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More expansive isn't necessarily superior. It's a cliché, but it's also the best way to encapsulate my impressions after devoting 50 hours with The Outer Worlds 2. The creators included additional each element to the sequel to its prior sci-fi RPG — increased comedy, foes, arms, attributes, and locations, every important component in titles of this genre. And it works remarkably well — for a little while. But the load of all those grand concepts makes the game wobble as the game progresses.

An Impressive First Impression

The Outer Worlds 2 establishes a solid opening statement. You are a member of the Earth Directorate, a well-intentioned institution focused on controlling corrupt governments and businesses. After some capital-D Drama, you end up in the Arcadia sector, a outpost fractured by hostilities between Auntie's Selection (the result of a merger between the previous title's two big corporations), the Guardians (communalism extended to its most dire end), and the Order of the Ascendant (reminiscent of the Church, but with calculations instead of Jesus). There are also a series of fissures causing breaches in space and time, but right now, you really need reach a communication hub for pressing contact reasons. The problem is that it's in the middle of a battlefield, and you need to find a way to reach it.

Like its predecessor, Outer Worlds 2 is a first-person RPG with an central plot and dozens of secondary tasks distributed across multiple locations or regions (big areas with a plenty to explore, but not open-world).

The opening region and the process of accessing that communication station are remarkable. You've got some funny interactions, of course, like one that involves a rancher who has fed too much sugary treats to their favorite crab. Most lead you to something useful, though — an unexpected new path or some fresh information that might unlock another way ahead.

Unforgettable Moments and Overlooked Opportunities

In one notable incident, you can find a Defender runaway near the overpass who's about to be killed. No task is associated with it, and the exclusive means to locate it is by exploring and hearing the environmental chatter. If you're fast and alert enough not to let him get defeated, you can preserve him (and then protect his defector partner from getting eliminated by creatures in their hideout later), but more connected with the current objective is a electrical conduit hidden in the grass close by. If you trace it, you'll find a secret entry to the transmission center. There's an alternate entry to the station's sewers hidden away in a cave that you may or may not detect based on when you pursue a particular ally mission. You can locate an readily overlooked character who's key to saving someone's life much later. (And there's a stuffed animal who implicitly sways a group of troops to join your cause, if you're kind enough to rescue it from a danger zone.) This initial segment is dense and engaging, and it feels like it's overflowing with substantial plot opportunities that rewards you for your inquisitiveness.

Fading Hopes

Outer Worlds 2 fails to meet those initial expectations again. The following key zone is arranged similar to a location in the first Outer Worlds or Avowed — a large region scattered with points of interest and optional missions. They're all story-appropriate to the struggle between Auntie's Option and the Order of the Ascendant, but they're also short stories isolated from the main story narratively and location-wise. Don't expect any contextual hints leading you to fresh decisions like in the initial area.

In spite of forcing you to make some hard calls, what you do in this zone's side quests has no impact. Like, it truly has no effect, to the extent that whether you enable war crimes or guide a band of survivors to their end results in nothing but a passing comment or two of speech. A game doesn't need to let each mission affect the plot in some major, impactful way, but if you're forcing me to decide a group and pretending like my decision counts, I don't believe it's irrational to expect something more when it's concluded. When the game's already shown that it has greater potential, any diminishment seems like a trade-off. You get more of everything like Obsidian promised, but at the expense of substance.

Ambitious Concepts and Absent Tension

The game's second act tries something similar to the primary structure from the initial world, but with distinctly reduced panache. The idea is a daring one: an interconnected mission that spans two planets and motivates you to request help from assorted alliances if you want a easier route toward your goal. In addition to the repeated framework being a slightly monotonous, it's also just missing the drama that this kind of scenario should have. It's a "pact with the devil" moment. There should be difficult trade-offs. Your association with either faction should count beyond making them like you by completing additional missions for them. All this is lacking, because you can merely power through on your own and achieve the goal anyway. The game even makes an effort to give you means of achieving this, pointing out alternative paths as additional aims and having partners inform you where to go.

It's a side effect of a wider concern in Outer Worlds 2: the anxiety of permitting you to feel dissatisfied with your selections. It regularly goes too far out of its way to ensure not only that there's an different way in many situations, but that you realize its presence. Secured areas practically always have multiple entry methods marked, or no significant items internally if they do not. If you {can't