Outward

 PlayStation 4
User Score
6.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 100 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 62 out of 100
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 100
  3. Negative: 25 out of 100
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  1. specialguest--
    Apr 28, 2019
    7
    Wow, this game is a mess- but I'm still playing it (mostly solo on PS4pro) I Like so many, who have been cursed by the unholy affinity for Jank RPG's in the vein of Gothic- will find that this game scratches that frustrating itch in some way. If you have not done so yet, pass on this and play Elex instead, or any of the other Gothic-likes that are super cheap right now. Maybe evenWow, this game is a mess- but I'm still playing it (mostly solo on PS4pro) I Like so many, who have been cursed by the unholy affinity for Jank RPG's in the vein of Gothic- will find that this game scratches that frustrating itch in some way. If you have not done so yet, pass on this and play Elex instead, or any of the other Gothic-likes that are super cheap right now. Maybe even Arcania, or any of the Risen titles. At today's pricing, any of those are a better value than this. This game is maybe a decent value at $20, not more.… Expand
  2. ZXSth
    Apr 2, 2019
    7
    Having written this review a few times now, I keep coming to realize that despite my initial attitudes toward this game, I have come to see that I've kept playing it for hours upon hours (at least 30 now), and that this game, while not perfect, has more redeeming qualities than I initially thought.

    Outward's combat is passable (and mostly enjoyable), and the gear you acquire - which    Having written this review a few times now, I keep coming to realize that despite my initial attitudes toward this game, I have come to see that I've kept playing it for hours upon hours (at least 30 now), and that this game, while not perfect, has more redeeming qualities than I initially thought.

    Outward's combat is passable (and mostly enjoyable), and the gear you acquire - which affects your stamina consumption and, therefore, how many actions you can take in combat - allows you to choose whether you want to fight at range, take hit after hit, or use lighter armour and rely on your skill at dodging to keep you alive. Having said that, since bigger backpacks (your means of collecting and holding onto items) often negatively affect your roll, the game seems to push you toward wearing heavy armour rather than having a lighter backpack and being able to dodge. I'd consider this an interesting design choice that ends up being slightly more detrimental and frustrating than engaging.

    The graphics and textures are certainly outdated - In my opinion, better graphics have existed in games from nearly a decade past. Furthermore, the loading screens are frequent, and are rather long despite their high frequency. In addition, I have not yet found a way to adjust the screen size/ratio, meaning that I have spent 30 hours playing a game that hides about a third of my health bar. As well, the game has crashed on my numerous times. While each of these issues on their own would not prevent me from potentially seeing a game as excellent, when they exist in tandem, they make for a game that feels sloppy. I think seeing the way enemies simply 'flop' when they die (á là the Havok physics engine seen in many games in the 2000s and beyond) was the final nail in the coffin that made me see this game as outdated, slipshod and akin to something you might see in Steam's Early Access catalogue.

    On the note of the game feeling slipshod, this game's character creator is outright abysmal. You have a limited choice of pre-made faces for your character with no way to modify them or your body type. As well, the dialogue is mostly fairly campy, and the voice acting, while not atrocious, does leave something to be desired. The music, on the other hand, is fairly interesting, and I will often find myself humming along to the songs that play in both the Hallowed Marsh and Enmerkar Forest.

    Unfortunately, exploration feels like more of a chore than something you might find engaging. The only thing that might pull you into venturing into some of the dungeons is the potential for some interesting new piece of gear - while you do eventually feel more powerful after acquiring better gear, the opportunity for your character to grow is limited, as there aren't exactly a wide variety of skills in-game. Furthermore, the game asks you to venture across a variety of vast landscapes with no opportunity at all to fast-travel. Rather than making the game more challenging and interesting, this forced walking feels like a chore, especially when your ability to run is limited, due to the fact that running costs stamina.

    Despite this game's flaws, I have been playing it for many hours, though I have trouble explaining exactly why. It has moments when it is highly engaging, but to see those moments, you are forced to push through eyesore-level graphics (by today's standards), lacklustre voice acting, and a dedication to a realistic adventuring experience that often feels more like blind adherence than a design choice that makes the game more interesting.

    If you could put up with Two Worlds and its multiple faults, this game will feel similar in many ways (but with a tad more polish and less endearingly bad qualities). Otherwise, I'd say you should steer clear of this game until its price drops to something under $40 (Canadian) at the very least. To its credit, however, this is a good way to scratch that itch for an open-world fantasy RPG until something more polished and engaging comes out.    … Expand
  3. Chadpowers
    Apr 3, 2019
    5
    Graphics: 8/10
    Not the best, but functional enough. Loading times can be quite long.
    Sound: 7/10 It's ok. Story: 4/10 Below Average. Some nice ideas for the setting, but drops off hard right after the start. By now, the "you are nobody special" setting is just as much a trope as being the chosen one. All in all the story doesn't really create gameplay and is more of a backdrop /    Graphics: 8/10
    Not the best, but functional enough. Loading times can be quite long.

    Sound: 7/10
    It's ok.

    Story: 4/10
    Below Average. Some nice ideas for the setting, but drops off hard right after the start.
    By now, the "you are nobody special" setting is just as much a trope as being the chosen one. All in all the story doesn't really create gameplay and is more of a backdrop / excuse to make the player go to places. It also lacks strong characters and the world design is very generic and uninspired.

    Gameplay: 3/10
    The game has some nice ideas but poor execution and lots of tedium.
    Survival stats and carrying backpacks, weight limit, item degradation are all nice in theory.
    But only once in practice...
    Constantly being forced to look after all those things mostly gets in the way of playing the actual game, i.e. exploring and fighting.
    Also there are no stats to improve other than some skills and items. It's kind of stupid to think your character doesn't get a little bit stronger or faster etc. during all the adventuring. I am sure they had some gameplay related idea when they opted for not having experience or levels, but they also failed to think about why those things are in games. As a result all the fighting and exploring feels not very rewarding at all.
    Lastly the combat also suffers from good idea, bad execution.
    In melee combat, you gotta balance your stamina, poise, dodging and attacking. In theory that makes for challenging gameplay like in Nioh, but in practice all those elements are terribly unbalanced in outward. First of all, the stamina regenerates way too slow compared to its consumption and overall amount available. Because of that, as a player you will seek to maximize your performance : stamina ratio, which means using twohanded weapons. Twohanded weapons are grossly overpowered, allowing the player to kill most enemies in the game with a single combo that will hack through their shields, poise and health. Onehanded weapons and shields on the other hand seems almost useless, since the enemy can just as easily overwhelm the player. Ultimately each fight boils down to baiting an enemy attack and then unleashing the killer combo with you twohanded weapon. If you don't end the fight within that combo, or you got a couple more enemies, you will spend the next minute running in circles waiting for the stamina to come up again. Of course the game comes with the obligatory way too fast / powerful dodge roll that makes outplaying the slow as enemies child's play.
    Ultimately melee combat is too easy, too tedious, enemies die too fast and in general it's not very exciting.

    In ranged combat, the fact that enemies are so slow and the player can be so ridiculously fast and nimble completely destroy the gameplay. Also the range on ranged weapons is way too high for this game, allowing to kill enemies without them ever reaching / finding you. Even in tight caves it is incredibly easy to avoid enemies while regularly shooting at them. They won't even think of defending against your shots or evading. Ranged combat is the easiest way to cheese the game or in other words the absolute easy mode for this game. At least in melee you can still die if you don't roll away fast enough. As long as you keep moving, no enemy in the game has any chance to ever hit you. Almost as bad as shadows of mordor, though it takes more than one button in this game and it's very easy to die. Talking about dying - in this game you can't die. Instead you can be captured, which will add the tedium of having to fight through some generic enemies instead of just reloading and fighting again. But then again, if you could reload that easily and repeat the same fight, the game would become so incredibly easy.

    Magic combat is just as sad. Basically most stuff that applies to ranged combat also applies to magic combat. However, magic is in addition also tedious. The game forces you to draw some magic circles in the ground and lure enemies over it to make the magic work... That kind of stuff works nice in a book or a movie, but is absolute antifun if you have to do it for every enemy yourself.

    It's really a shame, as it is clear that the devs thought about many ways to create good combat. Regrettably in the end the combat turned out barely any more interactive than clicker games like Diablo and many of the mechanics such as stamina and poise are unbalanced or easily circumvented.

    Overall Score: 5/10
    That 5/10 score comes with a 3/10 gameplay. Unless you really enjoy exploring yet another generic fantasy world and getting some loot, you will most likely be disappointed by the below average gameplay. Also where other games still might draw you in with a decent story, there is no such thing is this game.    … Expand
  4. BathSaltZombii
    Apr 10, 2019
    5
    What is going on with the Steam community and their reviews sometimes. This is not the best RPG ever nor is it even a good one. It's not even the graphics that bother me it's just everything else. The combat is so clanky and stop saying it's like Dark Souls combat because if it was I would say it was good. The sound design may be the worst sound design I have ever heard for a game ofWhat is going on with the Steam community and their reviews sometimes. This is not the best RPG ever nor is it even a good one. It's not even the graphics that bother me it's just everything else. The combat is so clanky and stop saying it's like Dark Souls combat because if it was I would say it was good. The sound design may be the worst sound design I have ever heard for a game of this scope and voice acting is pretty bad but I will let them get away with that. Just Stop acting like this game is actually great because it's far from that.… Expand
  5. Flopflop
    Apr 5, 2019
    7
    I find it curious that when a game is not a AAA title the critic scores are more in line with user reviews. I'm not a big government person but I really think that this billion dollar industry should be investigated. Outward is a fun game to play in splitscreen coop. Graphics are below average, the combat is a little flighty, but overall it's a solid RPG experience.
  6. Justinskeld
    Mar 26, 2020
    6
    Listen games like these I like open world survival games it’s just this one is not what I expected the combat is bad the controls are confusing and locking on to targets is bad But one thing I like about the game is that it takes place in a beautiful world with lots to explore it’s kinda like a mini version of Skyrim
  7. Jajooka
    Sep 25, 2020
    6
    This game is not great. But it is loveable. The graphics are old, the load times are long, the battle is odd and clumsy. But it is fun, especially when you have someone to play with. It has a nice atmosphere, and music, its story is kinda uniqe, and exciting-ish, the survival-adventure-crafting flavour works.
  8. deddo
    Aug 5, 2021
    5
    la grafica fa schifo e i comandi pure, comprato in sconto a 9,99 mi vergogno di me stesso ad aver buttato così dei soldi… NON compratelo, è la delusione più grande del 2021 a parer mio

Awards & Rankings

62
#62 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2019
48
#48 Most Shared PS4 Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
62

Mixed or average reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 17
  3. Negative: 0 out of 17
  1. PLAY! Zine
    Jul 8, 2019
    70
    A buggy third person PRG that shines like an old school game but is hindered by technical problems, endless running and pointless survival elements.
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  2. Playstation Official Magazine UK
    May 3, 2019
    70
    For all its intricacies, Outward is surprisingly easy to enjoy, but preparation is key if you want to explore everything that this RPG has to offer. A game worth exploring. [Issue#162, p.80]
  3. GameCritics
    Apr 29, 2019
    50
    Outward‘s main issues are that it’s an average experience with a lot of competition to contend with, and that it doesn’t lean into its core concept hard enough. It would never have stood apart from the crowd with its production values, but it had a chance (and missed) at making a mark by failing to establish a truly unique identity.
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