![]() But conversely when load into and small area like a settlement or space station, which are about the same size as maps in Deus Ex or Dishonored, you don't get the level of detail and custom design that those games have. You don't get that open world feeling that would be great for a game exploring the edges of civilization. (Particularly galling is the fact that you can't even visit some of the planets on your map although I think they released DLC set there). This means the game can feel a bit small in scope at time, despite it being set across an entire solar system's colony. ![]() You don't have a single open world map like FO but rather smaller areas on each of the planets or a space station. This probably links in with their choice of using Unreal Engine along with trying to have the interactivity and object count of a FO game. Perhaps the aspect of the game where I felt it was weakest was in the size of the areas. On PC with a fast SSD it might be a different matter but on PS4 it does affect playability. Add in the fact that the areas can be quite small and you'll often have to load when going into buildings and the game flow can get pretty broken up, particularly towards the end of the game when you're hopping around more finishing up various missions. ![]() When you want to travel to another planet or space station you can't just quick travel there, first you have to travel to your ship, spend 30s waiting for the ship interior to load, use the navigation computer in the ship, wait 5s for the graphic to show the ship moving on a small map, then exit the ship and wait another 30s for the actual level to load. Regularly 30s plus, and there are a lot of unneccessary loading screens too. ![]() It doesn't affect playability much, it's definitely not bad but it is noticable that it's not sticking to a stable 30fps. There's also a bit of slowdown that pops up fairly often when you have large firefights and lots of characters on screen. It's fine but nothing that's going to stand out. Technically the game suffers a bit, on PS4 the image is a bit soft, not quite getting up to full 1080p it felt and there are definitely some low res textures around. One of the later stages, Byzantium, does have a much more unique visual identity and it looks great, I just wish there had been a bit more in the rest of the game as there isn't much that really wows you in this respect. While it does fit thematically it also means that buildings and space stations look pretty much the same, literally they are prefab buildings, which does mean things can get a bit dull. As the game is set in a new colony across a solar system, most of the settlers are still building the towns and using prefabricated building parts to make everything. While the planets and backdrops generally look great I thought the settlements themselves were rather bland. The planets you do land on definitely feel alien and I thought this was a particular highlight. I liked the art style of the game, there are a lot of similarities with the FO:NV of course but it fits the setting well. I liked the smaller scale of the game in this respect. Overall the main story and sidequests are entertaining enough to keep you going through and the fact that this is a shorter game than FO, coming in at around 30 hours with most of the sidequests done means I didn't forget what the main story was, even while doing various faction side quests and such. There's not a lot of depth to it but it adds a bit of character to the game, more so than FO3/NG and Skyrim I felt. These secondary characters are pretty well realised and building up a small crew makes your ship feel like home. One aspect I really liked was flying around the games solar system collecting crew mates. Generally the conversations options seemed pretty good, although having played through only once I can't really comment if they change the outcome of missions that much. But in between that there are some smaller stories with shades of gray. It perhaps lacks a little nuance as your main choice is basically a good / bad between supporting the workers or the corporations. The RPG elements feel very similar to FO3 and NV with some nice conversations and decent writing for the characters. This allows the writers to input a fair bit of humour and jokes poking fun at many of the issues we find in modern capitalism. The basic story is you wake up on a colony ship several decades after you were supposed to and the colony has become a corporate dystopian nightmare. Going in I was expecting Fallout, but in space, and that's not really that far off the mark. But I finally got around to it and I'm glad I did as overall it's a good game. The Outer Worlds is a game I had on my list of games to play for a while although there was always something else to play.
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