Obsidian's Sequel Fails to Reach the Summit
More expansive isn't always superior. It's a cliché, yet it's also the best way to encapsulate my thoughts after spending 50 hours with The Outer Worlds 2. The creators added more of each element to the sequel to its prior science fiction role-playing game — increased comedy, adversaries, arms, traits, and places, all the essentials in games like this. And it functions superbly — at first. But the burden of all those ambitious ideas leads to instability as the game progresses.
A Powerful Initial Impact
The Outer Worlds 2 makes a strong opening statement. You are part of the Planetary Directorate, a well-intentioned organization dedicated to restraining corrupt governments and corporations. After some capital-D Drama, you wind up in the Arcadia system, a settlement splintered by conflict between Auntie's Selection (the product of a merger between the previous title's two big corporations), the Defenders (communalism pushed to its most extreme outcome), and the Order of the Ascendant (reminiscent of the Church, but with mathematics instead of Jesus). There are also a bunch of rifts tearing holes in the fabric of reality, but right now, you absolutely must reach a transmission center for urgent communications purposes. The challenge is that it's in the center of a warzone, and you need to figure out how to arrive.
Following the original, Outer Worlds 2 is a FPS adventure with an overarching story and many optional missions spread out across various worlds or areas (expansive maps with a much to discover, but not fully open).
The first zone and the journey of getting to that communication station are remarkable. You've got some funny interactions, of course, like one that features a agriculturalist who has fed too much sugary cereal to their favorite crab. Most direct you toward something useful, though — an unforeseen passage or some additional intelligence that might open a different path forward.
Notable Sequences and Missed Opportunities
In one memorable sequence, you can find a Protectorate deserter near the bridge who's about to be executed. No task is linked to it, and the exclusive means to locate it is by exploring and listening to the environmental chatter. If you're swift and careful enough not to let him get defeated, you can save him (and then save his deserter lover from getting slain by beasts in their hideout later), but more relevant to the task at hand is a power line concealed in the foliage close by. If you trace it, you'll discover a concealed access point to the transmission center. There's another entrance to the station's sewers tucked away in a cavern that you might or might not observe contingent on when you undertake a particular ally mission. You can locate an easily missable character who's key to saving someone's life down the line. (And there's a stuffed animal who implicitly sways a squad of soldiers to fight with you, if you're nice enough to protect it from a danger zone.) This opening chapter is packed and exciting, and it feels like it's full of deep narrative possibilities that benefits you for your inquisitiveness.
Diminishing Anticipations
Outer Worlds 2 never lives up to those opening anticipations again. The following key zone is arranged like a location in the initial title or Avowed — a big area scattered with notable locations and optional missions. They're all narratively connected to the clash between Auntie's Choice and the Ascendant Brotherhood, but they're also mini-narratives isolated from the primary plot plot-wise and spatially. Don't expect any world-based indicators guiding you toward new choices like in the initial area.
Regardless of compelling you to choose some tough decisions, what you do in this zone's side quests doesn't matter. Like, it really doesn't matter, to the degree that whether you permit atrocities or guide a band of survivors to their demise culminates in nothing but a casual remark or two of conversation. A game isn't required to let every quest affect the narrative in some major, impactful way, but if you're forcing me to decide a side and pretending like my choice is important, I don't feel it's unreasonable to anticipate something additional when it's concluded. When the game's already shown that it is capable of more, any reduction appears to be a concession. You get additional content like the developers pledged, but at the expense of depth.
Daring Concepts and Missing Drama
The game's middle section tries something similar to the central framework from the first planet, but with noticeably less flair. The idea is a bold one: an linked task that spans multiple worlds and motivates you to seek aid from different factions if you want a more straightforward journey toward your aim. Beyond the recurring structure being a somewhat tedious, it's also absent the tension that this kind of scenario should have. It's a "bargain with evil" moment. There should be hard concessions. Your connection with each alliance should count beyond making them like you by doing new tasks for them. All of this is missing, because you can simply rush through on your own and clear the objective anyway. The game even makes an effort to give you ways of accomplishing this, indicating different ways as optional objectives and having companions inform you where to go.
It's a byproduct of a broader issue in Outer Worlds 2: the fear of allowing you to regret with your selections. It often goes too far in its attempts to ensure not only that there's an alternative path in frequent instances, but that you are aware of it. Secured areas nearly always have multiple entry methods indicated, or no significant items internally if they don't. If you {can't
