Not so Outer this World experience.

The Outer Worlds, the second in the "Outer W(x)lds" franchise released this year, after Outer Wilds is... Okay, sorry, I had to get at least one last of those jokes in. But I do think it's funny that, handful of MK 11 matches here and there aside, I went directly from Outer Wilds to The Outer Worlds. Wouldn't have happened if Outer Wilds released on PS4 at the same time as PC and Xbox One, so clearly some sort of conspiracy is afoot.

Okay, all jokes aside for real this time. The Outer Worlds is the spiritual successor to Obsidian's Fallout New Vegas, and I think like New Vegas at the time, it's left me with a feeling of having enjoyed the game, but also thinking it could've been a lot better. Which, is interesting, because over the years, and it's been a long nine years since 2010, New Vegas has developed this sort of legendary aura around itself. It's the one people point to when they talk about the modern era of Fallout. Up until the announcement of The Outer Worlds, people were still hoping Obsidian would return one day to make New Vegas 2, but instead they went and made a new thing in that same mold.

The thing about New Vegas is, I certainly liked it at the time, but I don't remember revering it in the way that so many do now. (Sadly I don't seem to have written a blog about it back in the day, which is probably just as well, a lot of my blog writing then was bad for a myriad of reasons, but anyway the point is I don't have a written record of my thoughts.) But over all these years, the ways I talk about and think about New Vegas have changed, not because I went and replayed it, just because so many people talked about how great it was that I eventually started doing the same. That, and Fallout 4 happened, which was a bummer for so many reasons that it did a lot to retroactively make me appreciate New Vegas more.

Anyway, the point is that while I did enjoy Outer Worlds, and I think it's a pretty good game overall, I don't think it's the great, amazing game it's been made out to be in some of the reviews. That, and I feel like it's reminded me of how I actually felt about New Vegas at the time I played it, which is that it's a pretty good game overall, but not the great, amazing game it's been made out to be over the years.

So why is it that Outer Worlds is good but not great? It's kind of a lot of things, really. The biggest one being that the main story isn't really that compelling. I'm the sort of person who always ends up doing lots of side stuff between each main story mission, but that's because I like to explore, and run into these things. And when a game like this specifically has a "Botched Quests" section, it gives me the impression that it's possible to lose out on quests forever by progressing the story, so obviously I need to go and do all the side stuff first!

Beyond that, in Outer Worlds, there were multiple times where after spending an afternoon doing side quests, when I loaded the game up the next day, I honestly didn't remember what the main thrust of the story was. Luckily the quest log had sufficient info to remind me. And this isn't to say that the main story is bad, it's still better than Fallout 4's (by a lot), but at no point did I feel compelled to push it forward, or feel like I just had to see what was going to happen next. Instead it just felt like another quest I had to do, and one that wasn't really as interesting as some of the other stuff.

But even those other more interesting quests often don't have interesting conclusions. There was one moment where I got so, SO excited when I was walking down the street in Stellar Bay, and saw a man run out of a building, yelling about a murder! This was the moment when I knew the game was all coming together, when I was getting to the "solve this murder" side quest. This is the sort of quest I love these games for. I'd have to search around, talk to people, go investigate some stuff, and it'd be great.

Problem is the quest itself was short, didn't involve any real investigating, and none of it was even a tenth as interesting as what I imagined when I first saw that guy running out. This, I think, is perhaps the true biggest flaw in The Outer Worlds. It has a lot of potential that it squanders by not taking things as far as it should. Yes, it's a much smaller, more focused game than the modern era Fallouts, but it's not small or focused enough. It's neither grand enough in scale to make up for shortcomings through sheer quantity, nor good enough at most things to rise up to being truly great.

It's still pretty good, though, and there's stuff I really liked in there. Like Parvati, who is not only my favorite companion, but probably my favorite character out of any game I've played this year. She's just so wholesome and nice. And in a game that feels very much like it was made by "the straights," it was refreshing to have someone whose storyline/quests involved her budding queer relationship with another character. Not the main one, there's no player romancing to be had, for better or worse (I'd lean toward better). But definitely for better is that this quest didn't involve any sort of tragic ending.

Sadly, not all the companions or their quests are as good as that. There's six companions total, and of them I liked three. Parvati, Nyoka, and Ellie. Even Ellie tested my patience in a few spots, with her "you should only look out for yourself" attitude, but I think she came around in the end. Problem is that of the others, Felix felt like the most forgettable character in the (outer) world, which is a real bummer after his introduction was pretty funny. And Vicar Max, who professes to a space religion but is trying to find answers to questions about it through heretical texts, is an interesting idea for a character that I think isn't executed well, and ends with a flop. The last one is SAM, a cleaning robot that isn't even a character, just a single joke repeated every time he talks (that joke being that he says things about cleaning while spraying acid at enemies).

If I'm being fair, not every game with companions is going to have them all be hits, and not misses. Look at Mass Effect (Outer Worlds clearly did, with its companion selection screen). It's easy to just think about Mass Effect as a whole franchise (all three of the three and only three Mass Effect games), but there was really only one truly great companion in Mass Effect 1, and that was Wrex. Garrus, Tali, and Liara were all good, and interesting enough, but came into their own in 2 and 3. Never mind that Kaidan was a snooze-fest and Ashley a space-racist.

Bear in mind, Mass Effect 1 is still my favorite game ever, even if a lot of that is nostalgia. It's just that when the expressed goal is a tighter focus than previous games in the genre, to have two of the companions be basically nothing (Felix has a quest but it ain't great), and one be a disappointing execution of a good idea is, well, indicative of the game as a whole, again.

Without getting into direct spoilers, it's difficult to give examples of why some of the quests feel so disappointing. Part of it is that it feels like there's little consequence for anything the player does, part is that any time there's some sort of twist, I saw it coming a mile away, but I think it's that a lot of this game just ends limply. One planet had quests that feel like they should end in something big, a fight between two factions, but there's a way to find a peaceful resolution, which I went for because I like finding ways to solve problems without fighting, but then it just ends.

Not the end of the game, but the end of that quest line. You broker a settlement between the factions (easily), and then everything returns to normal. Even if you go talk to the faction leaders, all you get are a couple sentences from one (as opposed to the LONG dialog I had when I first met him), and the other I couldn't even find! I'm sure she was in the world somewhere, but I dunno where!

This game doesn't do follow ups well. It was very heartwarming to help Parvati along, but after her quests end, that's it for that subplot, aside from a bit during the game's Fallout style ending where a man who isn't Ron Perlman (or even trying to be) narrates what happened to everyone and all the factions. I keep saying this game was supposed to be "smaller" and "more focused" than something like Bethesda Fallout, but that's like saying something is smaller than Canada. Sure, it can be smaller, but still pretty big, and it's a lot to ask that a game have as many quests as this does, and then have stuff that keeps going after the fact. But this game really doesn't do that, and I wish it had.

A thing I keep thinking about, entirely because other people keep mentioning it around The Outer Worlds, is Disco Elysium. A game I haven't played, but sounds like, on paper, is doing the thing I wish Outer Worlds did. Which is to say doing these much deeper dives into everything, and making every choice actually matter. At least that's what the people say when they mention it in relation to Outer Worlds. Personally, everything I've seen about Disco Elysium seems absolutely insufferable, especially the writing. Which, you know, would be a problem in a game that looks to be about 90% written text. Sorry for that aside, but I wanted to head that off before someone recommended I try that game.

That's just the story/quest stuff (of Outer Worlds, this segue worked better before I added the Disco aside), without even getting into the game itself. Or, the design of the game. Here is where it makes even more mistakes, and I think these are almost all in service of the game aping something it shouldn't in the first place. In almost every way it can (aside from technical issues, of which I had none), The Outer Worlds tries to replicate the act of playing Bethesda era Fallout, and this is one hundred percent to a fault.

This didn't need to be a game with so much inventory management. This didn't need to be a game with weapon and armor durability that serves as nothing more than a resource sink. This didn't need to be a game with three different dialog specific skills that almost all of the time, can be used interchangeably and all achieve the same goal. This didn't need to be a game with mediocre combat that while better than Fallout 3/New Vegas, I still think wasn't as good as 4's, and lacks the thing that actually made combat fun and goofy in all those games.

For everything The Outer Worlds copies from Fallout, the thing it neglected, despite presenting itself as a somewhat goofy game, is the tone. Where's the jaunty music that plays over the radios of Fallout? Outer Worlds copies the stoic, downbeat original soundtracks of the Fallout games, which I never listened to in those, because so much of what I think about Fallout is the juxtaposition of that goofy, ridiculous tone with the dark post apocalypse.

And where's the interesting perks like Mysterious Stranger, or Bloody Mess? This game has perks (only gotten every other level like in New Vegas, which I didn't like then either), but none of them are the slightest bit interesting. They're all stuff like extra carrying weight, or better prices at vendors. Some of the ones in the third/final tier get almost interesting, with abilities that need to be activated by doing stuff. Like, get a kill and the next hit on an enemy will be a guaranteed critical hit. But things like that are still boring compared to guaranteeing that enemies explode into blood and limbs, or getting a bonus to dialog skills when talking to someone of the gender of your choosing (if I recall in the Bethesda ones it was very hetero/for the 'opposite sex,' but New Vegas had ones for 'same sex' bonuses).

Perhaps even more disappointing than the perks are the Flaws that tie into them. The idea is that over the course of the game, certain things you do, or happen to you will cause the game to offer a Flaw in exchange for a perk point. For example, jump off a lot of things, and your character's legs will be permanently injured, and they'll move slower. They're optional, and bad. Not bad in the sense that the trade offs aren't worth it (though that is exactly the case with a lot of them), bad in that it's another wasted opportunity. Most of them are things like, "you've become afraid of this type of enemy from fighting them so often, so take a bunch of debuffs when around them." The problem being that the combat is so not difficult that every fight ends in victory, so it makes absolutely no sense at all that you'd become afraid of them!

That, and all you get for these debuffs are points to spend on the boring perks. What would have been more interesting was if each Flaw/perk was something specific. Like with the fall damage one, maybe the trade off could have been that you move slower, but no longer take fall damage. That would be interesting, make sense, and could allow for a level of role playing that "I move slower but in exchange I got the perk that improves vendor prices" doesn't. I mean, if I really tried, I could tell myself that the reason I got the better prices was because the vendors took pity on me for limping in. But I'd be really stretching it there, and doing a lot of the work the game should have done in the first place. That's just an example, the only Flaw I took was to receive extra plasma damage, and I don't remember which perk I picked because they're all so generic.

The closest thing to personality in the combat are the science weapons, but in my experience they didn't seem all that useful. A shrink ray should just shrink an enemy, and then I can run over them or something silly like that. If the majority of the combat on the default setting is going to be a cakewalk anyway (even with me putting literally ZERO points into any attack related skills through the entire game, and I hit the level cap), then make the weird weapons comically overpowered. I would have had more fun if I could be doing wacky nonsense the entire game.

But really the thing I wish this game had was more ways to circumvent combat in the first place. High enough speech skills will cause enemies to cower during fights, but they don't run away. They just stand there cowering, waiting for you to shoot them while they're defenseless. You know, despite having those skills maxed out, I didn't see that very often, and frankly I'm glad, because it felt BAD.

What I wish this game had far fewer nameless enemies (or maybe even none at all), and instead had options to talk through any potential combat. Again, I'm sure not within the scope of what Obsidian was going for, but when a game is sold on player choice, etc, I wish I could choose to play the game without killing anyone. Or at least not having to go around killing marauders who exist for no reason other than to make NPCs scared, and provide XP and quest objectives.

There's other stuff that I just don't understand why it's in the game. Why is this a game where the default state is gun drawn, even in towns, or my own ship? Why does it automatically draw after climbing a ladder, or activating an elevator? I don't ask for much, but if I'm in a peaceful area, I at least want to walk around NOT POINTING A GUN AT PEOPLE.

Why is there a character creator when the only time you see them is in the (BAD!) inventory screen? The character doesn't speak either, which I get, but also one thing I think Fallout 4 did right was give a voice to the player. From what I've heard the male voice was kinda junky, but I played with a lady, and I thought her performance was good, and frankly one of the highlights of that game. Giving her a voice added a lot more character to a game that was in need of a lot of things, and I think it would've also helped The Outer Worlds.

The more I think about it, the more I wish this game had been aping Mass Effect instead of Fallout. I mean, it is also doing that, in some ways, but the clear inspiration is Fallout. But also really what I think this is getting at...is that I just want a new Mass Effect game.

Alas.

Thinking about what I've written here, it sounds pretty negative. But not so negative that I felt the need to go and re-write it, and give this a different tone. On the whole I still think I enjoyed the game, because most of the time I was into it. I was for a long stretch there, really into this game, and I still think it's good. I'd still recommend it to anyone who has been waiting for a good Fallout style game.

I'd just warn them that this isn't the great Fallout style game we've been waiting for.

Thank you, as always, for reading. I do enjoy writing these, and while it's taken time away from my other writing, I'm happy I've had so much to write about these last few weeks. And, well, with a certain game coming out soon, you bet your britches I'll be writing again...

I have very similar thoughts on the game to yours. I think, however, that a lot of the issues come down to budget. The game screams mid-budget with cut corners to me. They made a functional Fallout style game but they just did not have time or money to build out the stuff that could have made it great. There's lots to do but it's all the same stuff. Enemy behavior is very limited and samey. Character scripting is basically non-existent (e.g. when Nyoka is teaching Pavarti to shoot on the ship, something I saw multiple times, she talks about Pavarti's body placement when shooting and none of that is animated at all.) The guy who screams about the murder is basically the only time an NPC does anything other than attack you or stand around and talk.

Compared to even games that came out almost a decade ago, like Mass Effect 2 and Skyrim, it's all just extremely limited and small scale, and that has to be because of money.

This game is kind of a proof of concept that Obsidian can do Fallout without the franchise, and they did, and it works and it's fun, but it feels cheap in a lot of ways. Compared to something like Horizon: Zero Dawn, where the combat is so much more involved and there's so much more variety of what you do and see in the world, this game just feels incredibly old. As I said, even Skyrim had quests that were more interesting than "fetch X, talk to Y, kill Z" which are basically the only types of quests this game has, with even the ones where you can do it multiple ways rarely involving any big differences.

My hope is that with Microsoft buying Obsidian and clearly making a big exclusives push next generation they can get the budget and support to make a much better sequel. There's so much here that's good, but with more money to make it more varied and polished it could be great.

I definitely feel the same way as you about both New Vegas and Outerworlds.

I am a big RPG guy but I think Obsidian has always gotten too much hype for my tastes. Their games are good but I've never found their writing so incredible (they're no CD Projeckt) and had issues with other things besides bugs throughout them. There's always something cool there but enough to have issues or more for me with the rest. Alpha Protocol is a good example. I do love how the game does choice but when people talk up the story and gloss over things like when I fought a little girl in a raver outfit with dual uzis on a yacht in a straight faced manner I have to wonder if we played the same game.

I personally don't think their focus on faction systems are always so interesting in New Vegas or this game. The overall world definitely has to grab you and Outerworlds is just very derivative of other sci-fi media like Firefly.

I have a number of problems with Outerworlds as an RPG and the limit is there like you mention. The problem is the game does enough to feel like its meant to be big that it feels so cramped when it isn't.

@bigsocrates: My only worry is that, from what I've heard, it sounds like the intent of the Obsidian purchase was to focus more on the types of games they'd been making prior to Outer Worlds. You know, those more tactically minded top-down-y RPGs on PC. Which, I mean, hey, those games have an audience too, that audience just isn't me.

But frankly, I'd almost rather they just ditch all the combat and RPG mechanics, and focus solely on a good story. Their take on a Life is Strange style 'choose your own adventure' game (for lack of a better term) would certainly appeal to me more, because I do think they have the writing chops. At least enough of the time.

@stephen_von_cloud: I didn't mention it in the blog, but I definitely did also think about Witcher III while playing Outer Worlds. I'm sure their budget and everything was much, much bigger than Obsidian had, but aside from that game's combat also being fairly rote (just rote swords instead of guns), it definitely blew just about everything Outer Worlds does out of the water.

That said, I greatly appreciate how bizarre Alpha Protocol got with stuff like that, and I would've been happier if more of Outer Worlds had that sort of manic weirdness to it. But that's just a personal taste thing.

I agree on that actually. It's all a matter of execution. I don't mind whacky but all that in AP didnt' work for me.

I think Outerworlds goes towards a whacky feel but doesn't carry through. A lot of the game feels like that tone and narrative wise.

@mooseymcman: That was before Outer Worlds' reception though. It's gotten a lot of buzz from the press, which liked it more than you or I did, and it will collect some GOTY buzz (though I doubt will win many awards.)

Considering that Microsoft has successfully launched 0 franchises this gen (unless you count small scale stuff like Ori) and is desperate to rebuild its first party portfolio, it would be insane not to push a sequel to a game that people actually liked that wasn't Forza, Gears, or Halo. In addition they could do the Bayonetta thing of "If you loved Outer Worlds 1 on PS4 or Switch you need to get an Xbox or gaming PC to experience the next chapter in the story." I think a follow up is basically guaranteed.

It probably won't be for a few years, of course, but my hope is that they see this as an opportunity to actually throw some cash behind a series that people actually like, as opposed to the weird stuff they messed around with this gen (though Sunset Overdrive was a legitimately great game, and I actually liked Quantum Break for all its many flaws.)

@mooseymcman: As far as The Witcher, I would say 1 and especially 2 also have great writing and quests with a much lesser budget than 3.

3 deserves all the praise it gets but i think 2 is not that far off. I think it's the best RPG of that style (more of a contained Bioware formula) that's been made.

I'm about 25 hours into this game, and I largely agree with much of what you've written. I returned to Edgewater after diverting power to the other group. Aside from some ambient dialogue of NPCs wondering when how long the power will be out (and one named NPC who mentions it, but doesn't do anything about it), nothing changed. I talked to named NPCs and didn't have any additional dialogue options.

I agree that the perks are terrible. A half-dozen perks just for mitigating inventory problems is seriously uninspired.

The science weapons are extremely disappointing to me, as well. They have cool effects, but having to constantly fire the shrink ray or mind control gun at enemies to keep the effect going essentially takes away 1/3 of your team's combat ability.

I agree as well with this. Like one person already said it's because of the budget. The game feels like a B grade type game more so than AAA or even AA. I'm hoping next gen brings more dialog with characters after you've completed whatever quests so they don't feel like robots spewing out the same lines over and over. I also hope someone teaches Obsidian how to make FPS combat feel good and satisfying. I did love the game for what it was though. Also the music is some of my favorite in an action RPG.

I agree with most everything you've said, and likely can't articulate any other points to add onto your blog. I will say I'm in the minority who thought Parvati was just dull. I didn't care for her much at all. Vicar was the only character I enjoyed (in fact I didn't even bother with the robot or the doctor lady)

All and all I found this game to be dreadfully boring and plain. I picked up Disco Elysium after playing Outer Worlds upon seeing the talk, and I strongly agree that game has the writing I wish Outer Wilds had. Disco Elysium is fantastic!

@bigsocrates: I hope you're right!

@stephen_von_cloud:Witcher II is still, by far the game I've played where choices actually matter. Or, at least that one choice that determines the entire second act of the game mattered.

I'm really curious why anyone would think there's some reason to compare Outer Worlds and Disco Elysium, other than that they happened to release around the same time.

They both fall into the general category of "RPG", I guess, but are going for such wildly different things that holding them up against each other seems pointless.

@frytup: I mostly included a paragraph about it because I heard Austin Walker bring it up in relation to Outer Worlds on Waypoint Radio, specifically about how much more it has choices matter and whatnot compared to Outer Worlds. I haven't played it, and don't want to, just going by what Austin said! Can't speak for that other person you were actually replying to.

@frytup: I picked up both games strictly based on the praise the writing was receiving, so I strongly think comparing then is valid. Where Outer Worlds writing starts strong and charming, I felt it dried up very rapidly and became an uninspired bore. I felt no attachment or care to anything happening from around the 3rd act and on.

On the flip side Disco Elysium's writing starts off compelling and weird and only gets better, and is also hilarious. I've never had a game get so many audiable laughs from me before.

I think both games are quite similar when it comes to their goals of story telling. Visually they are clearly wildly different but I feel like that doesn't detract from the cores of the games being alike. Also from a personal view I didn't specifically care that one came was first person rpg and one was 3rd person isometric rpg, I have no real affection for one style versus the other.

End of the day, both were games I knew nothing about and picked up due to critical acclaim, and Outer Worlds left me pretty lukewarm.

I got the game for free through Game Pass and still find myself feeling like I was tricked out of my money somehow. Though the writing and setting are okay, they, like everything in the game are so paper thin. It's a shell of all the systems you expect to find in a game of its type and I would with argue with a straight face that the main story of any Bethesda game is done better than Outer Worlds. All that good writing might go toward some clever phrasing, but it never seems as though it fulfills any purpose.

I don't hate the game, but I honestly just don't understand what people were experiencing when they gave it such high praise.

@takayamasama: I'm curious if you've played a 3D Fallout game before, then.

To get the level of choice and consequence and reactivity offered in Disco Elysium in a fully voice acted first person 3D game would require an enormous budget, and it's something no game of that type has ever accomplished. The reason Outer Worlds (not Wilds) is getting such high praise is Bethesda's Fallouts after 3 have offered barely any dialog choices or interesting characters at all.

I get being tempted to compare DE and Outer Worlds since you played them close together, but you really can't do that honestly keeping in mind the kinds of games they are, how they're made, and who they're made for. Bear in mind that, like the OP, the vast majority of the potential gaming audience won't even touch DE because it only exists on PC and comes in a form that the general audience doesn't find appealing.

@frytup: I'll continue to mix those up in typing until the end of time. Curse them dropping so close to each other.

On your Fallout 3 and on point, I don't think Outer Worlds comes close to having interesting dialog choices compared to 3, which is one of my favorite games. Maybe it's just the Obsidian side of the house, I also strongly disliked New Vegas (which was my least favorite FO before the steaming mess that was 4 happened).

Least it ran well. New Vegas was also one of the buggiest games I've ever played so it was a relief to have Outer Worlds function properly out of the gate.

@mooseymcman: The head of Xbox Studios said that they see Outer Worlds as a franchise.

Take 2 also recently said that it exceeded their expectations for sales and reviews.

I suppose it's possible that plans will change, but I have a feeling that development will at least start on a sequel (whether it's ever completed is probably a more complex question given how often games get killed these days.)

@bigsocrates: I see! Also interesting to see how they would do a sequel given how this one ends.

@mooseymcman: I agree, but there are a number of options. Personally I'd like to see the game go to another colony. Halcyon was cool and I wouldn't mind revisiting it, but I wasn't desperate to stay in any of the locations and I especially got kind of sick of Monarch because you spend so long there. I think it would be interesting to see how things went in another colony, kind of like how Fallout goes to various geographical regions for its games.

You could also potentially have multiple systems and have Halcyon be just one of the ones you could visit, depending on how big they want to make the game. That could be fun.

Or, you know, just do the ol' "skip way into the future" thing. Or a game where the goal is to check out what's going on with Earth.

I think there are plenty of options, and while I had issues with the game the setting wasn't really one of them. I think by 2021-2022 I will be ready to revisit either Halcyon or some other location in this universe.

@frytup: Yeah, I enjoyed Outer Worlds quite a bit. The last time I sat down and played a game for the better part of a day was the latest God of War.

For me, it’s kinda what you said. I think Bethesda hasn’t had a great fallout game since New Vegas. Fallout 4 was bloated and I never finished it. Fallout 76 could be called 2018’s hottest mess in video games. Similarly, given Obsidian’s work with Bioware’s past engines and sometimes franchises, Bioware has been even worse than Bethesda in recent years, shitting out Andromeda and Anthem.

For someone to come along and make something like a Bioware or Bethesda game, streamline it, make it something you can enjoy in 15-30 hours, tops...I think that’s pretty fucking cool.

Yeah, the game has issues, but the two biggest players in that space have repeatedly fumbled for years. And this game, despite some clear faults, largely succeeds at making a game where there’s demand but no supply.

@bigsocrates: I think I'd rather a different setting, as if I never had to hear, "It's not the best choice, it's Spacer's Choice" again, I wouldn't be upset.

Man, I really feel your impressions on this one.

When I think about this game, I keep coming back to something I read about New Vegas. One of the game's better characters, Arcade Gannon was Josh Sawyer's player character in a Fallout tabletop game. He felt authentic because because Josh knew what made him tick, and he was tested in a game environment before work on New Vegas had even begun.

None of the characters in The Outer Worlds feel like that. They're reactive and small by comparison. The Outer Worlds is a fun enough game, but it just isn't the "New Vegas in Space" I wanted it to be.

I get the impression Obsidian wanted to make a 3D Fallout game using the KOTOR structure with a few mid-size sandboxes, but ran out of time/money. Byzantium has a ton of load screen for very small area's and Scylla only has two POI, I can't believe either is intentional. Monarch is the only location that actually feels complete, also most of the quest resolve pretty quick. TOW doesn't fill that Fallout gape.

I started to peter out pretty quick after the first planet and initial run through the spaceship planet.

It starts to sink in that nothing is really that interesting and the gameplay doesn't really have any payoff and I'm left kind of bummed I spent money on it.

I also burned out on it pretty quick, but I suspect I may not really like the Bethesda/Obsidian style of RPG that much. The only one I felt captivated by was Skyrim, which I dumped well over 100 hours into.

This writing in fallout 4s map would do it for me, the 'levels' are just too video gamey for me to really love it, but hey, its still great.

I totally agree with everything you wrote and I am only about 6-8 hours into the game. I started out really liking it, the first world is gorgeous and the writing is funny. Then I finished the first main quest line of choosing who gets the power and the end of it felt so bland and boring. As I played the game more it started to feel like a game built on a bunch of generic RPG game systems with no innovation or even attempts at innovation.

They kinda just completely made a Bethesda game clone, except they cloned game mechanics, story telling, and AI behavior that feels nearly a decade old at this point. I love SKyrim and I still think thats a great game to play today, but it also feels old at this point. Fallout 4 came out 4 years ago and one of the biggest issues with that game is it felt old and outdated.

The NPCS in Outer Worlds feel mostly like robots on scripted paths and your choices "matter" but really they don't. Everything feels like an illusion of choice and while im not that far into the game it all feels a bit lifeless and bland. It's definitely dropped to "finish last if I have the time" status on my year end gaming crunch, which generally means I won't be playing any more of it at this point.

@cjduke: Yeah, if you're already feeling that way relatively early in the game, I'd be hard pressed to recommend sticking with it when there's other better games to play.