Obsidian's Sequel Struggles to Attain the Heights
Larger isn't necessarily better. It's an old adage, however it's the best way to encapsulate my thoughts after investing many hours with The Outer Worlds 2. The development team added more of each element to the next installment to its 2019 sci-fi RPG — increased comedy, enemies, firearms, attributes, and locations, everything that matters in such adventures. And it operates excellently — at first. But the load of all those ambitious ideas makes the game wobble as the hours wear on.
A Powerful Initial Impact
The Outer Worlds 2 establishes a solid first impression. You belong to the Planetary Directorate, a well-intentioned agency focused on restraining unscrupulous regimes and businesses. After some major drama, you wind up in the Arcadia region, a settlement divided by hostilities between Auntie's Option (the product of a union between the original game's two large firms), the Guardians (groupthink taken to its most extreme outcome), and the Ascendant Brotherhood (like the Catholic church, but with math in place of Jesus). There are also a number of fissures tearing holes in the universe, but at this moment, you absolutely must get to a transmission center for critical messaging reasons. The problem is that it's in the middle of a battlefield, and you need to find a way to get there.
Like its predecessor, Outer Worlds 2 is a first-person RPG with an central plot and dozens of secondary tasks distributed across various worlds or regions (expansive maps with a much to discover, but not open-world).
The first zone and the process of getting to that relay hub are impressive. You've got some humorous meetings, of course, like one that includes a agriculturalist who has given excessive sweet grains to their favorite crab. Most lead you to something helpful, though — an unforeseen passage or some additional intelligence that might provide an alternate route onward.
Memorable Moments and Overlooked Opportunities
In one notable incident, you can find a Protectorate deserter near the overpass who's about to be executed. No mission is linked to it, and the sole method to find it is by searching and paying attention to the ambient dialogue. If you're swift and sufficiently cautious not to let him get killed, you can preserve him (and then protect his deserter lover from getting killed by creatures in their refuge later), but more pertinent to the immediate mission is a energy cable hidden in the grass nearby. If you track it, you'll locate a hidden entrance to the communication hub. There's an alternate entry to the station's underground tunnels hidden away in a cavern that you might or might not notice based on when you pursue a certain partner task. You can find an easily missable individual who's key to saving someone's life much later. (And there's a plush toy who subtly persuades a team of fighters to join your cause, if you're nice enough to rescue it from a danger zone.) This initial segment is packed and exciting, and it feels like it's full of rich storytelling potential that compensates you for your inquisitiveness.
Diminishing Anticipations
Outer Worlds 2 fails to meet those opening anticipations again. The next primary region is arranged like a level in the original game or Avowed — a expansive territory sprinkled with key sites and secondary tasks. They're all narratively connected to the struggle between Auntie's Choice and the Order of the Ascendant, but they're also mini-narratives separated from the primary plot in terms of story and location-wise. Don't anticipate any contextual hints directing you to fresh decisions like in the first zone.
In spite of forcing you to make some tough decisions, what you do in this region's secondary tasks is inconsequential. Like, it really doesn't matter, to the extent that whether you allow violations or guide a band of survivors to their death results in only a casual remark or two of conversation. A game doesn't need to let each mission influence the narrative in some major, impactful way, but if you're compelling me to select a faction and acting as if my choice is important, I don't feel it's unfair to expect something more when it's concluded. When the game's previously demonstrated that it is capable of more, any reduction appears to be a trade-off. You get more of everything like the developers pledged, but at the expense of substance.
Ambitious Plans and Missing Stakes
The game's second act endeavors an alike method to the primary structure from the initial world, but with noticeably less panache. The notion is a bold one: an linked task that extends across several locations and urges you to solicit support from various groups if you want a smoother path toward your aim. Beyond the recurring structure being a little tiresome, it's also just missing the drama that this sort of circumstance should have. It's a "deal with the demon" moment. There should be tough compromise. Your connection with either faction should matter beyond earning their approval by doing new tasks for them. Everything is missing, because you can merely power through on your own and achieve the goal anyway. The game even takes pains to hand you ways of doing this, pointing out different ways as secondary goals and having partners advise you where to go.
It's a consequence of a broader issue in Outer Worlds 2: the apprehension of allowing you to regret with your choices. It frequently overcompensates in its attempts to ensure not only that there's an alternative path in frequent instances, but that you know it exists. Locked rooms almost always have various access ways marked, or nothing worthwhile within if they don't. If you {can't
