Outer Worlds review
Outer Worlds ranges from fine to excellent, mostly staying in the fine region. The base game is worse than the DLCs most of the time, but there are some great moments in there too. I really liked the different in-game religions and the factions representing them since they weren’t completely one sided and felt unique.
The impact your choices make are also excellently represented with the different souvenirs in your room on the ship. Some of the souvenirs were very memorable and served as a reminder that, after a long quest when I started to get tired of the game, I had actually some sort of impact.
Another great part of the base game were the companions and their quests. The companions actually talk in dialogue that you have with other NPC’s which I haven’t seen before, and they interact with each other a bunch as well, both in dialogue and while playing.
The rest of the base game was fine. I can only remember a couple of side quests here and there but it wasn’t boring most of the time. I chose to play on Hard, and while the game was hard at the beginning, it got progressively easier and easier until it offered no challenge. Being really OP was pretty fun for a little bit though since the combat was satisfying. Hard is probably the best difficulty if you’re also gonna be playing the game.
Peril on Gorgon
Now on to the DLCs. I was really invested into the few characters of Peril on Gorgon, and finding out what they were working on through text and audio logs was pretty engaging, although I got tired of it at the end. Learning the story through exploration while looking for new weapons and armor to fight the tougher enemies was the best part.
All in all, this DLC was better than the base game, but worse than the second DLC.
Murder on Eridanos
The second DLC was Murder on Eridanos. This one was really fun to explore and held your hand a lot less than the base game and first DLC, while also being a lot deeper. Having to pinpoint a killer was fun and the ending satisfying. Great DLC, better than base game and the first one.
Ending
Reaching the ending of the base game after playing for about 52 hours was really underwhelming. I don’t think there is any level scaling so I was massively overpowered and the enemies couldn’t hurt me. The ending slideshow felt cheap, probably because it was the same narrator that voiced all of the slides, in contrast to this game’s clear inspiration, Fallout: New Vegas, where each character voiced their own ending (or maybe because it was straight up copied (or because the fight was anticlimactic (or because it was so sudden). The big twist and motivation for the next game felt boring as well, as I had just finished two DLCs and was just starting to remember the main story.
Obsidian did a great job on making a base for a hopefully even better next game, as well as publishing their game on the GOG store. This is definitely worth playing if you’re looking for a game similar to New Vegas, but beware that the gameplay and story might take some time to click and start feeling immersive. I’m actually excited for the sequel which will hopefully come out on GOG as well. If you want to waste some time, there’s a really good analysis video (contains major spoilers) that explains why the game felt underwhelming to so many people at launch. My final score for the entire game is 7 out of 10.
Here’s my playtime statistics (53h 43m total, used playnite’s game activity addon):
