The Outer Worlds 2 Doesn't Quite Reach the Heights

More expansive isn't always better. It's an old adage, however it's the most accurate way to describe my feelings after devoting five dozen hours with The Outer Worlds 2. The development team added more of each element to the follow-up to its prior sci-fi RPG — increased comedy, adversaries, weapons, traits, and locations, everything that matters in such adventures. And it works remarkably well — at first. But the burden of all those daring plans causes the experience to falter as the time passes.

An Impressive First Impression

The Outer Worlds 2 establishes a solid opening statement. You are part of the Planetary Directorate, a well-intentioned agency dedicated to restraining dishonest administrations and corporations. After some serious turmoil, you find yourself in the Arcadia region, a outpost splintered by war between Auntie's Option (the result of a combination between the original game's two big corporations), the Protectorate (collectivism extended to its most extreme outcome), and the Ascendant Brotherhood (similar to the Catholic faith, but with mathematics instead of Jesus). There are also a series of rifts creating openings in the universe, but at this moment, you really need reach a relay station for critical messaging reasons. The challenge is that it's in the heart of a warzone, and you need to find a way to arrive.

Like its predecessor, Outer Worlds 2 is a FPS adventure with an main narrative and numerous side quests scattered across different planets or regions (big areas with a plenty to explore, but not fully open).

The opening region and the process of reaching that comms station are spectacular. You've got some goofy encounters, of course, like one that features a agriculturalist who has fed too much sweet grains to their favorite crab. Most guide you to something beneficial, though — an unexpected new path or some additional intelligence that might unlock another way onward.

Unforgettable Sequences and Lost Chances

In one unforgettable event, you can come across a Protectorate deserter near the bridge who's about to be executed. No mission is tied to it, and the exclusive means to find it is by investigating and paying attention to the ambient dialogue. If you're swift and alert enough not to let him get killed, you can save him (and then protect his deserter lover from getting eliminated by creatures in their refuge later), but more connected with the current objective is a electrical conduit hidden in the undergrowth in the vicinity. If you trace it, you'll discover a hidden entrance to the relay station. There's a different access point to the station's sewers hidden away in a grotto that you may or may not detect based on when you follow a specific companion quest. You can encounter an readily overlooked character who's crucial to saving someone's life much later. (And there's a stuffed animal who indirectly convinces a team of fighters to join your cause, if you're considerate enough to rescue it from a minefield.) This opening chapter is dense and engaging, and it appears as if it's full of rich storytelling potential that benefits you for your inquisitiveness.

Fading Anticipations

Outer Worlds 2 fails to meet those initial expectations again. The second main area is organized similar to a location in the first Outer Worlds or Avowed — a big area dotted with points of interest and side quests. They're all narratively connected to the struggle between Auntie's Selection and the Ascendant Order, but they're also mini-narratives detached from the main story narratively and location-wise. Don't look for any environmental clues leading you to alternative options like in the opening region.

Despite forcing you to make some difficult choices, what you do in this zone's side quests is inconsequential. Like, it really doesn't matter, to the degree that whether you enable war crimes or guide a band of survivors to their death results in only a passing comment or two of speech. A game doesn't need to let all tasks influence the plot in some major, impactful way, but if you're forcing me to decide a faction and pretending like my choice is important, I don't feel it's irrational to hope for something further when it's finished. When the game's already shown that it can be better, any reduction feels like a compromise. You get expanded elements like the team vowed, but at the price of complexity.

Bold Ideas and Lacking Stakes

The game's second act endeavors an alike method to the primary structure from the opening location, but with distinctly reduced panache. The concept is a bold one: an linked task that covers two planets and urges you to request help from various groups if you want a more straightforward journey toward your goal. Aside from the repeat setup being a somewhat tedious, it's also just missing the tension that this sort of circumstance should have. It's a "pact with the devil" moment. There should be tough compromise. Your association with each alliance should be important beyond earning their approval by performing extra duties for them. Everything is absent, because you can simply rush through on your own and complete the mission anyway. The game even takes pains to give you means of doing this, indicating alternative paths as secondary goals and having companions inform you where to go.

It's a byproduct of a broader issue in Outer Worlds 2: the fear of permitting you to feel dissatisfied with your choices. It often exaggerates in its attempts to make sure not only that there's an alternate route in many situations, but that you realize its presence. Secured areas almost always have multiple entry methods marked, or nothing worthwhile internally if they fail to. If you {can't