After the smash hit Fallout: New Vegas was in my opinion, many Fallout fans like myself wondered if Bethesda could ever live up to Obsidian's reputation. After Fallout 4's many flaws, like taking away many features the previous games had, many fans including myself were weary of the direction Bethesda would take the series in the future. When Fallout 76 had come around, the fanbase knew that Fallout had become a shell of its former glory. While New Vegas was unfinished in many aspects, the game is still revered as Obsidian's magnum opus. And with Obsidian's newest game, "The Outer Worlds" taking inspiration from Fallout, it's a treat to see what Obsidian could do with years of development as opposed to the 18 months they had working on Fallout: New Vegas.
Going into this game, you are greeted with the option to choose your perks right off the bat and you can create your own character. I do like the freedom you have when creating your character and you can even add stuff like facial hair to female characters which really spices things up and reminds me of games like Saint's Row and upcoming title, Cyberpunk 2077 where you can mix and match with the character creation, which I feel more games should really do for a more tailored experience towards the player. The perks system doesn't feel as daunting as the Vit-o-matic Vigor Tester in New Vegas did and from what I've done with it so far, it does what it's supposed to. It lets you be pretty much whatever you want in Halcyon and you aren't confined to one specific role. While having a set character isn't specifically bad in any way, it really limits as to what you can do as your character. Games like Skyrim pit you as the chosen, or as they call it: "Dragonborn". You are forced into this role as Dragonborn and you have to get over it. In The Outer Worlds, you can be whoever you want. You have so much freedom to roleplay as whoever you want, and you can even have flaws with your characters too, like taking stagger damage when you fall from larger heights. This is how roleplaying should be in my opinion. I don't want to be this god of gods that can destroy anything in my path. I just want to be myself, and this game delivers on that really well.
After creating your character, you are greeted to Phineas Welles, a terrorist wanted across Halcyon and also looks a lot like Rick Sanchez?, which is the part of Space that the game takes place in. You have been in hibernation for a long time and you've just awakened. You are then sent on Terra-2 to find a man named Alex Hawthorne and his ship, but he is inadvertently killed upon landing. This is basically the game’s way of introducing you to the main core aspects about the game. You are introduced to the game’s version of what seems to be VATS called Time Dilation. It’s basically Fallout 4’s version of VATS, but it’s nerfed in a way. You cannot target body parts like the head, arms, torso, etc. It’s all in real time while slowing down time. You are then introduced to the dialogue system, which is much better than Fallout 4’s dialogue wheel which gave very vague options. After conversing with some NPCs and killing some marauders, we reach our ship, The Unreliable, which is in need of a power regulator. You are introduced to your first town, Edgewater, which is a corporate-run town that is more of a factory than a town. Meeting Reed Tobson, you are told to convince the Deserters, a faction that basically left Edgewater to either come back, or cut off their power supply. You are then greeted your first companion, Parvati, who is my favorite companion of the 6 you encounter. When you go to the Deserters’ hideout, you meet Adelaide McDevitt, who gives you the option to cut off Edgewater’s power supply for THEIR power regulator, which will put everyone else out of work there. When I first came to this quest, my first thought was to side with the Deserters because screw the corporations, but after talking to the residents of Edgewater and getting their opinions on the town, pretty much all of them came to the conclusion that they love the town. Sure there’s the corporate side of the town that plagues it, but it ultimately is their home to them. I then talked to the Deserters and when they gave their reasons, they showed their disdain for Tobson. Adelaide especially held a grudge against Tobson for the death of her son. When I went to make my decision, my companion Parvati had piped in and told me she would prefer if I sided with Edgewater, saying that I would be putting multiple people out of work and they’d lose their stability, even though yes, it’s very rudimentary. She also brought up Adelaide McDevitt’s place in this and how this is just a personal vendetta to get back at them for her son dying. And so you have to decide; are you a corporate shill, orare you willing to do what it takes to help the common man? That’s what I love about Obsidian’s storytelling. There’s multiple layers to every choice that you may want to make, which leads to a moral conundrum that you have to decide for yourself. The choices seem black and white at first, but once you delve deeper into your options, you face a mental battle that you have to decide for yourself what your outcome will be and that shines really, REALLY well in this game. Games like Fallout 3 had it to where you could blow up Megaton, which is obviously bad, or don’t blow up Megaton, which is obviously good, very black and white situations there where as in this game, there is no right or wrong. It is up to you to decide the outcome for situations like these. I spent almost 30 minutes thinking about what I wanted to do and I ultimately decided to side with the Deserters because while it may be doom and gloom for Edgewater for now, I felt that in the long run, this will ultimately be a good choice for the city and some good will arise from this now troubled conflict, finding a life of freedom from the corporate structures of this town. After I went back to the town, seeing the citizens wondering what’s going on, I went to talk to Reed Tobson and seeing how understandably mad and heartbroken he was, I genuinely felt for him and Parvati when she made her case. He first came off as a corporate shill and on some level he still is, but he genuinely cared about Edgewater’s wellbeing and wanted the town to thrive. He came off as a villain-type character at first, but after siding with the Deserters, he showed this side that we never saw at first, and that makes him feel much more human than a generic villain. It’s such an amazing aspect that this game delivers on very well.
A cool aspect that this game also has is that you can travel to multiple planets. It’s not this sandbox-type game like Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim, etc., but it’s basically multiple worlds into one and each planet you go to feels unique in and of itself. You have one place that’s not really a planet, but a huge ship that’s basically a town inside the ship. You also have planets with its own type of fauna and monsters, and the different worlds are visually lush and detailed, but they aren’t the best graphically. The graphics aren’t on par with titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, but I’m fine with that. You’ve also got the combat which plays like Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4 with the shooting and stuff like that. It even has a shrink ray. How creative can you get with that? It’s a first person RPG at its core with shooter elements rather than a shooter with RPG mechanics.
All in all, the game seems worth the money and I’m really enjoying it. I really hope Bethesda returns to form with Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI and I know they can. It feels like Obsidian’s filled a void that Bethesda seemingly left behind with their single-player titles and if Obsidian can do this amazing with this game, I can only imagine what they can do with a game like The Outer Worlds 2 or a title like that in the future. I love the Fallout-esque style this game goes for and they really nailed it out of the park with this game. I highly recommend this game to RPG fans and especially Fallout fans.
Final Score: 10/10
