Like Starfield and Call of Duty Black Ops 6 in the two previous editions of the Xbox Showcase, this year's, coming on June 8 as part of Summer Game Fest 2025, will feature The Outer Worlds 2. It's an opportunity to see in detail what Obsidian has prepared for the sequel to its new space franchise launched in 2019, announced four years ago. From what we know, this second installment should push the envelope even further on all levels, both visually and in terms of gameplay and story. In any case, we're watching this very closely.
Our expectations for Obsidian's next big RPG
It's been six years since The Outer Worlds was released. This one offered a new original license by Obsidian, a studio renowned for its RPGs telling a rich story largely dictated by our choices, which often take the form of terrible moral dilemmas. We found this formula there, in a retro-futuristic space universe dominated by whimsical corporations, with a good layer of caustic humor that had hit the mark on one of their most popular games, Fallout New Vegas. The gameplay, however, was a little basic, despite interesting mechanics to develop your character, such as phobias facing various dangers, resulting in penalties, or on the contrary bonuses by dint of practicing specific activities.
Naturally, we expect to find in The Outer Worlds 2 everything that made the salt and originality of the first opus, with an intriguing new story, difficult choices and more crazy characters to meet. We also hope that Obsidian will have taken the opportunity to refine some aspects that were a bit lacking in the original game. The latter indeed displayed interlocutors who were a bit too robotic in terms of their facial animations and gestures, which slightly affected the immersion and the generally impactful dialogues. However, we could be disappointed in this area, the recently released Avowed unfortunately suffering from the same flaws. The Outer Worlds 2 should, however, feast our eyes on its colorful artistic direction, with planets very varied in their biomes and bestiary.
The other point on which we are keeping a close eye on this sequel is its gameplay. Here again, Avowed was an opportunity for Obsidian to revitalize its formula, which proved to be relatively solid with rather dynamic combat, despite a rather shaky system for progressing our equipment. We hope that The Outer Worlds 2 will allow itself to be even more crazy in this regard, notably with a varied range of weapons and armor to create builds specialized in ranged or melee combat. The first game also presented unique weapons with very wacky effects, like the ability to shrink your opponents.
Given that the studio has laid the foundations of its space universe, we would appreciate it if it pushed the envelope even further to surprise us in this area. Likewise, the convincing character development system from the original game would benefit from being even more fleshed out, in order to offer a great diversity in the way it is built. Besides combat, we would particularly like to find the possibility of creating an avatar capable of getting out of just about any situation thanks to the power of his or her gift of the gab.
What we know about The Outer Worlds 2
From what we have seen in the few trailers and gameplay clips dedicated to The Outer Worlds 2, most of our wishes should at least be granted. The game's very second-degree trailers at least gave us a glimpse of particularly shimmering settings, a more advanced action side, all wrapped in a good dose of self-mockery. The mystery, however, remains intact regarding the story that this sequel will tell us. At most, we can guess that the beginning of the adventure could be similar to that of the first opus, with the awakening of our character from cryogenic stasis. As a sequel obliges, it is also not impossible that we will pick up directly where the previous game left us.
What we know so far about The Outer Worlds 2 ultimately doesn't relate to the game itself, but rather to the behind-the-scenes development. Last year, we learned that Tim Cain, a veteran of the very first Fallout games by Black Isle Studios, participated in its creation. As a reminder, he also worked on the first installment with Leonard Boyarsky, co-creator of the Fallout franchise. The sequel therefore seems to be in capable hands to depict a retro-futuristic world that is as coherent as it is intriguing.
We will therefore have to wait for the Direct dedicated to The Outer Worlds 2, which will directly follow the Xbox Showcase 2025 announced for June 8 at 7 p.m. local time, to find out more. Obsidian and Microsoft should then treat us to a long gameplay presentation, and most likely a release date for the title currently expected sometime in 2025 on PC, Xbox Series, Game Pass and PS5.
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