The thing about The Outer Worlds is that it got announced back when I beat Fallout: New Vegas for the first time, and since I loved that game and my appreciation for it has only grown with each subsequent playthrough, my excitement for Obsidian's next action RPG was through the roof. Despite the strength of my anticipation for this game, I never ended up buying it, and I'm not sure if it was because of the game's middling reception scaring me off or something like that, but I was still really excited to play it years later. When I went to the video store last week and picked up DVD copies of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Severance, I also came across the Nintendo Switch port of The Outer Worlds, and after noticing how much cheaper this copy of the game was than its price on the PlayStation store, I thought "Why not?" and decided to buy it.
For me, the highlight of Obsidian's games (and, by extension, Black Isle Studios' games) has always been in their writing, and The Outer Worlds is no exception. The Halcyon system and its planets were as interesting to learn about through exchanges and terminal logs as they were to explore, and the hypercorporate space colony setting is populated with a whole slew of interesting, funny, and eccentric characters that you can choose to either befriend, rebuff, kill, or ignore entirely. Speaking of which, the companions that can join you aboard the Unreliable were easily my favorite characters in the game, as helping them reconcile with their mistakes, desires, and views made the team that I had built throughout the game feel like a real found family. Unlike so many other games that let you make good or bad decisions, the choices here in The Outer Worlds have actual moral weight to them, and there were several moments where I felt genuinely bad about doing what I had initially thought was the right thing due to their horrible consequences. The game's relentless and blunt satire on greed, capitalism, consumerism, and bureaucracy is front-&-center in every one of the game's planets, missions, and even items, but it all struck a delicate balance by being entirely unsubtle while also never coming off as annoying or overbearing, and this meant that The Outer Worlds actually benefitted from its in-your-face approach to delivering its themes.
One of my favorite aspects of Fallout: New Vegas would be how your skills and perks were just as important in conversations as they were in combat by giving you the chance to let others trust you or give you what you want, so I was really glad to see that feature make its way to The Outer Worlds, and while I was disappointed to see the exclusion of the intentionally bad dialogue options that would show up if your skill level for that specific choice wasn't high enough, it still made conversations feel really dynamic. The writing was easily my favorite aspect of the game, but the combat here in The Outer Worlds was pretty fun as well, as the varied selection of weapons and multitude of ways to upgrade your arsenal and abilities allowed me to really personalize my playstyle. Despite how much fun I had with The Outer Worlds, though, I will say that I kind of regret going with the Nintendo Switch port rather than just waiting for it to go on sale somewhere else. Don't get me wrong, this game looked and ran pretty well on my Switch, but if you have the option to play it on something else, then I recommend you do so. Even with that in mind, though, I was still able to appreciate The Outer Worlds for the great game that it was, and although I was a little disappointed to see its sequel get announced as an Xbox exclusive, I am a little hopeful that it'll eventually get ported to other systems like some of their other exclusives.
For me, the highlight of Obsidian's games (and, by extension, Black Isle Studios' games) has always been in their writing, and The Outer Worlds is no exception. The Halcyon system and its planets were as interesting to learn about through exchanges and terminal logs as they were to explore, and the hypercorporate space colony setting is populated with a whole slew of interesting, funny, and eccentric characters that you can choose to either befriend, rebuff, kill, or ignore entirely. Speaking of which, the companions that can join you aboard the Unreliable were easily my favorite characters in the game, as helping them reconcile with their mistakes, desires, and views made the team that I had built throughout the game feel like a real found family. Unlike so many other games that let you make good or bad decisions, the choices here in The Outer Worlds have actual moral weight to them, and there were several moments where I felt genuinely bad about doing what I had initially thought was the right thing due to their horrible consequences. The game's relentless and blunt satire on greed, capitalism, consumerism, and bureaucracy is front-&-center in every one of the game's planets, missions, and even items, but it all struck a delicate balance by being entirely unsubtle while also never coming off as annoying or overbearing, and this meant that The Outer Worlds actually benefitted from its in-your-face approach to delivering its themes.
One of my favorite aspects of Fallout: New Vegas would be how your skills and perks were just as important in conversations as they were in combat by giving you the chance to let others trust you or give you what you want, so I was really glad to see that feature make its way to The Outer Worlds, and while I was disappointed to see the exclusion of the intentionally bad dialogue options that would show up if your skill level for that specific choice wasn't high enough, it still made conversations feel really dynamic. The writing was easily my favorite aspect of the game, but the combat here in The Outer Worlds was pretty fun as well, as the varied selection of weapons and multitude of ways to upgrade your arsenal and abilities allowed me to really personalize my playstyle. Despite how much fun I had with The Outer Worlds, though, I will say that I kind of regret going with the Nintendo Switch port rather than just waiting for it to go on sale somewhere else. Don't get me wrong, this game looked and ran pretty well on my Switch, but if you have the option to play it on something else, then I recommend you do so. Even with that in mind, though, I was still able to appreciate The Outer Worlds for the great game that it was, and although I was a little disappointed to see its sequel get announced as an Xbox exclusive, I am a little hopeful that it'll eventually get ported to other systems like some of their other exclusives.