As such, I wondered if I wanted The Outer Worlds 2 to chase Starfield’s scale as another massive AAA RPG with Microsoft’s backing. While Starfield has its shortcomings, the game’s ambition will likely influence future RPGs, especially Xbox-exclusive ones. Ironically, the problems with Starfield’s scale unintentionally echo that theme, as Starfield sacrifices variety for scope, with many planets being somewhat barren and uninteresting to explore despite exploration being a promised gameplay hook. I enjoyed its character writing and a narrative concerned with exploring humanity’s hubris and how its desire for constant growth and expansion comes at the cost of sustainability. That can be seen with Starfield, which occasionally struggles to maintain a high level of quality across its wide breadth of features.īethesda’s still at the top of its game when it comes to the more traditional RPG aspects, though. Its budget showed in terms of things like character animation and the scale of the areas players visit, but sometimes having strict parameters to make a game under can maximize creativity and quality. Most important characters can be killed, and there are plenty of tough fork-in-the-road decisions to make during the journey. The Outer Worlds is also a game where player choice and agency truly feels influential as characters and the direction of certain quests react clearly to players’ action. Obsidian Entertainment / Xbox Game StudiosĮvery location I visited during the game felt uniquely handcrafted, as did all the quests I completed and characters I met along the way, some of which I stumbled upon myself. Compared to a game like Starfield, that may seem quaint, but The Outer Worlds went for quality over quantity. You could see those limits while playing the game, as there were only a couple of planets that players could only explore certain parts of. While Microsoft acquired Obsidian during The Outer Worlds’ development, it still felt like an AA game and was even published by a smaller-scale publisher, Private Division. Now that I’ve beaten Starfield, my attention has turned back to The Outer Worlds 2, which I hope will double down on its unique identity and not feel the need to match Starfield’s scale or ambition. That said, Starfield is also a flawed game, sometimes buckling under the weight of its own ambition. It’s a wildly ambitious game that reminded me of what makes Bethesda RPGs, something we haven’t gotten in a long time, so special. Starfield, Bethesda’s long-awaited space RPG, finally saw a wide release earlier this week.
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