Later this week, VICE Games’ Rob Zacny will give his comprehensive review ofThe Outer Worlds, but as a devotee of both developer Obsidian Entertainment and this particular style of RPGs, I couldn’t help myself from digging in and sounding off, too. My takeaway from my first 15 hours with it is simple: Even with its vaguely anti-capitalist sci-fi dressing,The Outer Worldsis more of a familiar comfort than a daring revelation. Maybe that’s okay.
Obsidian’s latest sees the studio return to a formula they excelled at in 2010 ‘sFallout: New Vegas, shifting setting and theme from hard-scrabble post-apocalyptica to intrepid space operatics.
The premise is solid: A scientist with a revolutionary streak has defrosted you from an aberrant and abandoned colony ship floating in the Halcyon star system. As you get your bearings, you learn that this is a system well under the thumb of the Corporate Board, a governing conglomerate composed of the rival (but fundamentally aligned, of course) corporations that colonized the system to begin with. What you do with that information is up to you (and the quest designers who delimit what youcanactually do, of course).
The Groundbreaker is colony ship turned floating city , its main concourse re-purposed into a neon-filled shopping mall. Additional screenshots by author.
Halcyon might be a new place, but it comes along with all the first-person shooting, skill checks, and branching narratives that define contemporary Fallout games. Which is why I can’t be mad thatThe Outer Worldsis so quickly boiled down on podcasts and in social media conversation as “Fallout, but with spaceships,” or “Fallout, but in outer space. ”
These descriptions call to mind a similar phrase, one which was hurled as dismissive insult atFallout 3soon after Bethesda revealed that they were working on the game years ago: “They’re just going to makeOblivion, but with guns.” Though meant as a throwaway jab, revisiting this claim turned out to be key to how I feel aboutThe Outer Worlds, so please indulge me as I revisit decade-old video game discourse.
The idea behind “Oblivionwith guns” was that you couldn’t simply bolt a worn hunting rifle onto the Bethesda formula, slather on a layer of grime and rust, and call it a Fallout game. These people turned out to be wrong, not because they lacked affection and knowledge of Fallout, but because they did not recognize thatThe Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivionwas already a post-apocalyptic game. All of the exploring, scavenging, tinkering, clutter, and heroic individualism of the Elder Scrolls series meant that the Bethesda framework was primed for an amoral wasteland wanderer to come strolling through.
Because the game bounces between locales, expect lots of very pretty skyboxes.
That said, “you can’t just bolt on guns” was also deeply true, though in an unintended way: Adding guns to somethingalwayshas unexpected, knock-on effects. Though the Elder Scrolls games had ranged combat in the form of magic and bows, guns exhibit a unique, gravity-like force that rearranges what is around them. Youcan’tjust plop an AK – 47 into that and expect it to remain the same exact thing.
You add guns to a formula likeOblivion‘s, next thing you know, you’re asking the player to track types of ammo. You’re adding encounters and locations designed explicitly for the characteristics of ranged combat. You’re spending time and budget on making this assault rifle feel distinct fromthatassault rifle. By the time you hitNew Vegas, the loot and crafting loops have changed to ensure you’ll get excited by finding and attaching a new scope to your rifle. ByFallout 4, the hope is that finding a literal piece of trash will make you excited because you can turnitinto a scope.
The point is: “Adding guns” to anOblivion– style RPG changes it into something new (and in the case ofFallout 3, into something that drew a bunch of new players into both the genre and the series). And that’s why callingThe Outer Worlds“Fallout but with spaceships” feels wrong to me. The shift in setting — from desert wastes to a catalog of planets, moons, asteroids, and space stations — doesn’t feel like it adds much to the core of the experience. For all the sci-fi sheen, once you pull off the wrapper you’re left with something with very little novelty ineitherform or function.
Which isn’t a dealbreaker, necessarily. If you’ve been waiting with bated breath to once again hack into computers for lore, hoover up room-after-room of junk items, ponder skill trees, listen to your endearing companions bicker in an elevator, and ask yourself “what could be over that next hill? ”thenThe Outer Worldswill scratch that aching itch.
Expect lots of reading other people’s emails, most of which are filled with examples of why, imho, the Corporate Board should burn.
And frankly, as someone who was disappointed byFallout 76,Anthem, andMass Effect: Andromeda, then there has been a certain style of game (and a certainmodeof play) missing in my life lately, I’ve needed that itch scratched. In that way,The Outer Worldshas been like a warm blanket. It’s easy to lose myself for hours clearing out every side quest in each settlement I come across. I’m eager to wrap this piece up so I can duck back in and play further in.
Still, I can’t help but feel disappointed about the lack of larger evolution to the game’s core structure and identity. Worse, there are many ways in which the Fallout-ness of this thing butts up against its Space Hero fantasy. It turns out that you can’t simply put Fallout in space without unexpected results, too. But here, it isn’t a generative result, it’s an abrasive one.
Take your inventory.I have been a vocal, ardent defender of encumbrance mechanics for years. In Fallout, I get genuine, real joy from scrolling through my inventory trying to decide which junk to hold onto and which to drop at my feet. As I reach my weight limit, I love to pause and weigh out monetary value, weight, utility, and (once home-making was added to the formula) aesthetic style.Cigarette cartons are light weight and worth a ton of cash. Keep. That bazooka is powerful, but I barely have any ammo for it and it’s half broken anyway. Drop.
But inThe Outer Worlds,I’m not a struggling scavenger trying to make my way through the wastes anyway I can. I’m a dashing, daring ship captain. Why the hell am I digging through this corporation’s desk drawer for my 20 th bottle of soda? Why am I slowly going through a pile of energy swords, breaking them down into generic Weapon Parts one by one?
It’s rarely laugh out loud funny, but The Outer Worlds has its fair share of clever lines.
The Outer Worldsis almost too eager to be “one of these games.” Its crafting system feels undercooked and included only because, after all, these games need crafting, right? Its itemization, which sees you replacing your early weapons with simple, “Mk. 2 ”variations about a dozen hours in, hardly brings to mind high-flying space adventure. (And the special “science weapons” which have fantastical effects have felt more gimmicky than useful). Despite the corporate dystopia, it retains Fallout’s “gotta hear both sides” emphasis on player freedom and choice: Sure, you can“Yeet the rich,”but the game is just as willing to let you shut down an environmentalist commune and shuffle the folks therein back under the corporate yoke if that’s the sort of asshole you wanna be.
(In fact, one ofThe Outer World‘s most jarring attributes is the way the political frame in dialog options shifts from quest to quest and world to world. A variety of choices are always available (as is outright violence), but the range of dialog options offered is inconsistent. , as in the opening quest which lets you de-power an entire corporate settlement, your character can inhabit aburn the corps down, let’s dance in the flamesradical mode. as if a different writer has picked up the pen, offering your character only resign ation (or even naivety) as their most anti-capitalist tone. On the planet of Monarch, where one corp is trying to enact incremental reforms, I found myself rolling my eyes as my character seemed suddenly befuddled that the Corporate Board might break its own rules.
All of this is a shame, because the ways in which it does separates itself from Fallout and the Elder Scrolls are commendable and smart.
Instead of one big map, for instance,The Outer Worldsis comprised of a bunch of smaller, more focused ones, with each being a different location in the solar system. This is, maybe, the biggest way in which “… but in space”didhave a positive effect on the design, encouraging both focus and variation. From bleak asteroids to picturesque garden moons to dense neon spacemalls,The Outer Worldsjets you between areas that are easy to conceptualize and complete in a handful of hours. In this way,The Outer Worldsfeels akin to BioWare’s best output (or Obsidian’s own recent CRPGs) which similarly feature locations as set pieces instead of as a large, interconnected world.
The game’s companions are another way in which the old BioWare itch has been scratched. Despite being cut from broad archetypes (the optimistic engineer, the cynical doctor, and the more-knowledgeable-than-he-lets-on priest all feel lifted, though meaningfully tweaked fromFirefly) , I’ve found myself rooting for and surprised by my ships’ crew in a way I expect from Dragon Age or Mass Effect more than Fallout or Elder Scrolls. But as enjoyable as this synthesis is, it’s certainly more of a foreseeable evolution in the genre than a revelation.
All of which is to say, again: The strength of theThe Outer Worldsis its familiarity. It’s a warm game. In 2019, when I haven’t had “one of these” in a while, it’s maybe evencomforting. But it’s not groundbreaking, and it’s certainly not surprising: I’ve always known Obsidian has had this in them. (In fact, 15 hours in, I still think the most surprising thing is how many good black hair styles the character creator has. Which, props.)
I do wish the sideburns connected right but, still, the fade locks combo is for real.
And yet, because itisone of these games, I’m still wondering where I’ll be in 15 more hours. Will I hit the equivalent ofOblivion’s Dark Brotherhood quest, which lifted that game from“ pretty damn good ”to“ must play ”? When I wrap up my crew’s personal quests, will they go become silent stat sheets, like so many party members of RPGs past, or continue to feel vibrant and fresh? Will I get to burn Halcyon’s Corporate Board to the ground, and if I do, will I get a finger wagged at me by a design that, so eager to emphasize options, seemingly necessities a degree of centrism? Or will Obsidian manage to walk that line, allowing choice, showing consequences, but still having a heart and ethos of its own?
Rob Zacny’s full review will hit later this week, but I’m too curious to wait that long. So I’m going to hop back into my ship of typical misfits and pullThe Outer Worldsover me like a blanket. I’d prefer to be enamored, and I’dloveto be emboldened (especially by something that plays so eagerly with the symbols of revolutionary politics). But if allThe Outer Worldsmanages to do issoothe, then in a year like this one, I’ll take it.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings