The followup to the first The Outer Worlds, which was a clever and often genuinely funny satire of the dark side of capitalism on the backdrop of a campy old space serial. The problem with the sequel is that all the ways the premise had any bite were clearly exhausted in the first game; so for 2 it's just constant grating Used Car Salesman dialog trying way too hard to outdo what came before, and it's so bloody tiring after the first few hours. Brandon Adler and Leonard Boyarsky clearly gave up on having any humanity in their narrative whatsoever and instead made every character and plot point a hollow sock puppet, constantly belting out "Look how smart we are! Look how clever we are! Pay attention to us!" while forgetting they don't actually have anything smart, clever or even compelling to say. The gameplay has at least improved a little, adding in Fallout style perks upon level-up and encouraging more focused builds, though it's often frustrating to try and complete quests when you need a specific skill at a particular level and simply don't have any way around it, other than to quit out and go do more filler quests until you do. Gunplay is just Borderlands Lite with its moddable weapons and overly spongey enemies that lack any real variety, and your comrades simply don't have much of anything in the way of customizability; well, they do have upgrades you can find and perks to assign every five levels, but they made almost no tangible impact on how I played the game. Outer Worlds 2 is your typical self-proclaimed intellectual with no personality and nary a novel idea in its head, but that doesn't stop it from running its mouth and laughing at its own stupid jokes for a solid sixty hours; which is about forty more than I could stand.
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: XBox Game Studios
Released: 2025
Platform: PlayStation 5, PC, XBox Series, PC