A burst of light hits you as you’re suddenly awakened by the commotion outside of the stasis tube that has been your metaphorical prison.
An old, eccentric looking man pries you out of your icy prison and is furiously screaming instructions on how to best prevent rapid cell decay while stuffing you into an escape pod.
You’ve been awakened in “The Outer Worlds.”
Released on Friday for the PS4, Xbox One and PC, “The Outer Worlds,” developed by Obsidian Entertainment, is a role-playing action adventure game.
The game itself features gameplay and character mechanics that are unique to Obsidian, which focuses on role-playing dialogue and character development between the player and non-player characters.
Some folks have described the game as a spiritual successor to “Fallout: New Vegas,” another Obsidian-developed game from 2010 that is touted as the best of the series of Fallout games.
While “The Outer Worlds” does contain improved systems from “Fallout,” I remain tentative to call it just a spiritual successor.
The harsh oligarchic bureaucracy of “The Outer Worlds” sets it apart from the nuked out wasteland of the “Fallout” franchise.
Additionally, while “The Outer Worlds” features some areas that seem slightly wastelandish, it is only the fault of corporate rulers dictating profits over human lives.
In contrast, “Fallout” is 100% a wasteland because of the nuclear war that destroyed the earth.
The design aesthetic of “The Outer Worlds” is good and the graphical quality is top notch.
While a lot of the corporate structures and propaganda invites a very art deco vibe, it contrasts itself with the rest of the retro-futurist contents of the common people of the colony.
The game blends together to create a steampunk sci-fi concoction that is very representative of the political landscape of the environment in which you’ve been awakened.
Character creation in most games is an important and worthwhile inclusion to most games, but this is magnified in “The Outer Worlds.”
Yes, you get to decide how your character looks throughout the game but more importantly you get to decide what kind of game you actually play from the very start.
While this may sound daunting, it is very much the opposite once the game opens up.
Basically the way it works is you choose the ensuing character’s statistical properties.
Whether they are good or bad is dependent on how you want to play the game.
If you want to be a smart, persuasive character who is really bad at sneaking and combat in general, you can do that.
In contrast, being a big, dumb and strong guy who kills things with his hands and talks like a buffoon is a viable and entertaining option.
Just know that the game is realistically centered around dialogue which makes the role-playing aspect of the gamethe key focus.
The replayability of the game is almost infinite because of the number of different ways of playing and interacting with the other characters in the universe in which you find yourself.
The game is full of meaningful content and side quests that have provided hours of gameplay on one character and several others.
At $59.99, it is one of the few full-priced releases in recent memory that doesn’t contain a microtransaction system and just makes the game itself the focus.
“The Outer Worlds” is a must-have for Obsidian fans and I strongly recommend anyone who enjoys making sound entertainment purchases to pick up the game.
