A few thoughts on... The Outer Worlds

The Outer Worlds (2019) developed by Obsidian Entertainment.

Obsidian Entertainment might not be the first game developer you think of when you think First Person Shooter/Action/Adventure games. Instead, you might think of them more as the RPG juggernaut behind Neverwinter Nights 2, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder Adventures and Tyranny. But you'd be missing the other side of that coin as Obsidian were also the team behind Knights of the Old Republic II, Dungeon Siege III, Alpha Protocol (which I have reviewed previously) and Fallout: New Vegas. It's these last two titles that I find of particular interest and possibly point toward what we see in The Outer Worlds, and yet they are certainly not the most recent of releases.

The Outer Worlds combines the narative elements remeiniscent of a Bioware game, including the companions you collect along the way with a fist person perspective on an alien and somewhat unforgiving environment. That environment can be due to the flora, fauna or the human inhabitants, regardless, it looks spectacular. Character creation is as full featured as you'd expect, with the ability to tweak almost everything about your character, and Obsidian's twisted sense of humour starts to show itself during this process and continues throughout the game with some genuinely funny interactions with and between your crewmates as the story progresses.

Dailogue is an important part of any RPG, and The Outer Worlds is no exception to that rule. The choices you make in your conversations with the various NPC's throughout the game can and will have a direct impact on the path your journey takes through Halcyon. Depending on your choices you might open up or close off entire threads without even realising, so it is worth paying attention rather than just mashing "1" in order to skip through the dialogue. The other reason you will want to not skip through it is that it is so well voice acted. Every conversation is well voiced, giving all of the NPC's an added dimension and making the world feel a lot more alive than it could be.

Character progression as you complete the various quests and missions across the worlds allows you to develop your character in a number of different areas. Interestingly, initially you can spend the points you accrue to build up all of the skills that fall under a particular category. Want to be good with guns, putting your initial points into firearms will level up all of the firearm skills until you hit 50, after that, you can increase one line, say handguns, as you continue. As you rank up, additional advantages get unlocked, like being able to pick locks using less resources, pick higher level locks, peek inside a locked box before you unlock it to see if it's worth it. Dialogue skills will open up additional persuade or intimidate options in conversations, but so too will medical and science skills as you go along.

As with all games of this nature, you'll have an overarching narrative thread of the main story, but interwoven into this are the side quests and componion quests that we've all become familiar with. There are some really nice touches with these, and they help drive the story as well, rather just being another thing to tick off on the way to completion. As you get toward the end, you are given the warning that it's likely a one way mission, so if you have anything else you still need to do, best go do it now.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Halcyon, running around the various planets, getting to know my companions and doing my bit to save the colony. There are some narrative threads that are left hanging by the end, which gives Obsidian the opportunity to revisit this down the line and pickup those threads with a new story, if that happens then I'll definitely jump back on board The Unreliable to continue the journey.