If we mention TIm Cain & Leonard Boyarsky, there's a strong chance that the most seasoned gamers amongst you may dust off memories of the original Fallout launching on MS-DOS in the 1997. The CRPG allowed players to experience a post-apocalyptic landscape birthed by nuclear war; a new world cynical of its expansive freedom.
Obsidian Entertainment worked on the Fallout franchise, delivering New Vegas, which is widely considered to be the best 3D outing in the series. Understanding this small history lesson will allow you to contextualise Boyarsky and Cain's new game, The Outer Worlds (which should not be confused with Outer Wilds), a new First Person RPG developed by Obsidian and published by Private Division.
This "Bethesda" like RPG was released on October 25 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. We've been fortunate enough to get our hands on a copy with the goal of determining if oldheads can captivate a new generation.
- Genre: FPS, RPG
- Release Date: October 25 2019
- Platform: PS4, PC, & Xbox One
- Developer: Obsidian Interactive
- Publisher: Private Division
- Price: $59.99
- Played on: Xbox One X
Once Upon a Time in Space
A little backstory often goes a long way. In The Outer Worlds, this takes the form of a brief piece of propaganda about the corporation-ran Halcyon colony. This serves to welcome freshly-woken colonists after 10 years of cyrosleep aboard their spaceships, who awaken in a completely new solar system, ready to join the workforce. It's clear that this is a corporate haven, characterised by overpoulation and worker exploitation. We then happen across Phineas Welles, a Rick-like figure whose vice is speed rather than booze. He boards the drifting colony ship Hope in search of his Morty amongst thousands of humans suspended in deep sleep.
Phineas arrives on Hope with the goal of finding a survivor and releasing them from their cyrosleep (this turns out to be you). What follows is an extensive range of customisation options, where you can determine your sex, appearance, and attributes: Intelligence, Persuasion, Ranged Weapons, Melee, Intimidation, Science, etc. Each stat will determine your ability in their respective fields and will provide your character with several passives, which you'll be familiar with if you've played Fallout: New Vegas.
Once finished, you'll be brought back to life and dropped into a foreign solar system, just in time for Phineas to reveal that you've been drifting for 70 years. He'll go on to explain that thanks to his formula, he was able to counteract the liquification of your body, which is a bi-product of an extended stay in deep sleep. Yet he lacks sufficient biochemical ingredients to rouse the remainder of Hope's passengers, and tasks you with finding them. Your first mission is to get in contact with Alex Hawthorne, a smuggler on Terra 2, who will accompany you and help you on your journey. At least, that's what's supposed to happen — before he ends up beneath your landing capsule. Sometimes accidents happen, after all.
The Outer Worlds uses this plot device to immerse they player in cynical story of corporatism and frequently ridiculous corporate politics. The game is brimming with Boyarsky's trademark black and absurdist humour, which is often delivered with a complete lack of subtlety. At times, Boyarsky displays an almost perverse relationship with the writing, almost as if it came from a place of deep trauma. Regardless, we should acknowledge the effort that has gone into making the player's actions have a tangible impact on the ending, albeit merely in the form of various post-credit summaries. However, they do provide a chance to reflect on the mistakes you've made, giving players a reason for repeat playthroughs to correct any poor choices.
Once you're in control of your character, you'll most likely notice that The Outer Worlds plays similarly to a "Bethesda-like", or at least that it screams "Elder Scrolls". The movement is heavy, the Field of View is extremely narrow, and there are collectables anywhere and everywhere which will clog up your bag space, over-encumbering you in the process. When talking to NPCs, the camera is fixed directly on their face, facial animations feel rather robotic — you get the gist . It almost feels like Obsidian has just ported New Vegas to the Unreal Engine. The engine does do a good job, though visual quality suffers in vast open areas due to a ridiculous render distance, which is barely hidden by an unconvincing fog effect, all of which is frequently interrupted by loading times. Fortunately, this is balanced out by a fantastic artstyle that draws a lot from futurism and is heavily inspired by the environments in No Man's Sky. We played The Outer Worlds on Xbox One X, which runs the game in 4k at 30FPS. The console is forced to buffer frequently whenever the screen is overwhelmed, leading to textures also changing quite slowly.
A Company Man
It's clear that the main draw of The Outer Worlds is its plot and dialogue, but players won't be able to escape firefights or close combat scuffles with the game's enemies. Just like in any other 3D Fallout, they leave a lot to be desired. Combat is sluggish, with enemies willingly bunching up in front of you and humans acting like animals, making us want to avoid conflict at all costs. And for the more crafty players among you, we have to mention Stealth. Sneaking around lacks complexity, whether that be due to an AI in desperate need of contact lenses, or due to camouflage items, which allow the player to stay in Guard's line of sight for longer, provided that you have a badge for that restricted zone.
Touching back on the gunplay, The Outer Worlds has a mechanic not too dissimilar to VATS, from Fallout 3. TTD (Tactical Time Dilation), a secondary effect of your extended exposure to bio-stasis, will allow players to slow time for a short duration. The more you shoot or fire during this time, the faster the TTD gauge will run out. By slowing down time, you can target different parts of the body and handicap enemies depending on where you shoot. Each type of weapon has a special effect which makes dealing with crowds of enemies easier, such as a stagger or a knockdown. This is a good mechanic, but it is poorly explored, as there isn't a lot to separate one effect from another.
The more you fight (or take damage), the more you'll be exposed to character Flaws. These are optional, and may come in the form of addictions, to alcohol or drugs, which will lower your character's stats whenever you're sober. In addition the two perk points you receive by levelling up, you can obtain a free point for accepting a Flaw. This will allow you to unlock certain passive perks, like increasing your bag capacity or the size of your TTD gauge. This system is quite enjoyable and increases the difficulty of your playthrough. However, it can be quite limited, as it can be a bit off-putting to willingly handicap yourself. It would have been a lot more engaging if the game took inspiration from the Roguelike genre and made the choice non-optional, and the flaws themselves more random and interesting.
Of course you won't be alone on this adventure! Or at least, you don't have to be, as certain NPCs will be drawn to you (up to two at once). You're free to charge forward by your lonesome, as certain perks award bonuses if you're by yourself. Yet other than helping out in combat, each companion has unique abilities and offers a unique quest related to their backstory, not dissimilar to the crew from Mass Effect. They can also level up and provide bonus to some stats, which is quite useful if you need a slightly higher stat for a certain dialogue or action, Finally, they will meddle in your adventure, acting as moral compasses as you progress in the story. Everything depends on their alignment, but they will regularly comment on your choices and give their opinion. Sometimes they will be wrong, but it all adds to their individual charms and prevents them from being faceless tanks and pack mules.
It's a good thing that there are companions in The Outer Worlds, as they help highlight a key element in the game: despite the developers wanting their story to cynically highlight and critique the game's Fallout-like society, The Outer Worlds struggle to captivate players at the start. Owing to a rushed launch, the game takes its time in immersing the player, giving them some awful quests straight out of a terrible MMORPG. One quest takes the player to the very edges of the solar system only to pass on a message or to collect a trinket of some kind. Why force the player the player to require a set amount of engineering to unlock specialised engineering, only to give them a quest that rewards the player will a skill book that anyone can use, regardless of skill? It seems that The Outer World is certainly not immune from flaws of the genre.
Slave of Outer Space
Players will have to play at least 10 hours in order to learn anything interesting about the lore and to unlock faction quests, which themselves make the game feel less railroaded. Like in Fallout: New Vegas, factions are back, but to a lesser degree. Your actions will impact your reputation with each faction, though this only has the tiniest of impact on dialogue, most often relegated to tiny asides about "not liking your type here" if you're affiliated with a rival faction. While factions will act unfriendly if you wear a rival's gear, they won't welcome you if you wear their clothing either. In addition, becoming friendly with one faction doesn't impact your reputation with the others, so you can befriend all parties without any consequences. What a shame!
The Outer Worlds struggles to deal with scope, as it promises space exploration in a solar system with 8 stars, yet only lets the player explore 4 of them. As of now, it is not currently possible to know if the others will be added as DLC or merely serve as decoration. Each planet is usually separated into two or three smallish zones: towns that are merely districts surrounded by walls, and tiny zones on the planet's surface. Despite this, players are free to use and abuse the fast travel system and travel is merely reduced to shooting at passing enemies to pick up a bit of free XP. If Fallout allows players to explore a world that is rebuilding itself in the wake of nuclear war, then Halcyon is supposed to be the revival of the human race, 70 years after the advent of long-distance mass colonisation.
Though the ditch next to Byzance, the upper district, is well marked, it often feels like the zone offers a mere snapshot of the planet and the solar system. Buildings, towns, and scenery can be spotted far away in the background, transport vehicles come and go from one side of the zone to the other, almost as if the planets starts and ends within the zone. And as for the Imposter, your spaceship-cum-living space that you receive at the start of the game, it merely serves as an additional loading screen during trips between planets. It would have been nice to at least personalise or improve the ship, or even have it be more involved with the story, like the Normandy SR-2 in Mass Effect 2. The game doesn't even offer a decent animation for space travel — once you designate a planet for travel all you get is a loading time hidden behind a moving icon on a map.
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