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The Outer Worlds 2 is Obsidian trying to rediscover the role-playing magic that once defined it as a juggernaut within the genre.

And in a lot of ways, this bigger, and generally better sequel accomplishes its goals. Compared to The Outer Worlds — and indeed, compared to many other modern RPGs — the game provides player choice and consequence in abundance, often to an impressive extent.

Between building your own character, allying with various factions, and getting to shape the perspectives of your party members, The Outer Worlds 2 has plenty going for it on a mechanical level. And by the end of its 50-hour campaign, you'll come to appreciate how key decisions begin to stack on top of one another.

Everyone's going to play this game a bit differently. Skill checks are rampant throughout, locking off dialogue options or object interactions unless you've chosen to invest in certain specialisations.

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And then your character's morality is layered over that; you certainly don't have to play the hero, leading to loads of moments where you at least consider resorting to unfettered violence in order to satisfy your objectives.

Quests always feel like they're branching, and conversations are always throwing curveballs that'll tempt you into responses that you may have previously ignored. What we're saying is that The Outer Worlds 2 is, at its best, a very engaging RPG — and more often than not, it'll really make you think about your next move.

There's a problem, however, and it's one that's unfortunately baked into the series' identity.

The Outer Worlds' sci-fi setting is dystopian, but comically so. Cut off from Earth, colonies are either ruled over by blatantly evil corporations or morally questionable, cult-like organisations. In this game's solar system of Arcadia, there's a war going on between two such entities.

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Both the hyper-capitalist Auntie's Choice and the mathematically obsessed The Order have clear flaws in terms of beliefs and societal structure — and that should make them interesting to explore from a player perspective. There are no objectively good and bad choices here.

But The Outer Worlds' world building is so heavy on over-the-top parody that the title's ironic tone can undermine the emotion that it's trying to convey. This sequel doesn't necessarily want to be a serious RPG that deals with serious issues, but it's still difficult to truly care about the game's factions when they're all so sardonic.

And this criticism extends to the people who inhabit said factions. Outside of a few key figures, we'd struggle to name any characters who make a lasting impression; so many of them are just extensions of their faction's viewpoint, offering little reason to care about them as individuals, or the mess that they usually find themselves in.

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As a result, interacting with the vast majority of characters in The Outer Worlds 2 is just a bit... dull. This is an intelligent, well written, and sometimes genuinely funny game — as you'd expect of Obsidian — but there's a frustrating lack of personality beyond the surface-level satire.

Sadly, your party members suffer the same fate. Playing as a fully customisable lead known simply as the Commander, your top secret mission goes horribly wrong in the game's prologue, and you spend the rest of the adventure attempting to put things right.

As you progress, you can recruit a number of ragtag allies to your system-saving cause. And we use the word 'can' for a reason; you don't have to recruit anyone, and it's even possible to just completely miss a potential party member based on your actions.

Anyway, these allies — or possible partners in crime — are disappointingly hit and miss. Some have enjoyable quirks but they're never quite fleshed out enough, while others fall into the same trap as most of the game's NPCs. That is to say, they end up being little more than a one-note mouthpiece for their faction's ideals.

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But to be fair, party member-specific quests do let you explore — and in some cases alter — the mindset of your companions. Again, it's the role-playing aspects that carry this part of the game; you may not be totally endeared to these characters, but being able to have a noticeable impact on their development adds welcome spice to each relationship.

Beyond the seemingly endless flow of dialogue options, The Outer Worlds 2 is a much bigger release than its predecessor. The game is built around a handful of colonised planets, each of them boasting their own fully explorable map.

These environments are smaller than your typical open worlds, but they are open. You're mostly free to pick a direction and wander, and that's a good thing when there are plenty of side quests and hidden secrets to uncover. Exploration is probably one of the sequel's greatest areas of improvement; it's nice to just get out and about after having sat through god-knows how many conversations with the locals.

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Combat plays a key part in this as well, with the Commander and company having to put down all manner of extraterrestrial beasties as they trek from place to place. And this is another core part of the experience that's much improved, thanks to snappier gunplay and a way more complete melee weapon system.

In particular, firearms have a satisfying kick to them now, and enemies of all shapes and sizes react better to the incoming damage. It's not perfect — there are still times when the action feels a little weightless — but generally speaking, Obsidian's done well to take things up a notch. There are even some cool boss fights to look forward to.

There's a lot of variation in how you're able to approach battles as well. The introduction of 'Gadgets', which are unlocked through certain quests, essentially act as cooldown-based abilities. One slows time, another grants you a damage shield, and there's a nifty device that lets you see foes through walls.

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They don't revolutionise the gameplay loop, but the Gadgets lend a touch of personality to The Outer Worlds' brand of action. Couple them with a collection of wacky weapons — like acid-firing shotguns and a roulette-powered war hammer — and it's obvious that the game wants you to have a laugh as you cause wanton destruction.

It's a shame, then, that your allies can still be such an unnecessary burden. As was the case in the first game, party member AI can be braindead, either refusing to enter cover, or consistently performing suicide runs into the heart of enemy territory.

On the normal difficulty, your teammates get knocked out fast if you're not furiously backing them up. The Outer Worlds 2 likes pitting you against waves of opponents — especially during main story scenarios — and it can get to a point where your companions become a liability.

It's not a game-breaking issue because of how competent your Commander is — you can start cobbling together some outrageously effective builds once you're a handful of hours in — but it's absolutely the kind of thing that you'd expect the developer to tweak via post-launch updates.

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For the most part, The Outer Worlds 2 seems technically solid, but we did stumble upon a number of annoying UI-related bugs, and a couple of quests broke on us, forcing us to load up an older save. Minor problems in the grand scheme of things, but they do add up.

As for graphics, you're looking at your standard Quality or Performance modes on PS5. The former's capped at 30 frames-per-second, which is never ideal in a game with this much combat, but the latter's preferred 60 frames-per-second comes at the expense of reduced environmental detail.

Little things like grass animations are cut back or removed when playing on Performance, and it can be distracting. Pop-in becomes more common as well, and so while it's the better graphical option, it's not exactly ideal.

And speaking of visuals, The Outer Worlds 2 is definitely better looking than the first game, but NPCs still have that clay-like visage, and the facial animations remain fairly basic. There are some brilliant skyboxes to behold here, and each planet's got its own distinctive look, but up close, it's all a bit last-gen.

Conclusion

The Outer Worlds 2 succeeds in being a bigger and better sequel, buoyed by an even greater emphasis on player choice and freedom. Its RPG mechanics are largely fantastic, and there are key improvements to both combat and exploration.

However, despite Obsidian's clever writing, there's an underlying dreariness to the property that it just can't seem to escape. These dull characters and their one-note factions are difficult to truly care for.

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