As a true casual does I finally got around to beating that game I started back in 2019. Yep that’s right I finally beat the Outer Worlds. Weirdly enough, as modern gaming goes I never actually paid money for the game. I originally played it when it launched on Game Pass back in 2019, it didn’t really hook me at the time, and being freshly married to a woman who really didn’t like gaming, I just didn’t stick with it. Fast forwarding to 2025 with the release of the Outer Worlds 2, I saw a lot of the hype, people were saying it was better than the first and that it was a fantastic follow up to what was widely considered to be a good game. Thankfully about one or two years ago Epic Games gave the game away on their PC store, so I was able to pick up the Spacers Choice edition of the game for free. I remember giving it a go at the time I got it for free, but it didn’t really hook me then either, but after moving up to Minnesota this past September I had a lot of free time on my hands as I could no longer hang out with my friends I would see a couple times a week and most weekends. I’m thankful I decided to give the game another go, as now I can confidently say it’s one of my favorite RPGs of all time. Obsidian has been making banger RPGs for awhile now, and it’s good to know they haven’t lost steam yet.
So why did it hook me this time but not the other times I tried to play it? Well I have a few reasons I will detail here. Another Cold Take I have made for this website is that Vampire Survivors is the greatest game of all time. (you can read that article here) Like the Outer Worlds, it took me a few tries playing Vampire Survivors for it to really sink in. I’m sure you’ve had that happen with games, songs, books, movies, etc. and usually when that happens, that form of media ends up being a banger. Well, The Outer Worlds is no exception to that. At first, I wasn’t a big fan of the presentation, it’s choices, and it’s story, it all seemed a bit too cynical and a bit too convoluted for me to really sink myself into. But thinking about how I like to play RPGs, where I like to help everyone I can and get the “best” ending every time, of course it’s easy to see why The Outer Worlds would make a player like me struggle with some of the choices. One of the first big choices you have to make in the game is one involving a Spacers Choice Saltuna Cannery in the town of Edgewater. The Cannery is failing horribly, this is for a couple reasons, the outpost administrator Reed Tobson, had the workers put in supplemental material (wood chips and canine meat) to the Saltuna canned at the Cannery to help provide more product during a shortage, this directly led to residents of the town (all workers at the Cannery and employed by Spacer’s Choice) getting sick. Tobson, being a company man told the workers that hard work would heal them, so a couple of the workers/townsfolk decided to leave the town and start their own independent settlement free of the Spacers Choice corporation and its rules. Tobson, wants you to convince the deserters to come back to work so they can resume production at the Saltuna Cannery. Once you leave town and make your way to the deserters settlement, you meet Adelaide McDevitt you worked at the Cannery as a flavor specialist. Adelaide was able to grow crops to keep the deserters fed and free from the plague caused by eating nothing but Saltuna. She hates Tobson because she believes he caused the death of her son, who was also a worker at the plant. This is where the first main choice of the game comes into play. You need to get a power cell for your ship in order to leave the planet and continue with the main story of the game. Currently Adelaide is using the only power cell for the botanical lab which she uses to grow food. She tells you that you can go to the old power station and reroute the power to the deserters and she will give you the power cell. Well, if you reroute the power from Edgewater to the deserters, that would effectively kill everyone in the town, as they would not have the means to produce food to survive. If you take the power away from the deserters, you are forcing them to go back to horrible working conditions where they will almost certainly get sick and die. So far so good right? Usual RPG stuff, a “good” and a “bad” choice. Well The Outer Worlds, like other RPGs has a third choice you can do, if you’re able to pass the appropriate skill checks. This “third choice” has you reroute the power to Edgewater, BUT convince Reed Tobson to leave so that Adelaide can take control of the town. Now this is probably considered the “best for everybody” ending to this quest as it doesn’t really screw anyone over, as it forces Tobson to deal with the consequences for his actions. Well, that’s not really how Adelaide see’s it, yes, she is willing to take over the town since Tobson is gone. But she’s not happy about it. In the end she is still able to grow food to feed the townsfolk and thus curing them of the plague. Overall it’s an ending that seems like it works out for everyone, but it comes at the cost of the independence of the deserters. And that right there is why I like this game. There’s a ton of choices that really don’t feel good to make. It can be off-putting sure, which is why it took me a few times to really get into the game. But as soon as I did some more quests and found more choices like these. I was hooked.
The Outer Worlds is a great RPG that you should play if you haven’t, if you’re a Game Pass subscriber it’s there for you to play as well as it’s sequel, and if you’re like me and only use the Epic Games store to get the free games they give out every Thursday, then you probably have this game and can give it a go that way. Or hell just buy the game. It’s worth it, and I will definitely be sinking my teeth into the second one once I play a few more games in my backlog.