Spacers Choice.

Title: The Outer Worlds
Platform: Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PC and PlayStation 4 (reviewed)
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: Private Division
Release date: October 25th
Nintendo Switch Release: TBA
Tl;dr: Intergalactic adventure brimming with personality paying homage to Fallout New Vegas!
Price: £50/$60
Family Focus?: Click here for more information

The Outer Worlds is not to be confused with The Outer Wilds (like I have a few times leading up to the release of this). Obsidian Entertainment returns with an epic, large-scale RPG that gushes with incredibly varied environments, lovable characters with unique dialogue that varies from hilarious to heartwarming. However, let me expand on these points to convince you to grab this epic adventure!

The story follows you! As you are rescued by a crazy scientist akin to Doc Brown from the Back to the Future films, this man is called Phineas Wells. He awakens you from cryo-sleep and wishes for you to aid him in awakening the others who are still trapped in cryo-sleep aboard the Hope, a colony ship that malfunctioned and has been lost in space for 40 or so years. Or if you don’t feel like helping him, you can grass him up to the Board who have bounty on his head but I feel like helping the crazy guy is more fun.

The Outer Worlds is an epic first-person RPG shooter much like the Fallout franchise, in fact that developed one of the greatest entries in the Fallout franchise, Fallout New Vegas which can be seen in The Outer Wilds as it just exudes the same energy from it’s characters to the same style of the gameplay of epic gunplay.

The combat is amazing and I know that sounds incredibly simple but allow me to explain. The Outer Wilds has a workbench system that allows you to equip your various weapons and armour with status effects that either simply increase base stats like attack power or defence to statuses like lightning damage, plasma or even acid with the armour attachments allowing you to carry more before becoming over-encumbered. Now, I hear you ask how this makes the combat amazing?

Well, enemies have different weaknesses like mechanical enemies having a weakness to electricity so you have to switch up your equipment to fit the battles ahead and the fact you can customise your weapons means you can choose what kind of weapon you want to have which status effect. The Outer Worlds also has a system that is similar to the VATS system found in the Fallout franchise but it’s called Tactical Time Dilation but instead of selecting from different limbs, the world around you slows down so you can aim for those critical spots.

The Outer Worlds has six companions you find along the way from a shady vicar to a cleaning robot you’ve turned into an acid-spewing killing machine and each of them has a unique personality, for example, the robot has a very Baymax personality as he believes he is a cleaning maintenance robot and he is cleaning up the universe not knowing he is killing everyone in his path… You can take up to two partners who not only have different personalities but they also have their own unique abilities you can make use of to devastate the marauders and rogue robots of the world.

Graphical, The Outer Worlds isn’t super-duper amazing like a lot of AAA games released in 2019 but these games get a pass in my eyes due to the characters being built on the same character creation as your own, however the environments look vibrant and varied as you explore the different planets in the galaxy or whatever space term I should be using. I also played The Outer Worlds on a PS4 and the game is supposedly better looking on the Xbox One X with enhanced 4K textures and it makes sense as Obsidian is now apart of the Xbox Family.

Overall, The Outer Worlds is a brilliant game that stuffed with content with various side quests from the populace as well as side quests to increase your relationship with your companions as you explore the galaxy to help Phineas or betray him, either way, you will find yourself losing hours at a time each session you play the game as it is so damn engrossing.

The Good

  • A wide variety of choice in combat with unique and fun companions.
  • A massive selection of side quests and content to keep you occupied for hundreds of hours.
  • Beautiful worlds to explore.

The Bad

  • Some worlds can feel a little small.
  • Load times can be a little long…

Family Focus

The Outer Worlds is rated PEGI 18 and M for Mature by the ESRB. The Outer Wilds contains bad language, blood and guts from dismemberment with use of weapons as well as a moment where someone is crushed under a large object. Little Jimmy shouldn’t play this game until he is old enough.

This review is based on a code provided by PR for the purposes of this review.