The Outer Worlds

 PC
User Score
7.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 2213 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,336 out of 2213
  2. Mixed: 495 out of 2213
  3. Negative: 382 out of 2213

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  1. Cygnusmoon
    Nov 3, 2019
    4
    Before buying, everything seemed so attractive, specially because it was supposed to be made by the same guys who created Fallout New Vegas, and with a similar structure, it sounded like nothing could fail. Well, lots of things did.

    Let's begin with the STORY: The idea and the theme have a lot of potential on paper, however they feel so badly carried out. All the missions feel so    Before buying, everything seemed so attractive, specially because it was supposed to be made by the same guys who created Fallout New Vegas, and with a similar structure, it sounded like nothing could fail. Well, lots of things did.

    Let's begin with the STORY: The idea and the theme have a lot of potential on paper, however they feel so badly carried out. All the missions feel so simple, like they're straight corridors for you to follow without any difficulty, with a great lack of originality in the quest designing, and this applies both to the Main and Secondary Quests. Your decisions are mostly A or B all the time, and they never have a noticeable impact in the world. The amount of NPCs that feel unique and interesting can be counted with one hand. ADA seems so interesting at first but then it's just like the writers forgot about her...

    The DIALOGUE is extense, yes, but to me it was made with more quantity than quality in mind. Every mission, no matter how pointless, features one or two NPCs with endless dialogue which, would be good if they ever told you anything interesting, original or unique. Mission after mission I kept exhausting every dialogue option hoping to stomp on something special. Eventually I ended up thinking that perhaps the good stuff was in the Main Quests, but no, they are barely any distinguishable from the Secondary ones.

    It's not just the lack of attractiveness of what you're told to do, it's the low levels of greatness in what happens in the missions. There's no action beyond combat in the game. Nothing blows up, no cinematics, nothing. Hell, it's a game set in a wild colony lost in space, I can't understand why they just didn't throw some more spectacle in it. Also, it seems like the game forgets about the existance of feelings in the players. It will never make you feel sad, happy, furious, nostalgic. You get the point.

    The COMBAT is quite poor, there's a certain variety of weapons, yes, but very few feel any unique, and even fewer feel fun to use. The kind of enemies you face is very repetitive and limited. Human enemies barely use covers, and everyone just ends up running head-on against each other, your companions included.

    The PERKS feel so little original and useless, they don't change or unlock anything. The character skills aren't that bad, but they feel badly balanced. You can always easily convince every NPC of whatever you want, no matter how early in the game.

    As POSITIVE THINGS, there's the art design, which in fact does feel special. Loading screens, clothes, interiors, neons, etc. The voice acting is quite good. The enviroments in the planets are quite original too, but that doesn't mean they are beautiful or attractive.

    To me, the game just lives of copying New Vegas, clearly a powerful marketing tactic, but it does so wrong trying to imitate its structure. In fact, as far as I know the important minds that designed New Vegas left Obsidian long ago. We all know how dissapointing Fallout 4 was compared to the previous Fallout games but... I would choose it over The Outer Worlds any day of the week.

    After finishing the game and having completed every single bit of content it offers (in 32 hours), I can't think of anything remarkable enough to remember the game for it. Honestly, it felt like I wasted my time trying to like something I could not.    … Expand
  2. Iskuri
    Nov 8, 2019
    2
    I had to come give my review since so many people are raving about how good it is, they all say "the writing is good" yeah it has well written dialogue in a boring short story. Also the combat is boring, the skills dont matter the perks are bland, many of the characters are forgettable and the game is very easy even on hard mode. I enjoyed parts of it but its not a "10/10" game.
  3. Esthete
    Oct 29, 2020
    4
    RPG must have an interesting plot, characters, variability and desirable an interesting gameplay - The Outer Worlds not about that. Plus lags.

    If The Outer Worlds 2 will be, so Obsidian a lot of work to make from The Outer Worlds - a true rpg.

    Many gamers want alternative for Mass Effect, but not this time.

    1/10 for trying make space rpg.
  4. Seeky
    Nov 13, 2019
    3
    The Outer Worlds is sadly one of the most disappointing games I have played in recent years based on my expectations and the disconnect between the review score and my own experience.

    First starting off with the positives: + The world is quite beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. + The game runs smoothly and has relatively low system requirements despite the good looking graphics    The Outer Worlds is sadly one of the most disappointing games I have played in recent years based on my expectations and the disconnect between the review score and my own experience.

    First starting off with the positives:

    + The world is quite beautiful and aesthetically pleasing.
    + The game runs smoothly and has relatively low system requirements despite the good looking graphics
    + The game grants you a good amount of freedom in how you play the game and complete the story

    Sadly these few positives don't make up for the glaring amount of negatives that haunt this game:

    - The story is a bad joke. You have a nice intro that peaks your interest and then for the next 20 hours you're basically doing fetch quests and go from A to B to C until the story is picked up again a few hours prior to the end when everything is hurriedly wrapped up.
    - Sadly the world you walk through is completely sterile. Even Fallout 3 had more surprising NPC interactions in the "open world" than this game. It's just a bunch of robot npcs that stand on their assigned spot for the entirety of the game and do nothing at all.
    - The entire game is basically based on the 15 year old KOTOR game design. You have cities seperated by loading screens and giant doors. You have "open worldy" zones which are a bit bigger and no longer separated by loading screens thanks to the advancements in technology. But there is no real discovering going on and there's still invisible walls limiting your movement to a core area.
    - If you know Obsidian's old work like KOTOR 2 , the "Captain + Crew + Spaceship" template makes you expect interesting characters, unexpected interactions as the story progresses and intruiging character side quests. There is exactly one interesting party member (Parvati) in your crew, the rest is devoid of intruige and just a gigiantic waste of space and time. Well, let's be generous and say 1.5 characters, because the cleaning robot Max was a nice companion to have, but he has no side quest.
    - The balancing of all aspects of this game is terrible: The Game is too easy, even on "Hard". You constantly feel overpowered like walking through the game in God Mode.
    - With the exception of the opening hour you always have too much money, ammo, lockpicking, medkits and hacking tools.
    - You receive so many attribute points that you won't miss a single dialogue skill check until late into the game which makes the entire system meaningless as you don't have to take any hard decisions. Even then a single quickload, a change of items with different stats and you'll be able to pass the check on the 2nd try in 9/10 cases
    - The skill tree is devoid of any interesting pieces. It's consists almost entirely of things like 10 points added on this attribute, 50Kg more weight carry, 20% more dmg here, cooldown reduction on that or a few more seconds in Bullettime. Basically its sole purpose is to make an already easy game even easier.
    - The item variety is poor, unimaginative and has been done better in games that are 15 years old.
    - Melee combat feels terrible and ranged is average at best.
    - Controls feel floaty and unrealistic. Not state of the art at all.
    - The highly acclaimed dialogue is not outstanding at all. After a dozen hours when I realised nothing of interest is being said in 95% of text I found myself pressing space bar to skip the voice acting and just skim over the text. The one exception was Parvati who is the only amazingly voiceacted character and therefore enjoyable to listen to.
    - The text snippets are unimaginative and boring. I played "Control" a couple of months ago in which I read every piece of information. In The Outer Worlds I gave up on trying to find anything of interest after 10-12 hours of game time

    There's probably more that I could list, but I can't bring myself to write anymore about my terrible experience. What a waste of time it was. For 10 hours this game makes you believe that there is another level of depth to it, which simply doesn't exist. In my case I didn't want to believe that an Obsidian RPG could be as bad and boring as this one, so I fell victim to the sunk cost fallacy and carried on. Sadly there is no pay-off, no magical turn-around, no new exciting gameplay mechanic. Just more of the same bad game.    … Expand
  5. Ttaman
    Oct 28, 2019
    4
    It's okay, not great. By piggybacking off the coattails of previous games of a similar genre, The Outer Worlds is able to gain a hyper hype following by unsuspecting fans but is only an incomplete ersatz FO4 style adventure. While the user interface and gameplay mimics familiarity, it is unexciting, to say the least.

    TOW is a shell of previously successful games from 5 to 10 years    It's okay, not great. By piggybacking off the coattails of previous games of a similar genre, The Outer Worlds is able to gain a hyper hype following by unsuspecting fans but is only an incomplete ersatz FO4 style adventure. While the user interface and gameplay mimics familiarity, it is unexciting, to say the least.

    TOW is a shell of previously successful games from 5 to 10 years ago. It might be worth a discounted price on Steam next year, or 1 dollar promotion at Microsoft's store for a month to try; however, it's not worth 60 bucks.    … Expand
  6. Karj
    Nov 3, 2019
    1
    The Outer Worlds is NOT Fallout: New Vegas in space.

    The comparisons I keep seeing and hearing about this are just unfounded. There is no sense of exploration in this game, no wonder or awe. The bounds of each area are so claustrophobically close to one another. The combat is drab, and more reminiscent of an MMO than anything else. NPC factions don't clash with one another (unless    The Outer Worlds is NOT Fallout: New Vegas in space.

    The comparisons I keep seeing and hearing about this are just unfounded. There is no sense of exploration in this game, no wonder or awe. The bounds of each area are so claustrophobically close to one another.

    The combat is drab, and more reminiscent of an MMO than anything else. NPC factions don't clash with one another (unless scripted to do so), and it feels hollow. Monsters have LEASH ranges (as in MMOs) which allows you to cheese fights, trivializing content. The actual pool of enemy types is dreadfully small (Sprats, Primals, Raptidons, Mantisaurs, Mechanicals, and Humans - woo. :/) Fighting these things is never interesting or exciting. The "difficult" encounters can all be trivialized in the same manner - kill/leash everything you need to, then TTD blind, maim, and cripple your "hard" target and then finish it off. Rinse repeat.

    The items are uninteresting - there are 3-4 different variations of items that do the same thing, but last for a few seconds longer. This bloat feels intentional, to try and mask the shallowness of the system. Furthermore, using these items doesn't actually increase the value of skills you've already got maxed out so you can't, for example, have maxed out Mind/Intelligence and use the "MIND+1" item to further boost the related skills.

    The dialog system, while admittedly populated with some well-performed content, is very hollow. Some save-scumming reveals that MANY "choices" are outright lies - leading to the same conclusion regardless of the route the player takes.

    The art direction feels... lacking cohesion.

    The scores above 7 sincerely make me wonder if these people have actually played this game for more than a few hours.

    At 2 hours in, I was smitten.

    At 3 hours in, I started to see the cracks, seams, and boundaries

    At 5 hours in, I noticed that "choices" really often didn't actually matter.

    At 10 hours in, I stopped reading terminals (realizing that the game tracked everything that mattered anyway)

    At 20 hours in, I just wanted to be done

    At 35 hours in, I abandoned everything but main quests and started killing everyone who looked funny at me.

    On beating the game I just feel like I wasted a bunch of time on a sub-par, overhyped and derivative game that has done nothing to push the genre further - nor has it adequately paid homage to the games that came before it.

    1/10. Hollow experience. Don't waste your time or money on this.    … Expand
  7. pagepro
    Oct 28, 2019
    4
    First I must ask. Are the people giving this a perfect 10/10 playing the same game? This game is far from perfect. In fact it is far from even being a good game. Nowadays all it takes is for a game to be good is to not have too many bugs and micro transactions. The Outer World doesn't have micro transactions and there are very few bugs (one game breaking bug on the last mission) but thatFirst I must ask. Are the people giving this a perfect 10/10 playing the same game? This game is far from perfect. In fact it is far from even being a good game. Nowadays all it takes is for a game to be good is to not have too many bugs and micro transactions. The Outer World doesn't have micro transactions and there are very few bugs (one game breaking bug on the last mission) but that does not make this a good game.

    It starts out somewhat interesting when you are a fresh adventurer and don't know where the story is taking you. You start imagining an amazing world and hoping that it keeps getting better. As you progress you suddenly realize that it isn't going to get better and never will. I won't put spoilers but lets just say that there is no payoff for anything you do. You can complete a main quest and your reward is just more of the same boring things you already have. There is never anything amazing that happens in this story either like the first time seeing Liberty Prime in action in Fallout 3. Nothing that will "wow" you.

    My biggest gripe is the writing. I found myself physically cringing at some of it. If you are a certain type of person you may enjoy the cutsie playful dialogue and the constant sarcastic statements that your main character makes, along with pretty much every character in the game but I couldn't stand it. If you are looking for a serious story that will intrigue and immerse you then this is NOT the game for you. You may think "oh its finally getting serious" then the next set of lines have you wise crack like something an immature grade school. Its downright awful.

    The gameplay is nothing to write home about and barely worth mentioning. There are only a handful of guns and they are all unsatisfying to use. I went the entire game with the assault rifle just spraying bullets at everything because sniping and the charged weapons just didn't feel fun in my opinion. Melee is a joke I didn't even bother with it. You have heavy weapons which I didn't bother with either as I didnt see any point. The game is so easy it doesn't matter what you decide to use or how you spend you skill points and perks. Speaking of which pretty much amount to a bunch or percentage increases. There is nothing fun about any of it. You will mostly fight the same type of enemy because there is no variety. I can count the number of different enemy types on my hands.Armor feels like an afterthought and the skills seem like they were placed on pieces at random. There doesn't seem to be any thought process that went into designing armor so I just used the set with the highest armor rating. There are only 2 pieces of armor by the way chest and helmet.

    You have companions and companion abilities but they are pretty much meat bags used to distract the enemy. The companion abilities force you into an un-skippable 10 second cut scene every time you use an one so I abandoned them quickly and just shot everything to death. The whole thing is a boring unorganized mess. By the last missions I was disinterested to the point where I didn't bother killing anything and just ran past the enemy. At that point there was no reason to loot anything or explore because the game is so linear that there is nothing to explore.

    I wasn't a fan of the artstyle, the characters, story or gameplay. The only reason I finished the game is because I felt obligated to having been swindled into thinking this would actually be good. The trailer said "from the original creators of Fallout and the developers of Fallout: New Vegas" is also false advertising. They are only the same in name. The original people who made those amazing games no longer work for the company. Overall this game is barely a 4/10 below average.    … Expand
  8. Chapa9dj
    Oct 31, 2019
    0
    Another game pandering to SJW and infested with political correctness, and i think you know what i mean.
    The story is an absolute snorefest, while the gameplay is very similar to Fallout, it has nothing to do with it and it doesn't even come close to the epicness of that game.
    The graphic art style is just downright horrible, and don't even get me started on the pathetic reddit/casual    Another game pandering to SJW and infested with political correctness, and i think you know what i mean.
    The story is an absolute snorefest, while the gameplay is very similar to Fallout, it has nothing to do with it and it doesn't even come close to the epicness of that game.
    The graphic art style is just downright horrible, and don't even get me started on the pathetic reddit/casual tier sense of humour.

    I really don't understand the high score, this people is just cashing on the fame of Fallout New Vegas. Absolutely pathetic.
    Glad i got to try it for free with the free month Xbox (PC) Gamepass.

    If you have trouble sleeping, this is the kind of game that will cure insomnia    … Expand
  9. heinreich
    Oct 29, 2019
    3
    What is wrong with you people? Have you become so jaded you wouldnt see 'exeptional' or ' greatness' when it hits you in the face? This game is as bland as sucking on pasta. No depth. No characters that steal the show or make you want to become emotionally involved. Its a 'shooter' or bash and slash (if you want). Virtually no puzzles, nothing complicated to figure out, and just AI thatWhat is wrong with you people? Have you become so jaded you wouldnt see 'exeptional' or ' greatness' when it hits you in the face? This game is as bland as sucking on pasta. No depth. No characters that steal the show or make you want to become emotionally involved. Its a 'shooter' or bash and slash (if you want). Virtually no puzzles, nothing complicated to figure out, and just AI that have pretty decent aim so you better learn to dodge/ take cover.

    Honestly haven't been this disappointed in a Cain production in a while. Oh how the mighty hath fallen.

    TL;DR: You dont have to bring your brain or heart along for this bland ride.    … Expand
  10. LarenX
    Nov 6, 2019
    4
    Very average game - be quite honest. It looks like a game from 6 years ago or more. It looks and feels like Indy Game, like low budget Elex - far, far worst than today's games. Water animation it's a joke, lava animation it's a same joke, whole world looks just weak and optimization sucks like hell! Gunplay is weak (off-centre crosshair on a PC game - srlsy?) and content (guns, armors,Very average game - be quite honest. It looks like a game from 6 years ago or more. It looks and feels like Indy Game, like low budget Elex - far, far worst than today's games. Water animation it's a joke, lava animation it's a same joke, whole world looks just weak and optimization sucks like hell! Gunplay is weak (off-centre crosshair on a PC game - srlsy?) and content (guns, armors, items) are very limited by design - Rage 2 beats this game two or three times in this case. This is a bad year for Game-biz, and TOW is a confirmation of that.
    Someone wrote here, and I quote: "try to make a bad looking game with Unreal Engine, that's some real talent here" - exactly!!!
    - People are hyping it abit more than what it deserve.

    EDIT: After finishing the game, I lower my rating from 6 to 4.The story is shallow, linear, boring and i had to force myself to push through to the end.
    - Also, I just realized (looking through user scores and reviews), we have here a serious chinese BOT storm!
    You don't have to take my word for it, check it out yourself, 80% of 10/10 ratings are bots with weird names, always with weird avatar pictures and with review for 2-3 weird sentences - with a rating of THIS ONE GAME ONLY! Accounts created, just to give 10/10 on TOW!
    I think this is an Epic job - they have good motivation.    … Expand
  11. rainharder
    Oct 29, 2019
    0
    Mediocre game focused on story telling, lacking a lot on the gameplay department.
    Trying to be humorous too hard, quite delibetate. Pity, could be much better.
  12. notor12
    Nov 2, 2019
    0
    I can't help the sense when playing this game that I was playing a fundamentally outdated product....Like this exact game could've been made ten years ago, and it might've been a decent game back then.

    But in today's world, this game has been done, and it's been done way too much. It is the same game you've played a bunch of times if you've played Fallout 3 or Fallout 4 or Fallout: New    I can't help the sense when playing this game that I was playing a fundamentally outdated product....Like this exact game could've been made ten years ago, and it might've been a decent game back then.

    But in today's world, this game has been done, and it's been done way too much. It is the same game you've played a bunch of times if you've played Fallout 3 or Fallout 4 or Fallout: New Vegas or Bioshock or Deus Ex or System Shock.....and it is in many ways inferior to all of those titles. The combat is vastly inferior to Bioshock and most of the rest of those games. The story is inferior to Deus Ex and Fallout 3 and System Shock and New Vegas. The dialogue options are linear and unchallenging. There is always a way out of consequences through a dialogue option. The moral choices in the game are frustratingly superficial and don't feel emotionally weighty. The tone of the game doesn't work with the serious subject matter. The environments and terrain do not produce wonder at an alien world and are surprisingly bland.....There are no weather effects.....The characters are lifeless and boring and don't have very interesting personalities. This is not a very good game and it is totally bizarre how people can give it a 10 or even an 8. A 10 is a perfect score people!

    It wouldn't be a problem if the game just borrowed from elements of other games as all games do that..... But it doesn't borrow them particularly well or really add anything new. It just doesn't improve on anything it is using which makes me wonder why I'm shelling out money to play a game I've definitely played before. Personally I've gotten completely bored with the whole model of this type of FPS RPG that has been used by Bethesda/BioWare/Obsidian for years. It is badly in need of a sea change reboot to make the experience less stale, but they won't do that so long as people keep buying the same basic game..... This game is the opposite of that needed change; it feels like several steps backwards in fact.

    This is a mediocre game obviously done on the cheap....The world's you "explore" are very small. This is not an open rpg as advertised it is very much on rails and there is very little actual exploration to be done beyond a few quests that send you to fetch things on worlds you've already fully explored in an hour or so....Which just leads to a boring sprint or fast travel to pick something up pointlessly. You aren't really travelling to "planets" here as your area of operations is so confined you're basically confined to maybe a few acres on each planet with less than a dozen things to do there before you've completely exhausted any point in going back. Combat is laughably easy even on the hardest settings because the AI is so dumb. I finished the whole game including every quest in under ten hours and felt no need to replay it.

    It's definitely not worth $60, so don't pay that. Thankfully I played it through the xbox app otherwise I would've felt totally cheated by these reviews. What game did these other reviewers play?

    I just get the sense reviews are being manipulated and inflated by bots at this juncture to make people buy games that aren't very good. People are going to figure that out and stop buying your products soon, good and bad, because you keep misrepresenting the product to them. I'm giving this a 0 not because I think it deserves a 0, I think it deserves a 5 or 6 objectively but there are so many people giving this a 10 who are just so obviously inflating the reviews I feel compelled to balance it out.    … Expand
  13. user01023
    Oct 27, 2019
    4
    I think this is one of the worst RPGs I have ever played. The developers took shortcuts where we should have depth. While I'm not surprised this was launched as a $60 product, please consider trying it with a Microsoft Game Pass for $1 this month before you buy.

    Don't get me wrong, we need more games like The Outer Worlds. We need a champion in a time where game developers are bound by    I think this is one of the worst RPGs I have ever played. The developers took shortcuts where we should have depth. While I'm not surprised this was launched as a $60 product, please consider trying it with a Microsoft Game Pass for $1 this month before you buy.

    Don't get me wrong, we need more games like The Outer Worlds. We need a champion in a time where game developers are bound by producers interested in nothing more than the shortest path to profit. For the past 5 or so years we've been abused by early access titles and micro-transaction laden games to the point where anything other than that is seen as a diamond in the rough.

    However, this game cannot be my champion. The Outer Worlds is one of the most simplified RPG experiences I have ever had. Beyond the extra dialogue options you get for pushing the correct arrows on the 8 or so starting stats, what does this game offer? I can certainly say it doesn't do anything cutting edge... but that's not always necessary. We can't expect to revolutionize features for a genre every year. However, can we at least expect the game to not take steps backwards in features and depth?

    Here's a quick list of what I see as the biggest problems with the game.

    1. Too many static items in the game environment that should be lootable. I'm doing a melee playthrough, I walk into a hospital bay and see a giant surgical saw.... and it's a static item. I'm not asking to be able to make a spoon collection, but I think a happy medium can exist between everything being lootable, and almost nothing being lootable. Right now it seems like way too much stuff is bolted to the ground.

    2. Player equipment limited to two slots - Head, Body. Puts a huge damper on customization. Where are my legendary rings? Where's my bracers that allow me to block attacks with my fists? Where are my gloves of stability for long range weapons?

    3. "Instance" style mapping excuse for lazy game world. Simply put, the planetary exploration teleportation is awful for an RPG. No world has been built for players to explore. What you get is a bunch of map fragments to teleport back and forth to chasing down quests. Legendary enemies are not discovered, they are encountered on the linear beaten path every one of us will be forced to take. This is very much the "Dark Souls 2" bonfire teleporting system that was a downgrade from the previous version of the game.

    4. Perks tree is a **** of flat % upgrades. Move % faster, gain % health... I could have designed the perks trees in one afternoon in a boardroom with 3 people. Where's my blood mess? Where are my unique perks that make my build differ from everyone else?

    5. Simplified hacking, simplified lockpicking, simplified terminal interactions. Simplified weapon types, simplified ammunition types. All of the mini-games have been turned into "Press the action button"

    All of these concerns yell at me "shortucts" forced on developers by production. I don't see the depth we have come to expect from the traditional RPG genre. I don't see character development that's going to differ or be unique, the perks that are worth taking are obvious. In the coming weeks, I think you are all going to discover this experience is lacking significantly in uniqueness. We are all going to end up with the same perks because a very limited set are actually good. We are all going to have the exact same enemy experiences, because the maps are linear.

    With all that said, if you are enjoying the game please don't let me rain on your parade. I don't plan on hanging around this community for X weeks after launch to tell everyone to stop enjoying the game. Hell maybe it's just me. I see ZERO other posts on the front page criticizing the game... maybe I'm crazy.    … Expand
  14. matt1184
    Oct 27, 2019
    2
    I had very, very high hopes for this game, and as soon as I saw the solar system with all its planets, I got very excited thinking the game would be long, with a ton of locations. I was very, very wrong. There are about 3 or 4 planets and each has such a small map, you are typically surprised that you found everything. Only took me a few hours to discover everything that was worthI had very, very high hopes for this game, and as soon as I saw the solar system with all its planets, I got very excited thinking the game would be long, with a ton of locations. I was very, very wrong. There are about 3 or 4 planets and each has such a small map, you are typically surprised that you found everything. Only took me a few hours to discover everything that was worth seeing. After 20 hours, I was reached "the point of no return" for the end-game, and literally was in shock. The game is beautiful, but how can a company release a game at $60usd that only takes a long weekend to play through? There weren't even enough unique things done that make the game replayable. I am very, very disappointed, and I feel like I was scammed out of $60. Shame on Obsidian, and shame on Epic. Had this launched on Steam, it would have flopped with the live feedback.… Expand
  15. Mistr
    Oct 27, 2019
    4
    This is the most mediocre game I have ever played. While nothing is directly offensive, nothing is actually good either. It is so thoroughly bland that I actually stopped playing it and that is saying something since i practically always finish games I start. If I had to say something positive it would be that there are some compelling ideas in the game but unfortunately none of them areThis is the most mediocre game I have ever played. While nothing is directly offensive, nothing is actually good either. It is so thoroughly bland that I actually stopped playing it and that is saying something since i practically always finish games I start. If I had to say something positive it would be that there are some compelling ideas in the game but unfortunately none of them are executed well. This isn't a modern New Vegas, it's a slightly more competent Andromeda.… Expand
  16. ToxicJimmy
    Oct 27, 2019
    4
    Played for approximately 10 hours before I couldn't bring myself to play it anymore. I realize that it might get better eventually or towards the end but as I said; I did not feel motivated to continue after a while.

    Pros: - Mostly very good dialogue and dialogue choices. - Good voice-actors. - Interesting setting and world-building. - The music sounds good and fits the settings    Played for approximately 10 hours before I couldn't bring myself to play it anymore. I realize that it might get better eventually or towards the end but as I said; I did not feel motivated to continue after a while.

    Pros:

    - Mostly very good dialogue and dialogue choices.
    - Good voice-actors.
    - Interesting setting and world-building.
    - The music sounds good and fits the settings and environments.
    - The humor.
    - The game really makes you have to consider your choices morally and feel somewhat impactful.
    - The Unreliable.

    Meh:

    - Graphics and world design.
    - Weapon and armor design.
    - Sound effects.

    Cons:

    - Game feels outdated, not a lot of new innovational ideas.
    - Clunky movement and combat.
    - A lot of female characters feel identical to each other and are hard to tell apart. 80%+ of them goes with the tomboy look/attitude and has the same side-cut/short haircut making them all feel either obnoxious or uninteresting. An unexpected and unnecessarily overwhelming androgynistic approach overall.
    - A lot of armors are just reskins/changed color palette.
    - Inventory management is also clunky and a lot of different vendors follow the quantity-over-quality formula, making vendor-visits less interesting.
    - No third person view, even though you are able to edit your character visually at character creation. The only time you see your character is in the character screen or when AFK when the camera orbits around the player.
    - Uninspired enemies (generic bandits/wildlife/robots). There's not a lot of interesting with the adversaries the player faces (backstory and motive).
    - I was missing the overall sandbox feeling, the game was surprisingly linear at times.
    - No modding support (and it definitely could've saved my motivation for this game).
    - Some characters are just plain annoying.    … Expand
  17. Jenne
    Oct 31, 2019
    4
    The expectations were much higher than what we got. Obsidian games used to be deeper, more impactful, more complex. Plus you have legendary names like Cain and Boyarsky adorning the box. Everything about this game is bland, safe, chirpy, fluffy. The tone is all wrong - it's like Futurama trying to dabble in serious societal critique. Plus the critique part has all the depth and nuance ofThe expectations were much higher than what we got. Obsidian games used to be deeper, more impactful, more complex. Plus you have legendary names like Cain and Boyarsky adorning the box. Everything about this game is bland, safe, chirpy, fluffy. The tone is all wrong - it's like Futurama trying to dabble in serious societal critique. Plus the critique part has all the depth and nuance of an American college student's idea of things like corporate culture, inequality and the world in general. The plot, quests and writing is shallow, predictable, bland and boring. However if you care mainly about gameplay there is fun to be had in TOW, I guess. Provided you can stand the garish, eye-straining graphics where everything is pink, red or purple, garish enemies blend with the garish environment and the non-human ones look like colourful inflatable beach toys. I for one couldn't.… Expand
  18. 2ch_reviewer
    Oct 28, 2019
    0
    Very bad game with a simple scenario, flat world, empty characters and boring gameplay. Literally there is no openworld, you have a road that highlights you a way, short main line, stupid rep system where you can genocide entire villages and be a good guy at the end.
    And mention dialogs in game, they are very very simple and a lot of time there is no choice, just different variations of    Very bad game with a simple scenario, flat world, empty characters and boring gameplay. Literally there is no openworld, you have a road that highlights you a way, short main line, stupid rep system where you can genocide entire villages and be a good guy at the end.
    And mention dialogs in game, they are very very simple and a lot of time there is no choice, just different variations of "yes".
    Your companions are boring and cause no feelings in you, they just giving bonuses to skilles and that`s it.    … Expand
  19. Goubios
    Oct 27, 2019
    4
    Long story short. The game is far inferior than Fallout 4 and definitely New Vegas. Combat resemble Borderlands on the pace and visuals but much much worst. The story is...how can i tell it ... blaah blaaah. No real choices no real consequences. You can play the first hour without reading a single line of dialogue or occasional computer messages and the story would proceed as normal. TheLong story short. The game is far inferior than Fallout 4 and definitely New Vegas. Combat resemble Borderlands on the pace and visuals but much much worst. The story is...how can i tell it ... blaah blaaah. No real choices no real consequences. You can play the first hour without reading a single line of dialogue or occasional computer messages and the story would proceed as normal. The score on this site would be much different if this game release date was close to other similar games. There is no point to comment the beautiful and diverse graphics because if there is not a good story to back it there is no point. You dont believe me take a look at youtube videos and imagine.… Expand
  20. Sheldoncurtiss
    Oct 26, 2019
    3
    Better than Fallout 4 but worse than Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

    This game is one of those games that starts strong then the layers peel off once you start to get into the game. I can't recall a single characters name because they were so boring. Inventory is clunky. Leveling kinda sucks. Perks kinda suck. Options kinda suck. Weapon and armor modding kinda suck. No grenades. Look I'm    Better than Fallout 4 but worse than Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

    This game is one of those games that starts strong then the layers peel off once you start to get into the game. I can't recall a single characters name because they were so boring. Inventory is clunky. Leveling kinda sucks. Perks kinda suck. Options kinda suck. Weapon and armor modding kinda suck. No grenades.

    Look I'm impressed with the lack of budget they were able to make something this solid. But I found myself playing this more like it was doom or something since I didn't really care. I eventually gave up all together once I hit the third world because I was just so bored.

    The weird SJW motives forced into the mix on top of this just gross me out. For instance the default character is a black lesbian woman, which I'm sure is the majority or gamers playing their game obviously so it just makes sense for them to try to appeal to that large portion of the market. Not only that but there's this awkward forced in side quest where for 30 minutes you have to assist a lesbian in pursuing her sexual interest.    … Expand
  21. OverratedGames
    Oct 26, 2019
    0
    Do NOT believe the hype. I too was excited to play the much anticipated "The Outer Worlds", but it wasn't long till I found myself severely disappointed. After 12 hours of playtime, EVERY mission has been a fetch quest - save person a, get item b, kill outlaw c. The dialogue seems like something out of bottom tier Netflix shows, the animations are incredibly dated, the sound is lacking inDo NOT believe the hype. I too was excited to play the much anticipated "The Outer Worlds", but it wasn't long till I found myself severely disappointed. After 12 hours of playtime, EVERY mission has been a fetch quest - save person a, get item b, kill outlaw c. The dialogue seems like something out of bottom tier Netflix shows, the animations are incredibly dated, the sound is lacking in fidelity and punch and the story feels unbelievable pointless. What do they want to say with this game? Bohoo, capitalism is bad, we live in a society and everyone not sporting blue hair and buzzed sides is a masochist! Everything about this game has been done to death, and might I add - a lot better by the very same developer 10 years ago. On the plus side, the visuals are good and at times even great, but that is the only noteworthy thing about this tired rehash of a game. If you have NOTHING better to do - and by nothing I really mean nothing as going for a nap will raise your pulse more than playing this snoozefest - then "The Outer Worlds" could be your plan C. If you have anything else to do, stay away from this massive dissapointment and save yourself 20 hours of pure boredom.… Expand
  22. The_Dengsta
    Oct 25, 2019
    4
    Quests & choices:

    -The quest design is simplistic and generic. Enjoy fedex quests? Well, you'll be doing a LOT of them. Have fun! -The choices don't mean **** You have hardly any choices in any given interaction rarely more than 3 - and they virtually always lead to the same outcome. -Main story is about 10-15 hours long. You'll get another 10 hours or so out of side quests. -Hardly    Quests & choices:

    -The quest design is simplistic and generic. Enjoy fedex quests? Well, you'll be doing a LOT of them. Have fun!
    -The choices don't mean **** You have hardly any choices in any given interaction rarely more than 3 - and they virtually always lead to the same outcome.
    -Main story is about 10-15 hours long. You'll get another 10 hours or so out of side quests.
    -Hardly any of the characters or quests are memorable. You'll play through it and wonder what you just spent the past 20 hours doing exactly.

    Design:

    -The world is pretty small. There isn't really a whole lot to see. You might say - well, didn't they flesh out the small area a lot and give it depth? No, they didn't. Small and static.
    -Speaking of static, pretty much all the NPCs are. They just stand around doing nothing, no routines, etc.
    -The combat sucks, the monsters are kinda generic and there isn't much variety with the enemies.
    -Your skills pretty much never get to be used in dialogue. Pretty surprising and disappointing for an Obsidian game.

    Other:
    -The music is pretty good.
    -The visuals aren't that good. It's like a worse looking Borderlands.
    -Loses a point for supporting Epic's anti-consumer policies.

    Overall, I'd say you should try this one before you buy it. And even then, wait for it to go on sale. DO NOT pay full price for this, because it isn't worth full price right now.    … Expand
  23. PoprocksMKH
    Jul 2, 2020
    2
    way over hyped ended up being mediocre at best. The story is boring, barley any meaningful choices, gun physics are bad.
  24. Molasdin
    Jul 5, 2020
    1
    Dull soulless world. Fills like plastic. Distracting humour - makes world looking like stage in some satiric play. Ugly characters.
  25. RMDsilva
    Aug 11, 2020
    4
    What a disappointment.

    The potential was there, but everything falls short. The story could have been fantastic, but the delivery is crap, just doing simplistic missions where you really feel zero engagement. Combat? Absolute crap. Both ranged and melee have zero feel to it, damage is completely disproportional, just feels like a basic shooter for kids. Ambience, side quests, theme,    What a disappointment.

    The potential was there, but everything falls short.
    The story could have been fantastic, but the delivery is crap, just doing simplistic missions where you really feel zero engagement.
    Combat? Absolute crap. Both ranged and melee have zero feel to it, damage is completely disproportional, just feels like a basic shooter for kids.
    Ambience, side quests, theme, exploration... so much potential, all of it left at superficial level.

    There's no depth, whatsoever, to this game.

    It's like you take a bunch of good ideas and give it to someone who's never done a game before. Execution matters. Execution failed.    … Expand
  26. bippyg
    Sep 9, 2020
    4
    The aesthetics of this game initially intrigued me, which look really good in the game. It also plays bug-free. Beyond that, the Outer Worlds plays and feels like a 20 year old game updated with new graphics. The quests are completely linear and mostly scavenger hunts. The NPCs have generic personalities and dialogue, and play no active role other than modifying your group stats andThe aesthetics of this game initially intrigued me, which look really good in the game. It also plays bug-free. Beyond that, the Outer Worlds plays and feels like a 20 year old game updated with new graphics. The quests are completely linear and mostly scavenger hunts. The NPCs have generic personalities and dialogue, and play no active role other than modifying your group stats and occasionally making comments. The various baddies are generic, limited in variety, and really don't add anything to the immersion. Corpses look the same even after looting their armor and clothing, which just adds to the antiquated gameplay feel. Although beautifully rendered, the environments are two-dimensional and repetitive. The first-person only player character, linear story, and separate, disconnected worlds are a huge disappointment for me as a long-time player of open-world third-person games like Skyrim and Fallout 4. Overall, the game is very short and feels very outdated.… Expand
  27. Hurrikhan
    Oct 11, 2020
    3
    What a disappointment. I had great hope for this game but it turned out to be a chore.
    Color palette is to make your eyes bleed.
    Gameplay is meh. Companions are mostly the way. For some reasons you cannot remap the ',' key which is stupid and frustrating (has been my reload key for as long as I remember) But to top it all, it's a Marxist story full of insufferable characters, an SJW's    What a disappointment. I had great hope for this game but it turned out to be a chore.
    Color palette is to make your eyes bleed.
    Gameplay is meh.
    Companions are mostly the way.
    For some reasons you cannot remap the ',' key which is stupid and frustrating (has been my reload key for as long as I remember)
    But to top it all, it's a Marxist story full of insufferable characters, an SJW's wet dream.

    Today, after months, I tried to finish the game. How terrible could it be?
    Answer : a lot. I've uninstalled this awful piece of **** forever.

    Obsidian, do you think I'll ever buy anything from you after that? Dream on.    … Expand
  28. LongJohnAxe
    Aug 9, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I just can't play this anymore without getting a deep depression! I have no idea why I feel like this but everytime I play I feel miserable even getting to the loading screen!

    Played since launch and the gameplay is just so bland and unfun! The combat is repetitive and meh... The gear system is stupid and just leads to me to using 3 guns the same as before but with a different name and I spent all my time on one planet getting lost and dying to mechs! I was one of the first 100 people to beat the game and I beat it on the same day in 9 hours using a speed run strat I made up! I hated the ending of we haven't heard from earth... Like we never asked and i didn't even know we were meant to be caring about earth because they never mentioned it. I found the companions to be unbearable and horrible except the girl at the start and the priest but then we get the weird moment in the engineering labs with her and I avoid that at all costs, because its just cringe.

    Me and my friend played together and i hate that people keep mentioning FNV because they are nothing alike! If you have to keep mentioning a game that has nothing to do with this then you are grasping at straw! Obsidian didn't do much work for FNV, all the hard lifting was Bethesda and they just wrote a decent story and added some cool things to it! Mostly I only play FNV with mods, so the community is what made it. Most of the FNV team at obsidian is gone and they were during the hard times at obsidian during like 2012...can we just count this as a loss and go on and hope for a good TES Or Fallout Game? Like this is making borderline depressed just talking about it!    … Expand
  29. athalon020
    Sep 29, 2020
    3
    I waited so long to play this game only to be hit with massive disappointment in what it turned out to be. If you took the companion system and the branching storylines of Mass Effect and combined it with the open-world mechanics of Borderlands, you get The Outer Worlds. It seems like a good recipe.

    However, I didn't include "story" in that description, and that's where I was really    I waited so long to play this game only to be hit with massive disappointment in what it turned out to be. If you took the companion system and the branching storylines of Mass Effect and combined it with the open-world mechanics of Borderlands, you get The Outer Worlds. It seems like a good recipe.

    However, I didn't include "story" in that description, and that's where I was really let down. The game starts off strong but quickly deteriorates into something that lacks any feeling. It was obvious that choices were going to influence the game, but those choices were made about people I'd either just met 30 seconds before or about people whom I'd seen a handful of times in the game. To further ram home the disappointment, I never felt like choices were going to affect me as a character, and I was simply pulling the strings on something that I wasn't part of. The missions felt fairly uninspired, with side quests not feeling very significant to much of anything. Add on the fact that I somehow completely missed a companion character and the whole game seemed very clunky.

    Combat was lackluster at best, and seemed more of an obstacle to quest requirements instead of something you could get involved in. I completely forgot about the time-dilation feature many times, and when I did it didn't serve much of a purpose at all. It just slows time and nothing else, but if you want to watch a reload animation while you get shot at half-speed then that's a great feature.

    Thankfully the story was relatively short, because after a while I had a hard time starting the game up to just run through mindless quests. I finished it, however only to not have an unfinished game hovering over my head.    … Expand
  30. Jilted
    Oct 25, 2020
    0
    I like many others waited for the Steam release for this game because of the Epic exclusivity deal. All I can say is, the two companies deserve eachother. The Outer Worlds makes it painfully obvious that Chris Avellone was the driving force behind the beloved titles this company was known for, and considering all of the themes of this game are exactly what Avellone criticized ObsidianI like many others waited for the Steam release for this game because of the Epic exclusivity deal. All I can say is, the two companies deserve eachother. The Outer Worlds makes it painfully obvious that Chris Avellone was the driving force behind the beloved titles this company was known for, and considering all of the themes of this game are exactly what Avellone criticized Obsidian for, from how the management dealt with things such as sexual harassment, nepotism, and it's general corporate atmosphere....the timing of Chris Avellone getting #metoo'd is WAY too convenient.

    Really, don't bother. Save your money for Cyberpunk 2077, or even give Fallout 76 another look. This game actually made me glad that Bethesda owns the rights to Fallout, and that's saying a lot.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

42
#42 Best PC Game of 2019
7
#7 Most Discussed PC Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
82

Generally favorable reviews - based on 30 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 30
  3. Negative: 0 out of 30
  1. Cubed3
    Nov 16, 2020
    70
    The problem with this isn't that it is a bad game (far from it), but the fact that it failed to reach its true potential… or maybe the expectations were simply too high, because there's nothing here that anyone can point to and say that it is terrible. Sadly, there's almost nothing that's great either, apart from the role-playing element and the quality of writing. The gunplay? Ok. The exploration? Decent. The plot? Fine. The dominant feeling here is of a game that is good enough so that you won't hate it, but also not as good for it to be the flawless classic that it could definitely be - but again, that's probably those darn high expectations speaking, because flaws or no flaws, The Outer Worlds shouldn't be missing from any RPG collection.
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  2. GameCritics
    Dec 9, 2019
    85
    An excellent effort from Obsidian, and though The Outer Worlds doesn’t surpass its predecessors by offering a world worth visiting over and over, the adventure it presents is more than worth the time spent.
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  3. Game World Navigator Magazine
    Dec 6, 2019
    84
    Usually, a planet has just one or two settlements and a bit of wildlands to explore. But that’s for the best – instead of exploring miles of filler content, Outer Worlds keeps you moving from planet to planet, from one tense situation to another. [Issue#241, p.34]
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