How the mighty have fallen.

The game is the definition of being announced at the right time. It was the craze after the disaster that was Fallout 76, when the game launched it quickly faded away. After playing I know why. This game doesn't do anything well. Every mechanic is barely passable, the story is mundane & forgettable, and I can't remember more than a handful of characters. (in a game like this that is bad.)

This game doesn't even have a solid foundation to build upon & lore or logic doesn't make sense, and completely removes you from the universe you're inhabiting.

I'll break down each subject below.

Let's start with the gameplay.

I played on Supernova (the highest difficulty) I felt like I was playing a Lego game. Hell, Lego games provide more challenges than this. AI is brain-dead, you can blow someone's head off & the person standing next to them won't react. Guns feel good to use; the gunplay is similar to F04. I didn't feel like swapping weapons, even the special ones. They didn't provide anything worthwhile. Survival mechanics of supernova felt like an afterthought, not at one point did I feel like I was going to die from lack of sleep, water, or hunger.

Skills & perks feel meaningless. I played most of the game without leveling by guns, sneak, medical, etc... all important attributes in other RPG games & nothing changed or felt different when I did. I didn't sense a progression in my character. Perks are godawful. There's nothing that changes the way you play; All of them are effectively stats boosts & if the stats are inconsequential, then why do the perks matter?

I didn't feel the need to upgrade or change my gear. Everything is lackluster.

Exploration isn't fun, there is very little environmental storytelling & details to pique your interest, and lore bits aren't engaging enough to drive you to explore & placements of everything feel unnatural.

-Graphics, art, & sound
The game isn't RDR2, it does have a great art style, that pops.

The music is splendid. The music is by far the best thing about this game & is one of the two things it does well. (if you're looking to buy, buy or listen to the ost via YouTube) Every track embraces emotions of wonder, terror, exploration, etc... Probably on the top 5 RPG soundtracks.

The look of everything from the weapons, consumables, flora, wildlife, people, etc... looks great! The artists did a standout job crafting this universe & I can't praise them enough. they put a lot of work into the art of the game. Maybe too much work.

The sound design is fine.

-The story
Before I hear the defense that this game was made with a shoestring budget, good writing knows no budget. Vampyr another AA RPG had almost 10/10 writing. The writing in that game wants me to go back for my third play-through. That's how good it is. That game had a smaller budget than this. Budget isn't an excuse for poor storytelling.

-Everything in this game is treated like a joke. I mean that. Before the game launched Director Tim Cain said that this game would look at all sides. It doesn't. It doesn't look at any side. Comedy is a fantastic tool for social commentary when used properly. South Park is a prime example. You still have to prioritize the story over the comedy to achieve that. This game says screw that, let's make everything a joke! Guess what it's not funny, it's annoying.

I'll sum up the story here. The Outer Worlds is like Bioshock if it was written by a group of teenage tiktokers who just learned about economics from a 2 minute YouTube video.

- Almost every quest boils down to a fetch quest with a predictable twist thrown in to retain your attention.

- There's a serious gender bias here. I love female characters. A strong female character doesn't mean to lower men, to raise women. If anything that's more sexist towards women, then you're saying men have to be idiots for a woman to achieve anything. The majority of men here are portrayed as idiots, incompetent, or evil bastards, & the women are the saints. I find this hard to believe when this studio wrote some badass women in their previous games; Cassie & Veronica from New Vegas are better female characters than any in this game.

There aren't many consequences for actions. If you annoy a faction the most that'll happen to you is you paying 20% more at stores. The ones that do matter, only tell you what happens, not show you. The Choices lack any nuance, the game straight up tells you what the best & worst outcomes are before you pick a choice. Instead of questioning your actions, you get to choose to pick A: goody two-shoes option or B. prick option.

-I find it ironic that the game/studio that this game was supposed to kill, wrote a much better story & had a much more polished game a few months after this. The base story of 76 is quite good, it was executed poorly.

I know that this was a long review I hope you stayed with it. The Outer Worlds isn't a horrific game, but it's a bad one. One that I can't recommend in good faith. It's sexist, the story is awful, no challenge, it doesn't serve a point, and the worst offender of all it's a bore to play.

final verdict
4/10