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More expansive isn't necessarily better. That's a tired saying, yet it's also the truest way to encapsulate my thoughts after devoting 50 hours with The Outer Worlds 2. Developer Obsidian added more of everything to the follow-up to its 2019 futuristic adventure — additional wit, foes, weapons, traits, and locations, every important component in titles of this genre. And it functions superbly — for a little while. But the weight of all those grand concepts makes the game wobble as the hours wear on.

A Powerful Initial Impact

The Outer Worlds 2 establishes a solid first impression. You are a member of the Planetary Directorate, a well-intentioned agency focused on curbing corrupt governments and corporations. After some major drama, you find yourself in the Arcadia sector, a colony divided by hostilities between Auntie's Choice (the result of a combination between the original game's two large firms), the Guardians (communalism taken to its most dire end), and the Ascendant Brotherhood (like the Catholic church, but with calculations rather than Jesus). There are also a number of tears causing breaches in the universe, but right now, you urgently require reach a communication hub for pressing contact purposes. The issue is that it's in the heart of a warzone, and you need to figure out how to arrive.

Similar to the first game, Outer Worlds 2 is a FPS adventure with an main narrative and many optional missions distributed across various worlds or areas (big areas with a lot to uncover, but not fully open).

The initial area and the process of reaching that communication station are remarkable. You've got some funny interactions, of course, like one that involves a agriculturalist who has given excessive sugary treats to their preferred crab. Most direct you toward something beneficial, though — an unforeseen passage or some fresh information that might provide an alternate route forward.

Unforgettable Events and Missed Chances

In one notable incident, you can find a Defender runaway near the viaduct who's about to be killed. No task is associated with it, and the sole method to find it is by searching and listening to the ambient dialogue. If you're quick and alert enough not to let him get slain, you can rescue him (and then rescue his deserter lover from getting killed by beasts in their lair later), but more relevant to the current objective is a electrical conduit obscured in the grass nearby. If you trace it, you'll find a hidden entrance to the relay station. There's a different access point to the station's underground tunnels tucked away in a cavern that you may or may not observe based on when you pursue a specific companion quest. You can locate an easily missable individual who's essential to preserving a life 20 hours later. (And there's a soft toy who implicitly sways a team of fighters to fight with you, if you're considerate enough to save it from a minefield.) This opening chapter is rich and engaging, and it seems like it's brimming with deep narrative possibilities that rewards you for your inquisitiveness.

Diminishing Anticipations

Outer Worlds 2 fails to meet those opening anticipations again. The second main area is organized comparable to a level in the first Outer Worlds or Avowed — a big area scattered with notable locations and side quests. They're all thematically relevant to the conflict between Auntie's Selection and the Ascendant Brotherhood, but they're also short stories detached from the main story in terms of story and spatially. Don't anticipate any world-based indicators leading you to new choices like in the opening region.

Despite forcing you to make some tough decisions, what you do in this region's secondary tasks is inconsequential. Like, it genuinely is irrelevant, to the extent that whether you enable war crimes or lead a group of refugees to their death leads to only a casual remark or two of speech. A game isn't required to let all tasks influence the story in some major, impactful way, but if you're compelling me to select a group and pretending like my decision matters, I don't think it's unfair to expect something more when it's concluded. When the game's earlier revealed that it has greater potential, anything less appears to be a trade-off. You get expanded elements like the team vowed, but at the expense of depth.

Bold Ideas and Absent Drama

The game's middle section attempts a comparable approach to the central framework from the first planet, but with distinctly reduced style. The notion is a daring one: an linked task that covers two planets and encourages you to solicit support from different factions if you want a easier route toward your objective. In addition to the recurring structure being a little tiresome, it's also just missing the suspense that this type of situation should have. It's a "pact with the devil" moment. There should be difficult trade-offs. Your association with any group should matter beyond making them like you by performing extra duties for them. All this is missing, because you can just blitz through on your own and clear the objective anyway. The game even makes an effort to provide you methods of achieving this, highlighting different ways as additional aims and having companions advise you where to go.

It's a side effect of a broader issue in Outer Worlds 2: the apprehension of letting you be unhappy with your decisions. It regularly exaggerates in its efforts to ensure not only that there's an different way in frequent instances, but that you realize its presence. Locked rooms nearly always have various access ways marked, or no significant items internally if they fail to. If you {can't