Finding Redemption in The Outer Worlds
The corporate-controlled space adventure that took me two playthroughs to finally enjoy, and why I'm looking forward to the upcoming sequel!
Troublesome Times, But Rewarding Outcomes
Back in the summer of 2020, things were a bit… rough, to say the least!
Lockdowns were slowly being lifted or put back into place, a lot of people were working from home, and the news was always a bit disheartening to watch or listen to.
One of the games I turned to so that I could zone out was a newer game that came out called The Outer Worlds by Obsidian Entertainment.
It came with a glowing recommendation from someone in my family, and they absolutely loved it, so I wanted to give it a try. After all, my initial thoughts of it from reviews and trailers were tied back to the amazing times I had when I played Fallout: New Vegas, and I felt as though Obsidian nailed the story in that game, so I had high hopes for it!
However, when I first played this game in the summer of 2020, I was a bit shocked at that initial experience from it, and not in the best of ways!
We’re going to take a look at my experiences with The Outer Worlds today! But, even more importantly, I want to explain how I went from a regretful player that wasn’t a fan of this title when I first played it five years ago, to completely changing my mindset about it on my second playthrough last year! Now, in 2025, I have come to love this game and look forward to the future of The Outer Worlds with the upcoming sequel!
Let’s rewind time back a few years, and jump into it!
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My name is Joe, and The Saved Game is a gaming newsletter about nostalgia, new and old favorites, and finding ways to rekindle your love for why you played video games in the first place! Read more here about my Substack page and content!
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The Need for a New, Immersive Gaming Experience
In the summer of 2020, I was REALLY wanting a new game to get immersed in!
For years, I had patiently waited for Bethesda to release a singleplayer title that would rival Skyrim or Fallout. However, nothing was on the horizon except for the future release of Starfield, which I wasn’t even interested in after the long wait for their other games at that point. Likewise, Fallout 76 was something I was never happy with because of the online mode. My already-weak faith and crumbling trust in Bethesda was waning even more.
With everything going on regarding COVID, inconsistent lockdowns, mask mandates, and more that all served as a constant reminder of the unknown, I just wanted something to ground me and something to give me a new world to escape to.
Enter: The Outer Worlds!
Someone in my family gave it a really positive recommendation after they had spent hours upon hours playing it, so I decided to pick it up around May of 2020 for my PlayStation 4! I remember getting it for a decent price, and I was looking forward to a new game to try!
I was very interested in the idea of this game, and I had a great initial perspective of it too. I remember watching the trailer well before the game was released, and I definitely got Firefly vibes mixed with a bit of Fallout, some Borderlands, a dash of BioShock, and a sort of dystopian/cowboy/sci-fi impression from it all that I loved! It seemed like it could be right up my alley and might scratch the itch that I couldn’t reach from the lack of new Bethesda games, so I was excited about it! Just by going through some of the comments on that trailer, I could see that I was not the only one to see The Outer Worlds that way!
Even from the team at Obsidian Entertainment, there were mentions about the similarities from what The Outer Worlds was shaping up to be compared to a game like Fallout: New Vegas. Carrie Patel, a Senior Narrative Designer at Obsidian, sat down in an interview with DualShockers back in 2019 and discussed some of the similarities.
“People will definitely see the DNA of a game like New Vegas in this. We have a lot of developers on our team who worked on New Vegas previously … In our case, this isn’t an open world in the same style as Fallout, but a semi-open world, first-person RPG with strong FPS elements.”
That sounded pretty damn amazing to me, and I knew that I planned on having a great, immersive time in this game! The recommendations sounded great, the reviews looked fantastic, everyone was hyping it up, and the game itself seemed like one that I would love to jump into! Once I got it installed on my PS4, I looked forward to the adventures that awaited me!
Or… so I thought!
My Mostly Disastrous First Playthrough
During my first playthrough back in the summer of 2020, I had a disaster of a time for the most part.
To me, this wasn’t the fault of the game when I first played it. Rather, I opted to shoot my way through most situations in this first playthrough when I should have taken more time to engage with the world around me, talk it out with the various characters, and learn more about the story! I felt like one bad decision led to another, which led to more bad decisions, and so on. Suffice to say, this resulted in me taking matters into my own hands more often than I probably should have 😅
As soon as I landed on Emerald Vale and was in need of a power regulator to get my newly acquired ship off of the ground, I stormed my way through any local Marauder enemies that came across my path. This was all fine and well, however, I definitely went too far once I eventually got to the town of Edgewater and stumbled on some of the first characters, such as Reed Tobson who was in charge and the one that had critical information on the much-needed power regulator I was looking for. I say “was” in charge, because, well… let’s just say that I didn’t like his attitude and figured that I could get my power regulator without him!
Once I took out Reed because of his choice of words, his Spacer’s Choice allies in Edgewater immediately took aim at me and any companions I had at the time (which I think I remember was just Parvati). Eventually, I got my power regulator, and left behind a trail of blood in the now mostly empty settlement of Edgewater.
This style of “shoot-now-ask-questions-later” gameplay was what regrettably propelled this first playthrough, and it snowballed into an experience where I had many, many enemies throughout it all. Looking back on it, my in-game character was one that didn’t put up with pettiness or excuses from others — instead, focusing on blasting my way through to the end of the game, or at least being forced to do so because of the consequences of my actions!
However, this meant that I missed out on A LOT of content, including many of the companion quests and a good chunk of side quests. Unfortunately, by the time I finished up this first playthrough, my life outside of gaming picked up and I didn’t get the chance to play through it anymore in 2020. Past that, my memory of The Outer Worlds was one of a fun game, but ultimately one that I didn’t care much for because of the explosive way I played it.
The good that came from that first playthrough though, is in the fact that this game absolutely let me play this way — just with the consequences that followed! I don’t remember any bugs, main quest issues, or storyline issues that got in my way. In fact, the branching dialogue from the NPCs was incredibly well done, and I remember at least enjoying how the choices I made, albeit mostly terrible ones, were reflected in the dramatic reactions from those around me!
But, that first playthrough was one that was sadly forgettable for me. Not because of the game being bad or of low quality, but simply because of how I played it and the choices I made. It made me a bit skeptical about the overall scale of it because of how fast the game ended, and I felt lost throughout most of my time when playing it. While the game itself was vibrant with plenty of lively locations to explore, I found the experience I got myself into to be a bit bland.
It wasn’t until years later in 2024, when I had the itch to play a space game, that I decided to pick it back up and give The Outer Worlds another try, promising myself that I won’t take down everyone in my path this time!
And WOW, as you’ll read more of below, I am so glad that I tried it again!
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Finding Redemption in The Outer Worlds
When I decided to pick up The Outer Worlds again in 2024, I promised that I would take things in a much slower direction. I would allow myself to become immersed in the world, try to understand as much lore as possible, and talk to as many characters as I could (even if I hated them)!
As soon as I started venturing out in Emerald Vale from the beginning, I immediately felt at peace about this direction of gameplay. Instead of being actively hostile to characters, such as Reed Tobson, I tried to talk to him and understand his perspective. After learning about his situation with the Edgewater workers and his need for them to come back, I was left with many more choices I could decide on that allowed me to figure out the best way forward! After peacefully resolving as much as I could, I got my power regulator and headed towards my ship to take off! Likewise, I easily noticed how detailed this game was when I actually slowed down a bit — whether that was the vibrant location of the Emerald Vale, the treacherous lands of the Monarch Wilderness, or the desolate mining asteroid of Scylla!
This style of inquisitive gameplay made a world of difference for a game like The Outer Worlds!
Yes, this game does allow you to take a lot of fast-and-easy options to advance through the game by shooting your way out of situations. But like I discovered from my first playthrough, you suffer the consequences for it. With this new playthrough, I realized how much I missed by taking my time, advancing the companion quests, and completing as many side quests as possible!
Taking my time also allowed me to better understand the viewpoints and perspectives from all of the characters around me, especially for such a dialogue-driven game. Some of those viewpoints really made me think more about the actions I should or should not take, because some of the choices I needed to make were not always clear-cut decisions, often leading to morally questionable but ultimately satisfying outcomes.
In a streamed interview with Game Developer back in 2019, Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky (both co-directors for The Outer Worlds) discussed the impact that the dialogue and choices had on a game like this. While sitting down on the stream, they both shared some thoughts regarding the need to make sure that there wasn’t a simple set of choices to make:
“It should always feel like you’re making a difficult choice...maybe on the surface it seems very simple but as soon as you dig into it at all it gets a lot more complex … Here’s the group of people [in the town of Edgewater] that are kind of bad, people who are very poor, people who are kind of good, so I always want the writers to add depth to the characters, and having the character that might on the surface seem like an evil choice or the bad choice is actually a very noble character who might be completely misguided but is doing this for the right reasons.”
To me, this all stood out so clearly and vividly during my second playthrough. When I took the time to talk with the other characters and started digging into their story, they all ended up having their own detailed background and unique motivations. Nothing was easy in terms of understanding a “right” way or a “wrong” way. Rather, I had to make the decision that I felt was best suited for the situation, which was often my gut feeling after weighing the information I had!
I also loved the little moments of dialogue between characters that naturally happened throughout the game, and especially the tidbits on the ship. Because the characters, especially the companions, were well-written, they had fun moments of dialogue that really made for an immersive experience!
When I took my time with it, I also found many aspects of The Outer Worlds that I loved! One thing I loved was searching around and collecting the Science Weapons! These were often hilarious, and the Shrink Ray was probably my favorite. I also really enjoyed the interior of my ship, The Unreliable! It was fun to collect random decorations that filled up the ship throughout the game, as they helped to indicate what I’ve done or who I sided with throughout my journey. I also LOVED the various corporations and their logos/slogans, with the details in the designs greatly enhancing the atmosphere in this game!
By the time I finished up the final mission and the credits rolled, I felt incredibly accomplished from this playthrough! I know that I still likely missed some random things or dialogue, but the depth of the characters was really special, and I truly felt that wonderful sense of storytelling that I remembered years ago from other games like Fallout: New Vegas.
A Renewed Hope for the Future
One of the most exciting things that happened after that last playthrough was knowing that the sequel, The Outer Worlds 2, is coming out soon!
In fact, it’s coming out in less than two weeks from now on October 29th, 2025!
I will be eagerly awaiting to see the reviews for this new title, and to hear about people’s thoughts on it! I am extremely excited for it, especially after my latest playthrough on the first game that I really enjoyed! I have some faith in it too, because according to various sources like PureXbox and GamesRadar, the former co-director Tim Cain has helped consult on the upcoming sequel, so I hope that his involvement and others will result in this new experience turning out well! Until I inevitably pick up the sequel though, I plan on going back through the first game again at some point in the near future and trying out the DLCs for it when they go on sale.
My initial foray in the first game was one of many questionable choices I made on my part for how I played The Outer Worlds. I made the choice to rush through most everything, leaving little to the imagination and transforming this game into something akin to a simple first-person shooter. I chose to not talk it out with the wonderfully crafted characters, but rather to force my way through situations that led to a less-than-favorable experience back in 2020. I didn’t feel immersed in the gameplay which made it feel like I was forced to keep playing, and I was left with a gaming experience that I was quick to forget.
However, my eyes and imagination truly lit back up when I replayed it in 2024, with a renewed focus on exploring the worlds of this game! I experienced an immersive style of gameplay that reminded me of the amazing times I had with other games, such as Fallout: New Vegas. When I finished it, my heart and mind felt satisfied from the whole experience that I took part in, with a new love for The Outer Worlds!
If you haven’t picked up this game yet, I implore you to give it a try! Seriously, you won’t regret the time you’ll sink into it, and I encourage you to take a deep breath while playing it, talk with the other characters, pay attention to the details in the designs, and immerse yourself in the wonderful universe of The Outer Worlds!
And hey, if you have already played the hell out of The Outer Worlds and enjoyed it, then I hope that this article gave you something to get hyped up about before you grab the upcoming sequel 😉
Thank you for the honor and privilege of your time! It means a lot that you’re here, and I appreciate your readership!
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See you all next time,
Joe
What are Your Thoughts
I want to hear from you!
Have you ever played The Outer Worlds? If so, how was your experience with it? Did you ever play through it multiple times? Or, did you just base your thoughts on it from one playthrough?
With the upcoming sequel releasing soon, do you plan on picking up The Outer Worlds 2?
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This was interesting to read. It reminded me of the time I played Castlevania Symphony of the Night (which I wrote about). I kept bouncing off it initially because of the preconceptions I had about it, and couldn't understand why I wasn't enjoying it much. When I understood the game on its terms and how it should be played it all clicked into place. Which sounds a bit like your experience.
It's interesting though that The Outer Worlds lets you go so far down a "bad" path. You say that it's a positive that you have the freedom to do that, but I wonder also if that's a design flaw. I'm not familiar with games like this or Fallout, is this typical of this RPG style?