The Outer Worlds Xbox One X Review

Simply put, The Outer Worlds is an outstanding space adventure. Obsidian has done an exceptional job of incorporating the system's found in their other highly acclaimed project, Fallout: New Vegas, and using them in a brand new venture. With only a tiny amount of issues to plague the experience, The Outer Worlds excels at in every other aspect. Taking players on a trip where corporations rule everything and you decide the fate of thousands of people.

The Outer Worlds has you in control of a custom character. After waking up from cryosleep you're tasked with locating chemicals to help your people to wait up from their cryo chambers. Once on your first planet, you find out that this part of the universe is completely dominated by corporations who've monetized everything from people to gravesites.

This theme is constant throughout The Outer Worlds, with each planet having specific ways of how the corporate world influences the people. Even becoming part of the culture itself. With exceptional characters and layered dialogue constantly adding more context into the game's universe the world feels alive and changing. You'll encounter rebels, insane people, and those who are just plain nice. The writing is excellent but be prepared for a lot of it. As the most interesting missions come from layers of conversation.

There are multiple ways you can shift the narrative. With a variety of branching paths that impact the direction of the story. You'll recruit compansions who'll share their own perspective on each situation and even talk among one another. I loved this system has it made every action you make more profound. With everyone chiming in of what you did and how they felt about it.

The weakest character was the protagonist. As a custom character, you simply exist. Able to complete the impossible and become whatever you want. As the Captain of the Unreliable, it does make sense you can do anything as the story needs you to accomplish the tasks at hand. You're the protagonist after all but compared to the rest of the characters who have stakes in your actions the protagonist is just there to ferry everything along.

The adventure plays out as an FPS action-adventure RPG. You can't switch between first and third-person unfortunately but combat, when compared to Fallout: New Vegas, has been greatly improved. Your movement feels more grounded and you can dash side to side and backward but not forward strangely. Players are also given access to the Tactical time Dilation or TTD that slows downtime for more precise shots. This makes shooting certain areas much easier. Enemies all have unique weak points and react differently based on where they're being shot.

You're given access to plenty of weapons to use. Ranging from basic pistols to a variety of melee weapons. Each one has mods that can be used to customize the weapons and if you enjoy a specific weapon you can upgrade it using the Tinkering option. There is a weapon decaying system, which I personally hate, but it's tolerable here. Don't expect your weapons to fall apart like in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The game also provides plenty of items to break into parts for repair. The weapons and armor themselves are incredibly designed, with many different variations that provide specific advantages.

Compansions play a major role in combat just like in the narrative. Each one has unique talents and skills that can complement the character's existing capabilities such as bonuses to specific skills. You don't need to take allies along for the adventure but it's strongly encouraged since you'll fight a lot of enemies in The Outer Worlds. You can build your allies' up with better equipment and weapons at any time and even set their behavioral patterns. Going even further, Obsidian included a unique special ability for each of your companions to use in combat.

You'll earn experience that can be used to upgrade your character and there's a ton of options. Ranging from hacking, combat, or dialogue focused builds. Those who enjoy talking things out, like myself, now have combat advantages for investing points into dialogue. This includes having the chance for enemies to cower when hit. Obsidian also added Flaw Points. When performing certain actions constantly you'll sometimes get a negative debuff. This includes things such as Acrophobia for falling from taking fall damage too much but this is optional. By accepting it you earn a Perk Point but will be inflicted with the debuffs effects. Speaking of fall damage, it's way too sensitive. Falling from more than 6 feet will cause damage which can be vexation when you just want to leap off a 2 story balcony instead of having to take the stairs.

The Outer Worlds does offer multiple ways to complete objectives but often they're cryptic. For example, during a later mission to infiltrate a hidden underground facility. You're told there's a tunnel you can use but the waypoint only points to the direct entrance. This does promote exploration but with things such as fall damage and long load screens, this can become frustrating. The other technical issue is that on the Xbox One X the game will occasionally load when exploring the map, but this was only a few seconds and rarely happened. One issue that I did find very annoying was the rate the map would load. It took much longer than it should when I needed to fast travel. Also, the cursor moves way too slow.

The worlds themselves are diverse and have many locations to explore. Instead of 1 large map, The Outer Worlds has a series of small maps. I liked this approach of having smaller maps compared to just 1 large map. It allowed for a more diverse selection of environments, similar to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. And with smaller maps, the areas were more condensed instead of having locations to spread apart. This also goes for the cities within The Outers Worlds. With each one providing a unique theme and having everything close together. Entering a new city was an exciting experience every time as you found out who lived there, and how you could shift the livelihoods of everyone there.

The Outer Worlds is outstanding. This epic space adventure is teeming with exciting locations, missions to undertake, characters to speak to, and gives the player plenty of customization control. You can take on the adventure as a murderous anti-hero, a paragon of truth, or just lie and cheat your way through everything. With the exception of tiny technical problems and a bland protagonist The Outer Worlds rarely stumbles. it's easy to get lost in this epic journey and just head into the void looking for more adventure. Once you start The Outer Worlds it'll be hard to stop.

Adam Siddiqui,
Senior Editor, NoobFeed
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