The Outer Worlds Review

Human Greed, Now Beyond the Stars .

Read Time 14 minutes

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You know, space is usually pretty awesome... until meeting quotas is what you live for and even canned food becomes somewhat appetizing, probably because that's the only thing you can afford to shove down your throat. That's the reality if you're a poor sod stuck in Halcyon, a solar system where greed, incompetence, and corruption run rampant, mainly due to corporations that have somehow colonized space before humanity could figure out how to properly run things back on Earth.

This is a place where dreams go to die, the laws of physics are thrown out the window, and compliance is an obligation, not a choice. Forget freedom of speech, basic human rights, or adequate living conditions—here you're less than a line in a random middle manager's spreadsheet, being slightly more than a disposable cog grinding through years of servitude until passing out from exhaustion. That is, unless you're a freelancer—troublemakers loyal only to coin and who don't have to play by the rules.

If that sounds like a good career choice, The Outer Worlds, Obsidian Entertainment's 2019 sci-fi RPG, drops you into the shoes of a nameless nobody pulled out of cryo-sleep by a mad scientist with a bad haircut, even worse social skills, and a bounty on his head. The point is, you were left floating in the cold void for decades, long forgotten by the very same system that was supposed to save you. And now, through sheer dumb luck and poor decision-making on someone else's part, you've been awakened for a very special cause: save the galaxy by rescuing your sleeping comrades... or, of course, you can just not do any of that.

That said, your introduction to this world is as mesmerizing as it is loaded with expectations. For starters, you're handed a multitude of choices that range from selling out your soul to the corporate elite, to stealing everything not nailed down, or even punching a priest in the face, just because you can. The game gives you just enough context to grasp the stakes of what's ahead of you, then lets you decide if you want to burn it all down or play savior, sometimes both in the same playthrough, if having a bipolar attitude isn't a concern for you.

The game borrows liberally from Obsidian's own lineage—Fallout: New Vegas being the clearest inspiration—but swaps out the post-apocalypse setting for a glossier, neon-tinged setting in outer space. The art direction leans into a unique, vibrant retro-futuristic aesthetic where even nature itself has been color-corrected to infinity, painting every area with bright, saturated colors that pop against the story's black-and-white undertones. From towns surrounded by lush alien planets turned into profit zones, brutalist living complexes that are considered scenic, to unbelievably large spaceships with a tad too many neon signs, every locale feels wide-open, distinct, and yearns to be explored.

Whether you let bullets do the talking, lie with a straight face, or outmaneuver every obstacle, The Outer Worlds is constantly reacting to your actions and adjusting course to reflect your choices. Here, you can talk your way out of a lot, shoot your way through even more, and if all else fails, you can just turn back and walk away, no strings attached. It's a relatively robust AA game where morality plays a major role, and with a story about how much agency a single person has in a world where decisions aren't just personal but can shape entire settlements' fates, and everyone you meet blindly trusts you with their lives.

The Outer Worlds game cover art main character

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment

Publisher: Take-Two Interactive

Release Date: October 25, 2019

Platforms: PS5, Xbox One X-S, PC

Genre: Action, Adventure, FPS

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Sometimes You Can't Help but Seek Trouble: Buckle Up, Everybody .

In a lonely corner of an unknown-sized galaxy, you wake up dazed, with no idea who you are, or what your name is, much less what you're supposed to do other than just smile and wave to passersby. After getting debriefed on the situation, we go to meet a supposed ally who is stationed nearby to help us get acquainted with the new life we'll be having moving forward. We then proceed to land on top of said contact with our escape pod, turning the man into a corpse before even having the chance to shake his hand, we end up inheriting his job, his mission, and his gigantic spaceship that was parked nearby, and from there, the whole galaxy is yours to explore and conquer.

Ahead of us lies a small human settlement that is on the brink of collapse—a place where overwork is commonplace, and rebels are exiled, forced to fend for themselves. Everything from overheard conversations about burial debt to the way every item in your inventory has a brand name slapped on it gives us glimpses of how messed up the system truly is through a shadow of dark humor, letting the misery hammer home the corporate chokehold without having to spell it out for you. Your role is to decide what you do with this knowledge—will you sort out the chaos by helping tighten the leash, or would you rather give power back to the folk?

After all, life isn't just doom and gloom, and at first, the world actually feels quite magnificent to contemplate, especially as a contractor who isn't bound by an NDA. The environments are truly so alluring to get lost in for a few hours—look above to see starry skies, ships flying off into the horizon, celestial bodies looming over in the distance. You might not remember the name of every area you come across, but you'll surely remember that one region with a beautiful sunset and mauled corpses dotting the landscape.

What initially sets the game apart is how it introduces its RPG framework—character creation gives you the usual buffet of stats to fiddle with, and you'll feel the consequences of those early investments right away. The effectiveness of unique weapons, dialogue checks, and even the way characters respond to you is all tied to your build in ways that make you feel like you're missing out for not putting points into certain branches. It's a rewarding, but slightly restrictive system in the sense that the game throws invisible barriers constantly, and you're forced to chase ever-higher stat requirements to do basic things like convince someone not to shoot you, or open a locked door.

From hostile outlaws to deadly wildlife lurking everywhere you go, there's little time to admire the perilous worlds of Halcyon, and finding peace requires a fair bit of self-defense.

Meanwhile, perks offer a variety of powerful bonuses that complement playstyles, but the real curveball comes from its optional Flaw system, where taking hits too often can permanently "traumatize" your character in exchange for extra perk points—or you can reject them and never look back. The concept is fairly simple: embrace your character's weaknesses instead of optimizing every stat to death, but in practice, flaws rarely feel worth the tradeoffs we get. Still, the flexibility to keep things optional rather than forced is admirable, even if the game tries to make this system feel more like a big deal than it actually is.

Where the game starts to wobble, however, is in its sense of scale, especially if you're more claustrophobic than the average person. Although early hours tease this sprawling, multi-planet adventure packed with mystery and possibility, reality is that Halcyon is more of a curated set of zones than an expansive star system you can explore at will. Most maps are tight, enclosed spaces filled with a few points of interest, and the "worlds" you can land on are really just walled-in slices of not-so-open terrain, with far-away scenery always staying out of reach.

Likewise, once you're off the main path, the filler becomes easier and easier to spot. There are lots of fetch quests to go by, and while the writing has its moments to shine, it can feel a bit archaic in delivery, with some conversations playing out like a throwback to older RPGs rather than a modern evolution. The satire is acidic without trying too hard, but interactions with NPCs can come across as hollow or emotionless, and sometimes it feels like you're not really in control of outcomes. That said, the writing isn't terrible, and choices made early on ripple through the story in small but satisfying ways. What drags it down occasionally is the lack of friction—decisions feel risk-free, therefore, much of that "choose your own path" talk eventually starts to feel consequence-light.

Overall, The Outer Worlds is a game that tries to be many things at once, like a jack-of-all-trades, but without a good enough budget to back up its lofty goals. While some environments kind of blend together in terms of layout and objectives, the aesthetic throughline is strong enough to keep you engaged through thick and thin, at least until you realize most of what makes areas memorable is tied more to their atmosphere than their substance. Still, there's something oddly compelling about the sincerity of its faults that makes you want to keep going, even if it takes more persistence than usual.

Modern Times Require Modern Solutions: Replacing The Dirty Sheets .

As stated before, The Outer Worlds is a fairly straightforward action-RPG that pulls most of its mechanics from familiar sources. As such, the basic gameplay loop usually goes something like this: land on a planet, talk to everyone who isn't actively trying to shoot you, fill your quest log with errands, and then either sweet-talk or snipe your way through the local problems. It's an audacious rhythm that feels instantly recognizable, but also one that rarely strays from its well-trodden path.

To fill up the gaps, combat tries its best to inject some adrenaline into this routine. As is to be expected, you get your traditional FPS archetypes of handguns, shotguns, rifles, and an assortment of melee options that mostly exist for when you run out of ammo or get bored of blasting foes from a distance. In terms of difficulty, I must say that enemy AI is noticeably undercooked, with a tendency to sprint at you in vaguely threatening patterns, but rarely showing any signs of coordinated behavior. The game sits in a soft middle ground, never asking too much of the player, and tactics take a backseat to raw stats, which means most fights often don't go beyond aiming for the head and hoping for the best, feeling more like speed bumps than actual tests of skill.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, loot is plentiful but rarely exciting. Most guns and armor vary in quality, and their upgrades mostly affect damage types to exploit enemy resistances rather than altering how you approach combat. Likewise, better gear is easily accessible, and you tend to get higher numbers by traveling to different locations and looting whatever container or corpse you come across. This wouldn't be a problem if progression felt better tuned, but it's frustrating when you buy a shiny new suit of armor only for it to be obsolete by the next roundabout of quests. There's no sense of long-term investment in your equipment, just a constant cycle of replacing what you currently have with the next best stat stick, which starts to feel more like spring cleaning than actual looting.

Aside from that, weapon durability returns as a mechanic nobody asked for, slowly degrading your gear until you haul it back to a workbench for repairs or pay a vendor to do the same. On paper, it's meant to encourage maintenance and resource management, but in practice, it just serves to create friction between you and the fun parts of the game. It doesn't help with immersion, it doesn't deepen the systems, and it never really forces any hard decisions—just another task to distract you. It's the kind of design carryover that feels dated even by older RPG standards, and its inclusion here adds nothing beyond mild annoyance.

Most foes we find aren't shy about closing the distance and getting up close and personal, but thankfully, the combat systems make it fairly manageable to keep threats at bay.

As for something positive, one of the game's more interesting mechanics is the companion system, where you can bring two followers along on your ventures, each with unique abilities, personalities, and passive bonuses that slightly complement your build. In combat, they're helpful if a bit dumb, but their true strength lies in their dialogue interjections and how they influence social encounters. If you're walking into a conversation and your companion has ties to the faction involved, they might chime in, offer context, or even alter the outcome of specific encounters—it's a subtle touch that adds flavor to interactions and helps them feel a bit less robotic. Unfortunately, while companion quests exist and offer a glimpse into deeper character arcs, they're largely self-contained and short-lived, missing the emotional depth seen in more robust party-based RPGs.

And while the game does introduce a few standout ideas, like the aforementioned Flaws system or its stat-based dialogue branches, which can dramatically alter quest resolutions, they don't always land with the impact you'd expect. Thankfully, Tactical Time Dilation rises to the occasion, letting you slow time and target specific body parts for extra effects like crippling legs or blinding targets. It adds flavor to shootouts, but I must clarify that it rarely turns the tide or enables clever strategies, being mostly just an extra panic button for you to press when surrounded by enemies, which is still more than welcome.

In the end, The Outer Worlds feels like a collection of competent systems that don't necessarily miss their marks, but also don't elevate one another to high altitudes. It's a bumpy ride with slightly awkward controls, fine gunplay, and a serviceable weapon variety where everything does its job but without an amazing sense of synergy. You'll find enjoyment sometimes, mainly in the little moments where systems harmonize, but it’s not a guarantee that you won’t drop the controller after collecting your fifth weapon reskin or wrapping up yet another kill-fetch-deliver cycle disguised as an important mission.

With that in mind, the game's core gameplay loop is definitely far from bad, but over time, you'll likely start to feel the weight of its compromises—nothing is broken, but very little of it is outstanding. It's a game made of calculated choices, designed to be welcoming rather than challenging, being satisfying in the short term, but once the novelty wears off, you're left wondering how much of what you're doing is meaningful versus how much is just meaningless routine.

Final Thoughts: To Infinity and Beyond, Wherever That May Lead Us .

Forget intergalactic travel, high-tech shenanigans, or epic fights with exotic alien species—The Outer Worlds is a game that aimed for the stars, hit an asteroid belt by accident, hoisted a flag, and claimed territory. Jokes aside, this is a game that sells itself on charm and style, being a modest RPG that's breezy to pick up, easy to digest, and polished enough to go down without struggle, but that doesn't mean it's a smooth ride. It's a leaner 20 to 30 hours experience, depending on how much of Halcyon you choose to explore, and while its brevity helps avoid bloat, it also limits how far its concepts can stretch. For all its charm, there's a lingering sense that it plays the long game just a bit too safe, and in doing so, it never fully capitalizes on its more daring ideas, and by the time the credits roll, you're left with the sense that it could've gone much further.

Mechanically, it's a mixed bag that is never quite flashy nor impressive, but it doesn't stumble much either. As such, the gameplay isn't groundbreaking, and combat oftentimes feels like a formality rather than a thrilling activity, but the game does well enough to keep its loop engaging in the short term. From beginning to end, the pacing remains fairly consistent, with clear quest markers and enough forward momentum to keep you moving.

And as far as storytelling goes, the game opens with a bold premise—rescue your fellow colonists and disrupt the corporatocracy running Halcyon into the ground—but that urgency slowly gets buried beneath side errands and meaningless tasks. The plot turns into less of a driving force and more of a suggestion, becoming something you can engage with at your own pace or put on the backburner indefinitely. That said, I can't deny that the game's writing still carries a bit of weight, and its tone remains one of its defining strengths. The world is fully bought into its premise, and even when the satire dips into cartoonish exaggeration, it never feels tonally off. There's an identity here, and while it leans on familiar beats, The Outer Worlds finds enough personality in its characters and setting to feel distinct.

Overall, even though it ticks every box of a good game, that's not enough to carry it past its clunkier moments, and yet, despite its unevenness, the game remains oddly compelling. The truth is it didn't try to reshape the genre; it just wanted to deliver a solid, reactive, self-contained RPG that's entertaining for a while but was doomed to eventually lose gas. And, while some aspects may feel a bit bland, it remains an accessible and rewarding experience for players who value thematic consistency over raw mechanical innovation even in today's landscape. It isn't spectacular, timeless, or a must-play, but in my subjective opinion, it's good enough to hold its own against many of its genre peers out there in the market.

If you're the kind who gets joy from exploring every nook and cranny and doesn't get bored easily, you'll probably find something to love here. That being said, fans of classic Obsidian titles, dialogue-rich narratives, and tighter runtimes will get the most mileage out of The Outer Worlds. On the other hand, those seeking complex systems, strategic combat, or in-depth world-building might find the experience a tad too shallow for enjoyment. However, despite its shortcomings, it's hard not to appreciate the effort that went into making the game what it is: a compact sci-fi that at the very least sticks the landing where it counts.

Sharp, sarcastic writing paired with strong worldbuilding gives the game a confident voice and memorable identity.

Multiple builds and playstyles are supported with dialogue checks, perks, and a flexible RPG framework.

Companion system adds personality to exploration and can influence conversations in subtle, rewarding ways.

Shorter runtime avoids bloat and keeps pacing focused, making it ideal for players tired of 100-hour open worlds.

Combat lacks complexity and challenge, with dull enemy AI and weapons that rarely evolve the core gameplay.

Exploration feels boxed in, with small zones pretending to be vast planets and limited long-term discovery.

Gear progression is flat and forgettable, with loot upgrades offering little more than incremental stat bumps.

Storyline loses edge fast, and branching endings often feel like checklists rather than true player-driven results.

The Outer Worlds

A charming space RPG with great visuals and a nice art style. It's accessible, entertaining, and engaging for a while, but shallow systems and lackluster combat keep it from becoming something truly special. Worth playing, just don't expect to be amazed.