The Outer Worlds 2was the big game of Xbox’sSummer Game Fest, with a new trailer at theXbox Games Showcaseimmediately followed by an extended Direct presentation. And… It looks like The Outer Worlds 2. I don’t mean that it simply looks like more ofThe Outer Worlds, sinceObsidianhas clearly put in the work to make this a true, beefy sequel.
Though whether it’s enough to justify the$80 price tagis up to you.
The Outer Worlds 2 Is Building On The Flaws Of The Original
One of the key ways Obsidian is expanding on the foundation laid by the first game is embiggening the Flaws system. In The Outer Worlds, the game would track your behavior and offer you the opportunity to spec into a Flaw that would negatively impact your game in some way, but would provide an additional Perk point. So, if you ate too much food, you could develop a ‘Food Addiction,’ then suffer withdrawals when you hadn’t eaten for too long. Repeated fall damage, meanwhile, you could come down with a nasty fear of heights, rendering your character less effective when they’re far above the ground.
The Outer Worlds 2 takes that basic system and expands, making it more interesting and complex in the process. In the first game, it often didn’t seem like a worthwhile trade unless you saw it as beneficial to your roleplay. Is your character really afraid of Canids, the dog-like amphibians found on Halcyon? Then accept the Flaw that makes them bad at fighting them, but don’t expect much in return.
In the sequel, Obsidian is revisiting the Flaws system with a more ambitious approach. Now, rather than a mere perk point, each flaw comes with its own trade-offs. They may be good for roleplay, but they also offer mechanical benefits alongside the drawbacks. For example, if you want to play an elderly character, there’s now a flaw called ‘Bad Knees’ that allows players to move faster when crouched, but also causes their knees to make a popping sound when they stand up, alerting enemies to their position.
But, Don’t Worry, There Are Perks
The perks seem more interesting, too. One, ‘Serial Killer,’ essentially turns your character into the choice-driven RPG version of theDoom Slayerdoing a Glory Kill. With the perk unlocked, when you kill an NPC, they drop a heart, which you can take to gain permanent health upgrades. This is so cool because it simultaneously solves two longstanding RPG problems at once.
First, no matter what the game is, if it emphasizes player freedom, at least a few will interpret that as an open invitation to commit mass NPC homicide. It happens in Hitman, where players assassinate every NPC in a level, then drag them to one specific location to make a huge corpse pile. And it happened with The Outer Worlds the first time around, too. There’s never really been a material benefit to doing this, it’s just a way to test how elastic the game’s narrative is and whether it can bend to accommodate key characters being taken off the board. Killing a lot of NPCs is just a stress test.
Second, you have players who want to take the goody two-shoes option at every turnthat always want to do what’s right, even if it’s boring. They will take the fun out of the game by perpetually choosing the nice choice, never offending their companions, and always picking the option that will harm fewer NPCs.
For both sets of players, there’s now an actual reason to kill a bunch of people. You’ll actually get something for playing the game that way. The people who want to see if the game can handle it now get to see that the game is way ahead of them and, not only that, has a reward waiting. And even the kindest players who can’t stomach being mean will now be faced with the moral dilemma that a little casual murder could earn them a huge health bonus early in the game.
Those reasons are fun, but I like the roleplaying it encourages me to do. I can roleplay as a tortured serial killer, someone who just can’t get a handle on their darker impulses, but nonetheless maintains seemingly normal relationships with their friends. I’ll leave my crew on the ship. I’ll skulk out into the night. I’ll sneak into a house while the NPCs are asleep. I’ll strike — oh, shoot, I stood up and my creaky knees woke everybody up. Gotta run!
