The Outer Worlds [Gameplay #2] - Out of the Silent Planet
0The Outer Worlds feels like a lastgen console RPG stuck in development limbo and then unceremoniously kicked out into a gaming marketplace which has changed significantly since the developer entered pre-production. Alternatively, you could call it Fallout: New Vegas in space (without the technical glitches, thankfully).
It's perhaps unfair to be so reductive about Obsidian's admirably choice-positive mini-epic about interplanetary corporate greed and intrepid companion quests. But when a major hub location (Byzantium) looks eerily similar in it's layout and structure to the Imperial City in TES4: Oblivion (2006), one can't help but get a serious feeling of déjà vu.
For whatever reason, The Outer Worlds faithfully reproduces the statically framed NPC interactions, windowless dungeon corridors, stiff first-person combat and unpredictable ragdoll physics of those landmark Bethesda titles which defined the Xbox 360 and PS3 era. And while Obsidian supplies their own signature focus on dialogue and consequences, both the lack of a real open world and the absence of a fully featured VATS system contribute to a sense that the TOW experience is markedly less than the sum of its dutifully recycled parts.
Whereas Pillars of Eternity was an intelligently modernized riff on Infinity Engine-powered D&D games, Obsidian's latest piece of retro RPG candy consists solely of ingredients which tasted a lot better the first time around...