I finished the Outer Worlds 2 on Very Hard.

I like Obsidian games due to just enjoying RPG’s in general. The studio itself puts in consistently high quality dialogue and multiple paths, so that ups the appeal for me. The Outer Worlds 2 is another first person RPG from Obsidian that can be characterized as their own version of Fallout, but in a darkly comedic tongue-in-cheek future ruled by naked capitalism.

This particular game has some notable changes over the first entry in the series. First of all, there is no longer any weight or inventory management. Probably a win. Second, healing is really weird. You heal quickly by consuming food out of combat. In combat, you have to use an inhaler, which has toxicity, consumable charges that must be bought or looted, and requires you to wait it out before using it again. This to me is a pretty odd change as you seem to be constantly fishing for healing in this game … although it is generally possible to end up with extra healing if you bring along a companion with their own healing abilities.

Flaws are an interesting idea carried over as well. The game catches you doing a certain thing enough times and offers to buff that thing in exchange for some other downside. In practice that’s pretty cool, but in actuality I found the tradeoffs rarely seemed worth it. I suppose it could be fun to do if one was really trying to explore the space of the game on replays, but in a first run they mostly seem pointless, and I’m not convinced the game is interesting enough to warrant multiple playthroughs.

Graphics are nice, although perhaps heavy on system requirements given what you get. On PC, Ray Tracing is a nice option to have, and Frame Generation is a reasonable option for single player games like this. I’m a bit of a sucker for the Art Deco / Gilded Age aesthetic, so I’m rating this pretty highly.

Character animations in this game are OK, but limited largely to characters standing around and doing the talking head thing. It does feel like in this day and age we could do better in terms of more animated or mo-capped dialogues.

Very Hard difficulty can be quite punishing. I found myself frequently being one or two shotted, requiring me to play very conservatively around it given the limited healing. I’m not sure I would necessarily recommend playing on this difficulty, but I did manage to get through it with a lot of reloading and careful management. As a whole though, I did find combat to be a tad generic.

Obsidian seems to have settled into a “AA” game routine where they have:

1. Some relatively squarish maps that are a bit too small to give a feeling of wonder or exploration
2. 6’ish obligatory companions with their own personal side quests.
3. Progression from area to area with a small amount of backtracking.

Unfortunately, I think this formula has become a bit tired and taken the charm out of their games in the wrong ways. Even aside from this, I probably would not criticize too much if not for the other problem. That problem is that Obsidian keeps experimenting with leveling systems and gear enhancement in each game … but recently none of it ever feels that meaningful, which removes a great deal of the joy of an RPG … loot and building your character.

I do enjoy the RPG genre as a whole and this one was no exception … although its flaws are clearly visible. The overall plots and on the ground dialogue in Obsidian games continue to be a strength. Where this game fell apart for me were the sort of unengaging RPG mechanics that have been problematic in the Outer Worlds, Avowed, and now the Outer Worlds 2.

Even so, it’s still fun enough to blow through the various areas and you’ll spend about 50+ hours doing so. Seeing new areas and punching through the dialogue is still very enjoyable, even if the mechanics I mentioned feel under-designed. The overall game feels AA with a sprinkle of AAA in the graphics and game length, but the classic Obsidian strengths are there and the weaknesses aren’t bad enough to prevent an enjoyable playthrough. Worth a run if you like RPG’s.