health regeneration items like pennies throughout the game. Your companions have special cinematic attacks in combat, which just make things even easier, though it quickly becomes a chore to sit through the same cutscenes again and again.
Overall, combat isn’t terrible per se, but it’s definitely the weakest link in an otherwise sturdy chain. When you compare it to the other action-RPG set in space this year, you really feel the sting of its poor gunplay. Still, it doesn’t water down the game’s brilliant qualities too much - this isn’t DOOM, after all. No one’s playing The Outer Worlds for its gunplay.
Conclusion
This game has excellent writing - I swear!
You could finish this game in 20-odd hours. You could also finish it in 60, if you really want to see everything this game has to offer. I highly suggest the latter. Pick this game up and really take your time with it. Explore every nook and cranny you can find, collect every companion and scratch off every side quest. Find out what's up with the Moon Man's hat!
The Outer Worlds is a truly fantastic game. Genius world design makes every environment feel huge, when it’s really just so densely packed with things to do. Quests are snappy, often hilarious and deeply addictive. It’s let down a little by some limp combat, sure - but it’s still the best western RPG I’ve played in a long time. It’s also the best game to fill that Bethesda-sized hole in your heart, I guarantee it.
Now here's the killer; the game is on Xbox Game Pass for PC and Xbox One. So if you have an Xbox Game Pass subscription, this gem of a game is basically free.
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.