The Outer Worlds 2 Review

After finishing more than 65 hours wandering, sneaking, shooting, and occasionally regretting every single character build decision I made in The Outer Worlds 2, I can safely say this sequel by Obsidian Entertainment landed right in the middle of that sweet space where familiar systems evolve, satire sharpens, and my poor RPG brain spent way too long debating how to allocate my two skill points per level. The game arrives October 29, 2025, with Early Access starting October 24, 2025, on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5, and it very intentionally follows The Outer Worlds from 2019 and traces clear DNA back to Fallout: New Vegas. This time, though, we leave Halcyon behind and step into Arcadia — a new system full of corporate rot, political extremism, and, somehow, strip-mall energy stretched across entire planets.

The new setting shifts tone immediately. The first game leaned into goofy absurdism, and that humor is still here, but in Arcadia, everything feels more grounded and political, like someone put capitalism under a microscope until it started sweating. Instead of Halcyon, I moved across four main destinations in Arcadia, including the snow-coated, monk-style temples on Cloister and the dense jungle backwaters on Eden. Each world reflects whichever faction runs it, so tone changes dramatically depending on who has power. Which brings me to the factions and the fact that this time, there are no good answers. Auntie’s Choice styles itself as a pro-freedom capitalist group while functioning like an oppressive monopoly pretending to liberate society. The Protectorate openly behaves as an authoritarian power that suppresses dissent instead of hiding it. Meanwhile, the Order of the Ascendant looks scientific and enlightened at first glance, but ends up committing atrocities to avoid theoretical future disasters they predict with math and statistical prophecy. I kept waiting for a faction to reveal some deeply noble motive, and it never happened, which felt like the point.

The structure of the main story surprised me a bit. The first 20 hours revolved around a revenge plot, and even though I paid attention, it faded into the background as soon as the real political conflict started. That early stretch exists mostly to pull players into the world’s major players, and by the time I hit the second act, the game shifted heavily into the faction-focused decisions and moral compromises that reminded me of my favorite New Vegas moments. There were no clean resolutions, no benevolent leaders waiting to brighten the future, only competing visions of power, each flawed in a different direction.

Building my character might have been where I spent the most mental energy. Every level grants two skill points, and those two points feel painfully small when they must cover 12 skills, including Leadership, Lockpicking, Sneak, Speech, Engineering, and others. You can only select 15 perks before you hit level 30, and perks require certain skill levels. I committed to Speech and Lockpick early, because I enjoy talking and sneaking my way into trouble, but that meant delaying perks tied to Engineering, which would have let me hack auto-mechanicals, or passing on vendor discount perks tied to Speech until later. The moment I hit a terminal I could not hack because I refused to invest in Hack over persuasion, I felt that sting in a very satisfying way. The system kept forcing me to say: Who is my character really?

Then there are flaws, and those ended up defining my run as much as my perks. I stole constantly, because who doesn’t pocket everything not nailed down in an RPG, so the game eventually tempted me with the Kleptomaniac flaw, which would have let me sell stolen goods for more money while making me involuntarily steal things from time to time. I skipped dialogue a couple of times early in a rush and immediately saw the Foot-in-Mouth Syndrome flaw appear as an option, offering bonus XP while imposing a dialogue timer and sometimes choosing responses automatically if I hesitated. My stealth obsession triggered Bad Knees, which increases crouch movement speed but makes crouching louder, and Easily Startled, which lowers footstep noise and makes enemies slower to notice me but strips my evasion and damage resistance for eight seconds if spotted. However, the one flaw that burned me most was taking the Jack of All Trades flaw early. It sounded attractive since it gave me one extra skill point every level, but it forced all skills to stay within one point of each other, turning me into a middling, unfocused character who constantly hit locked skill checks and felt like a cosmic intern in every situation. It was extremely painful and extremely funny.

Combat thankfully improved over the first game. Gunplay felt faster and more responsive, and the ability to slide and double jump helped movement in firefights. I found a silent shotgun that melted bodies completely, removing them from sight and keeping stealth intact — an absurd and wonderful sci-fi murder tool. I also used a weapon that started weak and grew stronger with every kill, which made me feel like I was leveling the gun instead of the other way around. On top of that, tools like a corpse-melting gadget and a Tactical Time Dilation device provided extra layers of style, like a Dead Eye-style slow-down.Combat is not at the level of a pure FPS, and occasionally enemies smacked me even when I double-jumped above them, and aiming sometimes felt slippery, but the difference from the original is unmistakable. It moved from bare-minimum serviceable to actively enjoyable.

Exploring Arcadia often rewarded me. Collectibles provided real perks, weapons popped up in corners that rewarded curiosity, and quests appeared from unexpected conversations. Navigation was not perfect — a few times I set a waypoint toward a structure that looked close, only to discover the terrain forced me to loop around, but I never felt like exploration wasted my time. A scanning tool helped me see enemies on other floors, and having to scout vertical space made encounters more interesting.

Enemy variety, however, lagged behind the rest of the design. Each planet typically had two or three wildlife types, plus humanoids and robots. Raptidons in particular showed up often, and before I even left the first planet, I already felt fatigue seeing them. Later, when areas stayed empty because enemies did not respawn, the world turned quiet in a way that made it feel more like a museum exhibit of capitalism gone wrong rather than an active ecosystem. Fast travel helped skip barren zones, but I still noticed it.

Companions helped fill the space. There are six of them, each tied to a faction worldview. Tristan is a heavily armored enforcer committed to authoritarian policing. Inez is a business-savvy combat medic raised in the values of corporate free market thinking. Niles is an engineer with a revenge story that can wrap up early, leaving him to feel less central later on. Valerie is a robot assistant with sharp comedic timing, although she does not connect to main story events as directly as others. Aza supports stealth play, while Niles brings engineering synergy. Two companions travel with you at a time, and their commentary and conversations constantly enrich the political texture.

Starting the game as an Earth Directorate agent with the Gambler background and Witty trait gave me some surprisingly entertaining dialogue options. Putting early points into Lockpick and Speech opened paths and conversations, but my refusal to invest in Hack meant terminals sat locked, and not choosing an academic background meant chalkboards full of equations remained incomprehensible, which felt like the game quietly patting me on the shoulder and saying, “Maybe study next time.” When dialogue choices displayed “this will be remembered,” I later saw those choices pay off in future scenes, reinforcing the idea that Arcadia was keeping notes.

By the end of my run, The Outer Worlds 2 felt like a game that fully embraces exactly what it aims to be. It does not reinvent the franchise, yet it strengthens what matters most: political choice-making, builds tension, satirical worldbuilding, and consequences that latch onto your playthrough and refuse to let go. With two skill points per level, 12 total skills, a level 30 cap, 15 perks across the full experience, and flaws tied to behavioral patterns, the system consistently pushes your decisions to determine your fate. The early revenge story takes time to ramp up, enemy variety suffers, and non-respawning creatures leave empty spaces behind, yet the storytelling strength, the improved combat feel, the meaningful companion relationships, and the richly political exploration of Arcadia pulled me through. When the credits rolled, I already felt the itch to reroll a different character, pick new flaws, and watch how another set of deeply imperfect decisions could alter the same galaxy in ways I had not seen before.