The Outer Worlds 2 PS5 Review. One of the first Western-developed RPGs I ever played was Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic 2. My favorite Fallout game is Fallout: New Vegas. One of my favorite sleeper hits from 2024 was Pentiment. Notice a pattern? My favorite addition to this list is when I initially played the first two, I had no idea who had developed them. So, when I heard that Obsidian Entertainment had developed Pentiment, I had to play it.
Yet somehow, as of this publication I had never played The Outer Worlds. It was a matter of timing. I got sidetracked by other games when it launched, and I never got around to playing it after that. After playing through The Outer Worlds 2, I know for a fact that I missed out the first time around. This franchise is just plain good, and it shows in The Outer Worlds 2.
The Outer Worlds 2 Review (PS5) – Polished Obsidian Is The Best Obsidian
The Heart of Obsidian
Using the game’s fairly complex character creator, you generate a character that steps into an infiltration mission. In doing so, you discover that the person you’re trying to connect with, de Vries, betrays your cause and causes a massive explosion. You barely escape, but the result is you floating around in space for 10 years while in stasis. Once recovered, you start on a mission to find de Vries and put a stop to her dangerous cause.
The Outer Worlds 2 is an across-the-board Obsidian Entertainment game, complete with both tons of customization and choices that adjust how you experience the game. Generally speaking, the main story objectives take place no matter what. Many main objectives remain the same no matter how many times you play through the game. However, how you complete those objectives stays quite flexible.
I don’t want to give away too many details simply because the fun of these games comes from figuring out how to solve your problems. Just as an early example, there is one point where you need to get through a checkpoint. In order to do so, you either need to fulfill objectives for the guard, just fight your way through, or join a group to take over the checkpoint.
This is oversimplifying because if you have the proper skills, then you can use those skills to get through obstacles. For instance, you can use high levels of speech to talk your way through situations or use high levels of melee to threaten your way through some dialogue choices. This is what I love about Obsidian games, and The Outer World 2 expands on that specialty in every way.
Skills and Their Perks
For every level you gain, you earn skill points. Applying these to your character allows you to interact with the world in different ways. Focus on hacking, and you can break through tons of tech. Level up melee, and you can use more aggressive dialogue options as well as do more damage.
For every other level, you gain a perk. These allow you to increase your stats further. Each perk point comes with a different list of perks you can choose from. These generally allow you to increase your stats in larger increments, giving you the wiggle room to either specialize further or give you more options for secondary stats.
To boot, the game occasionally presents you with permanent flaws. These present themselves as punishments, but they also provide a bonus to compensate for the flaw. For instance, “Teetotaler” increases how much toxicity you take from using healing items, but the same items heal you for more. Another flaw is called “Easily Distracted,” which forces you to level up all of your skills to the same level before you can level anything else higher.
The Power of Choice
The agency of choice presented to you is intoxicating, particularly on your first playthrough. You often find yourself building your character one way only to find different road blocks in other areas. No matter what you do, you will need to consider other options at some point in the game. These keep you thinking not just about how to deal with your current situations but also how you would do things differently in a subsequent playthrough.
It’s invigorating to play something that challenges you while also giving you plenty of ways to complete your tasks. It feels like something you control while still having clear goals and destinations. It’s an exceptional balance between exploration and progression while still feeling like you hold the reins and you don’t just get your hand held for the entire game. In addition, the writing on all fronts complements every aspect of the game as well, providing tidbits of whit as well as delectable sarcasm and satire.
The Outer Worlds 2 does so much well that most of the issues it does have can easily be ignored. In fact, one or two can be appreciated. An appreciable issue comes with glitching enemies into doing what you want them to do. For instance, picture a big room full of enemies. If you start a fight with them, you can leave the room without them following you. This lets you bring them to you and take them out in waves instead of all at once. When you retreat, they go back to their starting point and wait for you to enter the room again.
Not All Imperfections Are Good
Another example of this is in boss fights. You can often find an obstacle they can’t register properly, so they find a different way to you. By manipulating that spot, you can keep the boss running almost infinitely while you pick it apart. While this is a flaw, a flaw like this can easily be appreciated simply because it allows you to continue the game without struggling as hard.
Other flaws don’t help you as much. For instance, while handling your inventory works well enough, you have to get used to it, particularly when handling equipment. To compare equipment from the equipment menu, you need to select the piece of equipment before cycling through your other options. If you want to equip a weapon, then you select the weapon you want to equip and then choose the slot where you want that weapon equipped. Thankfully, you can more conveniently compare equipment while picking up said equipment by pressing L3 when interacting with equipment, so there’s better functionality on that front.
The one big problem I came across is targeting, particularly when looting. I could place the cursor right in the middle of a highlighted object or body, but the loot menu wouldn’t show up. Eventually, I got used to putting my cursor on the edge of the highlighted area in order to see the loot menu. Still, I often had trouble looting things. Generally, this doesn’t mess up your experience, since you don’t need to loot anything during hectic situations or in combat. Still, dealing with the issue and feeling the need to compensate for the issue plays heavily into your routine.
Can’t Go Wrong With Obsidian
The Outer Worlds 2 excels on almost all fronts, presenting you with an open RPG that lets you choose how you progress while still keeping you on a clear path. The in-game systems allow you to customize how you play and give you versatility in the choices you make along the way. Combine that with great writing, and you have a recipe for success. Equipment menus are a bit clunky, enemy encounters can be manipulated, and the act of looting takes some getting used to. Still, none of these issues will keep you from enjoying the game. The Outers Worlds 2 is worth every penny of the $70 it asks for.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.