Obsidian's Sequel Fails to Reach the Summit
Larger isn't necessarily better. That's a tired saying, yet it's also the truest way to describe my feelings after investing five dozen hours with The Outer Worlds 2. Developer Obsidian added more of each element to the follow-up to its prior sci-fi RPG — more humor, enemies, weapons, attributes, and places, every important component in such adventures. And it operates excellently — for a little while. But the burden of all those daring plans causes the experience to falter as the game progresses.
A Powerful Opening Act
The Outer Worlds 2 creates a powerful first impression. You are part of the Earth Directorate, a do-gooder agency committed to controlling corrupt governments and companies. After some capital-D Drama, you end up in the Arcadia sector, a settlement fractured by hostilities between Auntie's Selection (the result of a union between the previous title's two big corporations), the Defenders (communalism extended to its most dire end), and the Ascendant Order (reminiscent of the Church, but with calculations instead of Jesus). There are also a number of rifts causing breaches in space and time, but currently, you urgently require reach a communication hub for critical messaging purposes. The issue is that it's in the middle of a warzone, and you need to determine how to reach it.
Similar to the first game, Outer Worlds 2 is a first-person role-playing game with an main narrative and dozens of secondary tasks distributed across multiple locations or zones (expansive maps with a lot to uncover, but not open-world).
The initial area and the process of getting to that comms station are impressive. You've got some funny interactions, of course, like one that involves a farmer who has fed too much sugary treats to their favorite crab. Most lead you to something helpful, though — an unforeseen passage or some new bit of intel that might provide an alternate route ahead.
Notable Sequences and Lost Opportunities
In one notable incident, you can find a Defender runaway near the viaduct who's about to be killed. No quest is linked to it, and the only way to discover it is by investigating and hearing the environmental chatter. If you're swift and alert enough not to let him get slain, you can rescue him (and then rescue his deserter lover from getting killed by beasts in their refuge later), but more relevant to the task at hand is a electrical conduit hidden in the foliage close by. If you trace it, you'll find a hidden entrance to the transmission center. There's a different access point to the station's underground tunnels hidden away in a cavern that you may or may not notice contingent on when you undertake a particular ally mission. You can find an readily overlooked individual who's essential to preserving a life down the line. (And there's a soft toy who indirectly convinces a group of troops to fight with you, if you're considerate enough to rescue it from a minefield.) This initial segment is dense and thrilling, and it appears as if it's brimming with substantial plot opportunities that rewards you for your exploration.
Diminishing Expectations
Outer Worlds 2 never lives up to those initial expectations again. The second main area is organized similar to a location in the first Outer Worlds or Avowed — a large region sprinkled with points of interest and secondary tasks. They're all narratively connected to the conflict between Auntie's Option and the Order of the Ascendant, but they're also vignettes detached from the primary plot narratively and geographically. Don't expect any environmental clues leading you to alternative options like in the initial area.
Regardless of compelling you to choose some hard calls, what you do in this area's optional missions doesn't matter. Like, it genuinely is irrelevant, to the extent that whether you allow violations or guide a band of survivors to their end culminates in only a passing comment or two of dialogue. A game isn't required to let every quest influence the narrative in some major, impactful way, but if you're making me choose a side and pretending like my selection matters, I don't believe it's irrational to expect something more when it's over. When the game's already shown that it has greater potential, any reduction seems like a concession. You get additional content like the developers pledged, but at the cost of complexity.
Bold Ideas and Lacking Tension
The game's middle section tries something similar to the central framework from the first planet, but with noticeably less style. The notion is a bold one: an interconnected mission that spans multiple worlds and urges you to solicit support from assorted alliances if you want a easier route toward your aim. In addition to the repeat setup being a somewhat tedious, it's also absent the drama that this kind of scenario should have. It's a "pact with the devil" moment. There should be hard concessions. Your relationship with any group should be important beyond gaining their favor by performing extra duties for them. All of this is missing, because you can simply rush through on your own and complete the mission anyway. The game even makes an effort to give you means of doing this, pointing out different ways as additional aims and having companions advise you where to go.
It's a byproduct of a larger problem in Outer Worlds 2: the fear of letting you be unhappy with your selections. It often overcompensates in its efforts to guarantee not only that there's an alternate route in many situations, but that you realize its presence. Secured areas practically always have multiple entry methods marked, or no significant items inside if they fail to. If you {can't
