The Outer Worlds: We Should Still Eat The Rich in Space

Hey Caitlin,

I liked The Outer Worlds so much that I played through the entire campaign twice… Yeah. Twice. I think the game had something for me that I was missing in games as of lately. I hadn’t played any RPG’s in a while, and even though Fallout games seemed like they would be up my alley, they never really did it for me. I think that this game was exactly what I needed to step away from my usual Destiny grind. 

I love the story. I love the side missions and getting to know the people on my ship. It was the first RPG in a while that I felt connected with every person I met on each planet. There are plenty of games where you meet side characters and forget who they are and what they want right after (I’m thinking specifically of Horizon Zero Dawn atm), but it’s probably been a month since I’ve played and I can remember about a dozen side characters and their stories right now. You can feel the weight of what the people have gone through in most missions, then there are some that are absolutely bonkers. I think my favorite is when a worker goes missing and we end up going on some wild cannibal side mission looking for him, but even in this mission there are elements with each character that talk about the overlying crisis in this world.

I think I really enjoyed this game because it was an RPG that didn’t rely heavily on combat. I could basically talk my way through most of the game and use my talking skills to earn XP. From one of the first people you talk to, you could lie immediately and not have any repercussions from it. How nice it was to not be stressed out in a game over “someone will remember that…” and just LIE and get rewarded for it? The game really hooked me when I met the outsiders on the first planet. I saw these people running away from a shit place and making their own community and I felt like I needed to give them whatever they needed to succeed. Flash forward 20+ hours, and I meet with some lady who tells me that I have to destroy the community and kill all the people I helped early in the game, the ones who resonated with me most. I thought… what the fuck? What did I do wrong? What choice did I make along the way that could have led to this choice happening? I must have done something very wrong.

So I restarted the game, I made sure to get the best ending for this scenario and for those people. I convinced them to go back to the town, but the shitty corporation man had to go. I made him leave, and everything was perfect. So on this playthrough, I made sure to do everything right. I got perfect results with every storyline, I did every single side mission, and I finished up all the character stories. I met with this lady again, and I was expecting her to tell me that I did the right thing. I was wrong. I replayed the entire game to find out that no matter how you play, no matter what decision you make, the rich will still fuck you over and try to make you sacrifice people in order for them to live longer. 

I think once you finish the game and learn more about what the fuck is going on, you might enjoy it more. The worst part about the game is that it doesn’t feel strong enough to actually say “fuck you” to capitalism. It has the groundwork for something compelling, but it doesn’t quite make the mark. But you might not enjoy it as much as me because you have a good eye for critiquing that bullshit and see right through it, when I play through the entire game and then say “ohhhhh” after credits roll. So yeah, the game has a lot to joke about it and how we can get fucked over by the man, but you’re right when you say it doesn’t feel like it’s REALLY sticking to its guns on the topic. The reason I like The Outer Worlds so much is because it took a message that we should all realize, but made us realize these things in a fun and colorful way. Hopefully we realize that irl before Bezos and Musk take us into space and start freezing everyone’s bodies so that only the rich will eat.