It's been a while since I posted, and the reason is that I've been laid out with the worst cold I've had in a long time! But one thing I was able to do while lying on the couch was play a few hours of Obsidian's new first-person RPG, The Outer Worlds, and these are some of my thoughts.
I'm keeping this as spoiler-free as I can, and I'm not too far into the game anyway, but if you're super worried about spoilers, this is your warning.
What's It About?
The Outer Worlds is a first-person RPG that takes place in the far future, in a solar system colonized by a group of 10 corporations. While most residents of the system's planets are people who work for those corporations, you are a refugee from a colony ship that launched 70 years prior, and subsequently disappeared. I won't spoil anything about how you get to be where you are at the beginning of the game, but suffice it to say that you're an outsider in this particular group of planets.
The beginning of the game starts you off on a quest that will take you several hours or more to complete, depending on how rigorous a player you are and how many side quests you take on (and there are lots of them available). During this quest, you'll become familiar with the game's world and some of the corporations that have settled the solar system. You'll also become familiar with the tone of the game, which is some dark satire along the lines of the recent Fallout games.
And speaking of Fallout, let me talk a little bit about the gameplay.
How Does It Work?
As you may know, Obsidian has partnered with Bethesda on some of the rebooted Fallout games from the last decade or so. Most notable, Obsidian developed Fallout: New Vegas, which was sort of a a standalone expansion for Fallout 3.
If you've played any of those Fallout games, then The Outer Worlds is going to seem very familiar. It seems almost as if Obsidian had started in on another Fallout game, had it canceled on them, and decided to rebuild it as a new IP. That's just my speculation, and I have no idea whether it's true, but The Outer Worlds is very similar in both gameplay and atmosphere to Fallout.
And that's a good thing! I loved the Fallout games and this is a great game to play while waiting for the next one to be released. And The Outer Worlds works well on its own merits. Obsidian and its founders have a long pedigree, and have worked on some legendary RPGs, including Planescape: Torment, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, and, more recently, Pillars of Eternity. They really know RPGs, and if you've played their previous games, you'll recognize some of their signature touches, like the relatively intricate relationships between your party members.
If you're not familiar with the Fallout games, then you'll find that The Outer Worlds plays like a first-person action RPG, heavy on story and dialog. You have your choice of melee or range weapons, and there's a game mechanic of slowing down time (in limited amounts) in case combat gets overwhelming. In addition to many well-fleshed-out NPCs that you'll meet in your adventures, you'll build up a party of companions, and you're able to select up to two of them to accompany you at any given time. Companions are AI-controlled in combat, although you can tweak their AI settings and manage their equipment.
In terms of difficulty, there are four difficulty levels built into the game, and you can change your difficulty level anytime you're not in combat. I'm playing on normal difficulty, which is the second-to-easiest setting, since I'm terrible at first person games, and it's pretty bearable--about as difficult, in fact, as the Fallout games at the same difficulty setting.
My one complaint is that Obsidian saw fit to include a wear mechanic for weapons and armor in this game, similar to the one in Fallout: New Vegas, which I don't find especially fun. It means that your weapons and armor get less effective over time, and you'll either have to pay through the nose to have merchants repair them, or you'll have to search endlessly for parts in order to do your own repairs. Not my cup of tea, and something that Bethesda removed in Fallout 4.
On the other hand, that's the worst complaint I have about the game so far, and I think that's pretty good.
What's the Setting?
Where Fallout mastered the American cold-war art and feeling of the 1950s and 1960s, The Outer Worlds looks further back in American history to the Frontier era, and particularly the art style that was prevalent around the time of the Gold Rush in the mid-1800s (although some of the art you see--movie posters in particular--looks a bit later, like the 1930s and '40s).
The feeling of the game and the environments you find--at least as far as I've ventured into the game--is similar. You'll buildings in towns that look like they're straight out of the Old West, although the actual purpose of those towns is less Wild-West and more centered around mining and other early industry. NPCs are dressed to match.
Of course, this is taking place out at the edge of the galaxy, so there's as much science-fiction technology scattered throughout The Outer Worlds as there are old-timey advertisements. There are robots a-plenty, as well as plasma guns, spaceships, and everything else you'd expect...though all that tech has a touch of Jules Verne to it, as well.
Final Thoughts (For Now)
In the end, it's kind of inevitable to compare The Outer Worlds to the Fallout series, as I have throughout this review. The games are just so similar in terms of game mechanics and overall feel. In fact, when she saw the trailer for this game, my wife said "Oh, it's Space Fallout." She wasn't wrong.
But, I'm okay with that. I loved the Fallout games, and the similarities just make The Outer Worlds feel comfortable and easy to start playing. As a longtime fan of Obsidian's games, I trust them to deliver a new story that's fresh and doesn't feel derivative, and so far, I'm not disappointed. So where some people are going to review this game as a Fallout knockoff, I'm just happy to have a fun and engaging game from Obsidian to play.
I'm sure I'll post more about The Outer Worlds when I finish it, which probably won't take too long at the rate I'm going. In the meantime, if you've played it, or played the Fallout games, or just want to talk about RPGs, hit me up in the comments.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that The Outer Worlds came out last Friday, the 25th, and it's available for Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Windows. Obsidian says a Nintendo Switch version is coming in 2020.