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Bigger isn't necessarily better. That's a tired saying, yet it's also the best way to sum up my thoughts after devoting 50 hours with The Outer Worlds 2. The creators expanded on each element to the next installment to its 2019 science fiction role-playing game — more humor, adversaries, weapons, traits, and settings, everything that matters in such adventures. And it functions superbly — initially. But the load of all those daring plans leads to instability as the game progresses.

A Powerful Opening Act

The Outer Worlds 2 makes a strong first impression. You belong to the Earth Directorate, a do-gooder organization dedicated to restraining dishonest administrations and businesses. After some major drama, you wind up in the Arcadia system, a settlement divided by hostilities between Auntie's Choice (the outcome of a merger between the original game's two large firms), the Guardians (collectivism taken to its most extreme outcome), and the Ascendant Brotherhood (like the Catholic church, but with mathematics instead of Jesus). There are also a bunch of rifts creating openings in space and time, but currently, you really need get to a communication hub for pressing contact reasons. The issue is that it's in the middle of a battlefield, and you need to figure out how to arrive.

Similar to the first game, Outer Worlds 2 is a FPS adventure with an main narrative and many side quests scattered across multiple locations or zones (large spaces with a plenty to explore, but not open-world).

The first zone and the process of reaching that comms station are spectacular. You've got some goofy encounters, of course, like one that involves a rancher who has overindulged sugary cereal to their preferred crab. Most lead you to something beneficial, though — an unexpected new path or some fresh information that might provide an alternate route forward.

Unforgettable Events and Missed Possibilities

In one notable incident, you can encounter a Protectorate deserter near the viaduct who's about to be executed. No mission is tied to it, and the exclusive means to locate it is by searching and paying attention to the background conversation. If you're quick and sufficiently cautious not to let him get killed, you can rescue him (and then save his runaway sweetheart from getting eliminated by beasts in their refuge later), but more pertinent to the immediate mission is a electrical conduit concealed in the grass close by. If you track it, you'll locate a secret entry to the transmission center. There's a different access point to the station's drainage system tucked away in a grotto that you might or might not observe contingent on when you pursue a certain partner task. You can encounter an easily missable character who's key to rescuing a person much later. (And there's a stuffed animal who implicitly sways a group of troops to fight with you, if you're nice enough to save it from a danger zone.) This initial segment is packed and engaging, and it feels like it's brimming with substantial plot opportunities that compensates you for your inquisitiveness.

Waning Expectations

Outer Worlds 2 doesn't fulfill those opening anticipations again. The following key zone is structured comparable to a map in the original game or Avowed — a large region sprinkled with key sites and optional missions. They're all story-appropriate to the conflict between Auntie's Selection and the Order of the Ascendant, but they're also mini-narratives detached from the primary plot narratively and location-wise. Don't expect any world-based indicators leading you to new choices like in the first zone.

Despite pushing you toward some hard calls, what you do in this area's optional missions is inconsequential. Like, it truly has no effect, to the degree that whether you permit atrocities or guide a band of survivors to their death leads to nothing but a casual remark or two of dialogue. A game isn't required to let every quest influence the plot in some big, dramatic fashion, but if you're forcing me to decide a group and pretending like my choice matters, I don't feel it's unfair to anticipate something more when it's over. When the game's earlier revealed that it has greater potential, anything less appears to be a trade-off. You get additional content like the team vowed, but at the price of substance.

Ambitious Plans and Absent Stakes

The game's intermediate phase tries something similar to the primary structure from the opening location, but with noticeably less panache. The concept is a bold one: an linked task that extends across several locations and urges you to seek aid from various groups if you want a easier route toward your aim. Aside from the repeat setup being a somewhat tedious, it's also absent the tension that this type of situation should have. It's a "deal with the demon" moment. There should be hard concessions. Your relationship with either faction should count beyond earning their approval by performing extra duties for them. All this is lacking, because you can just blitz through on your own and clear the objective anyway. The game even makes an effort to give you ways of doing this, pointing out alternate routes as secondary goals and having companions inform you where to go.

It's a byproduct of a larger problem in Outer Worlds 2: the apprehension of letting you be unhappy with your decisions. It frequently exaggerates in its efforts to ensure not only that there's an different way in many situations, but that you know it exists. Locked rooms practically always have various access ways indicated, or no significant items inside if they don't. If you {can't