The Outer Worlds 2

About

The Outer Worlds 2 is a single player open world role playing shooter game with violence and science fiction themes. It was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and was released on October 29, 2025. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

The Outer Worlds 2 is the eagerly-awaited sequel to the award-winning first-person sci-fi RPG from Obsidian Entertainment (just look at the exciting number of dashes in this sentence!). Time to clear your calendar – get ready for an action-packed adventure with a new crew, new weapons, and new enemies in a new colony! So much newness! As a daring and most likely good-looking Earth Directorate age…

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75%

Audience ScoreBased on 5,633 reviews

story733 positive mentions

optimization139 negative mentions

The Outer Worlds 2 is a solid sequel with improved gameplay, combat, visuals, and larger, more varied worlds compared to the first game.
The writing, humor, and satire are engaging, with meaningful choices affecting outcomes and well-voiced companions who add charm to the experience.
The game offers a variety of playstyles, build customization, and replayability, with an entertaining soundtrack and unique faction radio stations enhancing immersion.

The story, characters, and factions lack depth and emotional engagement, often feeling stereotypical, preachy, or less compelling than in the original game.
Performance and optimization issues persist, including bugs, crashes, long load times, and problems with saving game progress affecting player experience.
Limited skill points, no respec option, and restrictive leveling force players to specialize heavily, which can block content and reduce the fun of exploration or diverse builds.

story
2,949 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
69%
6%
The story in Outer Worlds 2 elicits mixed reactions; while some praise its engaging, humorous, and well-written narrative with meaningful choices and depth in side quests and companions, many find it less compelling, predictable, and less memorable compared to the first game. Issues cited include pacing problems, a somewhat disjointed plot, lack of impactful consequences from choices, weaker faction dynamics, and quest bugs that hamper progression. Overall, the game offers richer RPG elements and improved gameplay, but the story and character development leave some players wanting more.
- “Skills actually open up new dialogue options and quest solutions throughout the game, so investing in lockpicking or intimidation fundamentally changes how you experience missions.”
- “The story is genuinely entertaining, and it does a great job pulling you into its world—especially with how it handles politics and faction dynamics.”
- “The writing, music, story, game play, design elements, everything is working in sync here.”
- “Sadly, the story itself and the characters are not that interesting—while also being too complex and convoluted—to the point where after about 40 hours of play I just do not have an interest in continuing with this game any longer.”
- “Important story NPCs are phases well so you can never kill them (heavy on this one, I accidentally got my way into Auntie's room where I found her, couldn't talk to her because the developers didn't acknowledge I could meet her before the main missions; also found a button that said I could unplug her life support and it was locked because the game only allows you to do it when you're doing the correct story mission for it, horrible!).”
- “The combat is much better than the first but the world and storytelling fall flat and choices feel meaningless.”
gameplay
1,022 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
32%
63%
5%
The gameplay of this sequel is generally seen as a solid improvement over the original, featuring smoother, more responsive combat with enhanced gunplay mechanics, refined RPG elements like perks and flaws, and varied playstyles that impact the experience. While many appreciate the diversified weapons, character builds, and engaging moment-to-moment gameplay, some reviewers find the RPG mechanics simplified or restrictive, with certain aspects—like companions and stealth—being less impactful or underdeveloped. Despite occasional bugs, technical issues, and a feeling of repetitive or somewhat generic design, the gameplay loop remains enjoyable and is often cited as the main factor sustaining player interest.
- “Game was definitely a step up from the first game in some departments namely: gun gameplay, choices, graphics, world presentation, and movement.”
- “Gameplay & combat is a huge step forward from the previous game.”
- “The gameplay is smooth, and the combat feels responsive and satisfying.”
- “But after 3 planets, the same problems arose from the first game, namely the mod mechanic in the game. I wish they had improved it, since they vastly improved the gun system.”
- “Unfortunately, the game lacks gameplay elements from previous titles, such as loot weight.”
- “The gameplay loop is repetitive and uninspiring.”
graphics
569 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
34%
62%
4%
Reviews of the game's graphics highlight a significant improvement over the first installment, featuring a distinctive retro-futuristic art style with vibrant, atmospheric visuals and detailed environments. While the graphics are praised for their aesthetic charm and world-building, some users note performance and optimization issues, such as low frame rates and stuttering, especially with ray tracing enabled, requiring high-end hardware for smooth play. Overall, the graphics are seen as solid and fitting the game's tone, though not cutting-edge, with some inconsistency and dated elements, but they contribute positively to the immersive RPG experience.
- “The graphics are beautiful, smoother, and more "real." The gameplay is easy to follow, learn, and control.”
- “The visuals are stunning and sometimes overwhelmingly so, with breathtaking vistas and immersive atmospheres.”
- “Major graphics improvements over the first game and a lot more interactions with NPCs and an interesting storyline that morphs dependent on your actions.”
- “Literally 40 fps with lowest graphic quality with FSR.”
- “Poor optimization with ray tracing integrated with the graphics leads to an average of 30-40fps on low settings with my setup (1080ti is goated but dated).”
- “The game runs great in almost every area with very high graphics settings with the hardware ray tracing enabled, but the performance and graphics though have issues.”
humor
515 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
98%
2%
The humor in this game retains the dark, satirical, and witty style characteristic of the series, blending clever dialogue, quirky characters, and sharp social commentary with a sci-fi setting. While many appreciate its humorous moments and character interactions, some find the humor less charming, occasionally forced, or less frequent compared to the original, with a tonal shift toward more serious and subtle comedy. Overall, the humor enhances the narrative and gameplay, appealing especially to players who enjoy sarcastic, thought-provoking satire combined with lighthearted, often laugh-out-loud moments.
- “The writing is razor-sharp, filled with sarcasm, corporate satire, and dark humor that never distracts from the emotional weight of the narrative.”
- “The humor and wit that you expect from Obsidian is there.”
- “The story is funny yet still serious and interesting, and the characters are great.”
- “The combat feels flat, the perks offer no meaningful build variety, and the dialogue (which clearly tries to be clever) is painfully unfunny.”
- “Not funny or edgy like previous Obsidian games but it thinks it is.”
- “I'm assuming this was supposed to be funny because it's so hypocritical, but it was so jarring it made me see how unaware and boring all of the companions are.”
optimization
510 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
17%
56%
27%
Optimization for this Unreal Engine 5 title is widely criticized, with many users reporting poor and inconsistent performance, stuttering, and heavy reliance on upscaling technologies like DLSS and frame generation to achieve playable frame rates—even on high-end hardware. Although some players experience stable performance with reduced settings or mods, the consensus is that the game suffers from severe performance issues and inadequate optimization that detracts from the overall experience. Improvements and patches are hoped for, but currently, the technical performance remains a major weak point.
- “I have a 3080 10gb and Ryzen 7 5800X along with 64GB of RAM, and I was able to run the game at 4K high settings, keeping a stable 60 FPS with DLSS performance.”
- “Performance-wise, I’m getting around 60–70 FPS at 1440p on an RTX 4060 with DLSS performance and mostly very high settings, dialing global illumination down to high. That’s completely reasonable for the hardware and doesn’t line up with the doomposting about optimization.”
- “Performance has been great on my potato of a computer.”
- “The performance is terrible and my computer is a beast, there is no reason to be getting 20-30 frames with a 4090.”
- “Game runs like absolute garbage on PC whereas it has no right to run that badly considering it doesn't even look that impressive (my hardware is an RTX 4090 and 7800x3d). Frame generation doesn't work properly, overall a complete failure on the optimization side.”
- “30fps @4k on a 4090 because Obsidian couldn't be bothered to finish performance tuning Unreal Engine 5 and get ray tracing to work properly.”
music
216 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
63%
4%
The game's music is widely praised for its unique, original, and culturally themed radio stations that add deep immersion and memorable worldbuilding, often drawing favorable comparisons to Fallout and other classics. Many players love the catchy, well-produced songs and jingles, especially those tailored to factions, although some note the soundtrack's limited variety and repetition. While the ambient score is appreciated for complementing exploration, some find the lack of combat music and the sparse overarching soundtrack less engaging, but overall the music is considered a standout, iconic feature enhancing the game's atmosphere and charm.
- “Each faction gets its own radio station that Obsidian commissioned real musicians to write, perform, and record for to add essential worldbuilding to the game for the factions.”
- “The original songs for the radio stations are fantastic; I'm pretty sure I'm going to have Auntie's Choice marketing jingles stuck in my head until the end of time.”
- “Whoever was in charge of getting all this soundtrack and radio stations together is a genius; this is the best soundtrack and radio stations I have ever heard in a game and I have been gaming since the 80s.”
- “So now in Outer Worlds 2 I was disappointed that there is only ambient sound, no music at all in the world, the Auntie's Choice propaganda is annoying as hell and the 'radio' feature useless.”
- “The voices are often drowned out by music and sound effects.”
- “The lack of background music in favor of the radio system is a shame.”
stability
119 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
18%
1%
81%
The game exhibits significant stability issues, including frequent freezes, crashes, quest-breaking bugs, and save file corruption, which hinder gameplay and progression for many players. While some users report smooth performance and minor glitches, the overall consensus highlights persistent bugs and optimization problems that require substantial patches to improve stability. Buyers are advised to expect technical difficulties or wait for future updates before playing.
- “Probably the most polished, bug-free release of a major role-playing game I've ever played.”
- “Other than that, it's a fine-looking space adventure and quite bug-free too for such a large game.”
- “The game runs great in almost every area with very high graphics settings and hardware ray tracing enabled.”
- “The downside is the stability — my save file corrupted three times, NPCs slide during dialogue, objectives on the map bug out, the game freezes mid-conversation making me lose story beats, and some days it just crashes nonstop.”
- “With the game being so buggy, the 'save game' tab is greyed out and you can't quicksave.”
- “With update 1.0.5.0, the game now freezes on the main menu regardless, preventing me from playing it at all.”
replayability
115 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
31%
66%
3%
The game offers substantial replayability through varied character builds, skill specializations, branching storylines, and meaningful choices that impact dialogue and quest outcomes. While some players find the limited skill allocation and lack of a new game plus mode restrictive, most appreciate the design encouraging multiple playthroughs to explore different approaches and content. Overall, replay value is a strong aspect, especially for those who enjoy role-playing different playstyles and uncovering new story elements.
- “The flaw system is glorious and will make this game endlessly replayable and every single playthrough unique.”
- “It has loads of replayability, all of the players' actions are decided by hard number skill checks and all of your actions are being recorded by the game and may, or may not pop up later, including who you bring with you to do what quest.”
- “In general, replayability seems high, between different character builds via talents, flaws and choice of weapons, as well as the various ways in which quests can be resolved and factions to ally yourself with.”
- “Overall the game doesn't seem replayable enough to me to want to do multiple playthroughs, so I just ended up frustrated that there is so much content that I don't get to interact with.”
- “Replayability is limited despite all the options and branches, since those are mostly "doing x will lock you out of y", with y being of dubious value to begin with, and after 3 playthroughs you pretty much know what's going to happen.”
- “The restrictive “only 3 skills” skill system that has no respecs kills all replayability factor for me.”
atmosphere
78 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
46%
4%
The game's atmosphere is widely praised for its immersive, visually stunning world that blends retro-futuristic, steampunk, and sci-fi elements reminiscent of Fallout, Bioshock, and Dishonored. Its humor, music, sound design, and detailed environments create a quirky, engaging, and enjoyable vibe that enhances exploration and storytelling, though some note inconsistencies in tone and story depth that slightly weaken the overall experience. Overall, the atmosphere stands out as a major strength, richly bringing the universe to life and offering a compelling setting for the gameplay.
- “Great gameplay, storylines, good functionality, great immersion, music, sound, superb humor and atmosphere.”
- “Outer Worlds had great atmosphere, Outer Worlds 2 has transcendent atmosphere.”
- “The factions and their associated lore are more compelling, and the in-game radio stations add a great deal of atmosphere while exploring the environments.”
- “A stronger application of the principle 'less is more' could have improved both clarity and atmosphere.”
- “This game feels like a joke in comparison; even though they tried to add more RPG elements, the writing and atmosphere are just bad.”
- “And with the current version's annoying bug with walking sounds, it kills the atmosphere completely.”
grinding
69 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
1%
5%
94%
Reviews consistently describe the game's grinding as excessively tedious and detracting from enjoyment, with combat often turning into a slog due to bullet sponge enemies and frequent resource management. The emphasis on repetitive fetch quests and extended XP farming creates frustration and slows pacing, overshadowing the otherwise strong worldbuilding and character elements. While some appreciate reduced carry weight and streamlined mechanics compared to predecessors, the overall grind-heavy design reduces tactical depth and immersion.
- “8/10 so far, won't take over your life, no grind, no farming, very light unguided explorations, mostly just questing in a 10/10 world.”
- “It has its moments, sure, but after the first third of the game, the story just sort-of goes away, and you're left with grinding extended and recursive vaguely-thematic fetch-quests (some more cleverly/entertainingly dressed up than others, but still all pretty basic) to reach one of a handful of rather predictable and same-ish outcomes.”
- “I spend 8 hours last weekend grinding my way through a back area eventually a compound where it was 1 enemy at a time, 2 hours only to find myself in a boss fight I could not win yet as I was a woefully under skilled XP points guy.”
- “The boss in the vox relay for example has 4.4 thousand HP, and even melting his armor with acid and getting headshots, the sheer amount of bullets doing only 20-40 damage each makes it tedious.”
emotional
56 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
95%
5%
Reviews of the game's emotional aspect are mixed, noting some well-written, heartfelt, and occasionally sharp moments, especially in companion quests, but overall many players found the storyline bland, rushed, and lacking deep emotional engagement. While humor and writing quality are praised, the characters often feel emotionally shallow or unrelatable, and the game misses strong emotional payoffs, leaving many feeling disconnected and less invested compared to similar titles or the first game in the series.
- “No game I have played in the last 5 years has made me feel like this.”
- “Dialogues are sharp, voice acting is excellent, and the companion quests are well-written, adding emotional depth and variety.”
- “The writing is razor-sharp, filled with sarcasm, corporate satire, and dark humor that never distracts from the emotional weight of the narrative.”
- “I almost wish the game ended there; instead, I was forced to sit through ten hours of the most disjointed, boring story that felt super rushed.”
- “I don't feel like writing down everything, but basically it took a lot of the good balancing elements of the first game and got rid of them. Add to that a boring storyline, and you've got just another Microsoft cashgrab sequel with no soul.”
- “This one isn't trash so much as a boring storyline replete with all the usual betrayals and gofer quests.”
monetization
43 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
7%
9%
84%
The monetization and in-game advertising in Outer Worlds 2 are heavily criticized for feeling excessive and intrusive, with constant, unavoidable ads and propaganda negatively impacting immersion and dialogue clarity. While some appreciate the satirical approach and original music tied to factions, many players find the relentless commercial bombardment frustrating and detracting from the experience, perceiving it as a shallow cash grab rather than genuine narrative depth.
- “Microtransactions - in-game purchases.”
- “It is what it says it is on the tin, it's not trying to sell you on microtransactions, I saw none of the subtle attempts at partisan indoctrination, and the explosions are a blast, literally!”
- “Simply put, price and monetization models.”
- “The Outer Worlds 2 kind of just feels like a shallow cash grab.”
- “At a certain point you head to the flagship of Auntie's Choice and there are near constant advertisements playing that often make it impossible to hear anyone even in dialogue.”
- “I had to take my headphones off when I ventured there, because it had this never-ending stream of advertising going on that was super annoying.”
character development
36 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
61%
14%
Character development in the game receives mixed reviews, with praise for meaningful companion growth, impactful player choices, and innovative mechanics like flaws that enhance immersion. However, some critiques point to shallow or inconsistent character writing, uninspired designs, and missed opportunities in narrative and side quests. Overall, character development is seen as a strong aspect for players valuing story-driven RPGs, though execution varies and may feel limited or uneven to others.
- “The Outer Worlds 2 is recommended for fans of classic RPG mechanics, delivering a robust and interconnected experience that rewards player time investment and character development.”
- “It successfully sharpens the original game's formula, delivering an ambitious and immersive adventure that prioritizes player choice and robust character development above all else.”
- “The character development of your companions is great—you get to work with them to address their character flaws and make them better people.”
- “The writing and character design in Avowed was abysmal, even if the combat was relatively smooth.”
- “Companions are mostly emotionally teenage and rare feints at serious character development are undone by the farcical tone and unbelievable personality changes resulting from nothing but stat checks.”
- “Basically felt like Fallout 4 in space with alien creatures, but with a less developed plot and narrative arc, no real character development, a less-compelling leveling and weapon/armor modding system, smaller overall space to explore. If this game was $40, I'd be singing its praises, but if you're charging the same amount as Baldur's Gate 3 and Call of Duty with enormous development budgets, then don't deliver a completely mediocre game that has all the fun and cozy entertainment of a $30-40 game, but the expectations of awesome that come with something like Witcher 3.”

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21h Median play time

29h Average play time

6-45h Spent by most gamers

*Based on 76 analyzed playthroughs

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The Outer Worlds 2 is a open world role playing shooter game with violence and science fiction themes.

The Outer Worlds 2 is available on Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5, Steam Deck and others.

On average players spend around 29 hours playing The Outer Worlds 2.

The Outer Worlds 2 was released on October 29, 2025.

The Outer Worlds 2 was developed by Obsidian Entertainment.

The Outer Worlds 2 has received mostly positive reviews from players. Most players liked The Outer Worlds 2 for its story but disliked it for its optimization.

The Outer Worlds 2 is a single player game.

Similar games include The Outer Worlds, Avowed, The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition, Encased, Elex II and others.

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