It’s that time of year in the video game community where we fight tooth and nail for our game of the year candidate. It is the MVP award of video games, the cream of the crop as they say. When a studio wins game of the year, not only does it highlight how amazing a game they developed, it also shines a light on how passionate those developers really are. Without that passion, their games wouldn’t be nearly as impressive as they are. That was proven to the tenth degree last year with Santa Monica Studios’ God of War, a universal pick for GOTY with most outlets. No game perhaps shows the developer’s passion more than God of War did, and that reflected on countless moments throughout the entire experience. It was a near-perfect video game, in a year full of those kind of games. So how has 2019 been so far?

Potential “Game of the Year” Winners in 2019

2019, for lack of a better term, has been mediocre thus far. That isn’t to say that there have only been mediocre games released, I only mean that there isn’t any clear and obvious winners for most categories on various media outlets. With Red Dead 2 and God of War being released last year, 2018’s awards were dominated by those two games. But 2019 fails to bring any standouts to the table. No matter the pick for GOTY in 2019, there will be significantly more people that disagree with each outlet’s picks.

There was From Software’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which was an amazing game for all intents and purposes. The issue with Sekiro, as is with many From Software titles, was its difficulty. A game with such extreme difficulty severely deters your average gamer from trying to tackle a game like this. With it also having an early release date in the year, many people have simply forgotten how excellent a game it was.

Resident Evil 2 remake was in my opinion, a perfect remake. It was a staggeringly beautiful game, with great horror moments and a gameplay loop that kept the game feeling fresh, and never too repetitive. But the problem with RE2 remake is exactly that, it’s a remake of an already existing game. No matter how different it was from its original release, it still is not original in its entirety. I believe it deserves to be on most people’s lists, it’s on mine, but it messes with the integrity of the award if it were to win it. Some will say, “Who Cares? The award doesn’t matter”, and hey, you’re probably right. But for certain people such as myself, these awards are special, and RE2 is special as well. There are plenty of other awards it can and should win other than the big ticket award out there.

These aren’t the only two games on most lists, there are games like Control, Mortal Kombat 11 and Anthem. (How triggered would you be if I was serious about that last one?) These games are all excellent, except Anthem, but there is one true and obvious winner to me, and that is Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds.

Boy oh boy does that game hit on all cylinders, and at the perfect time. Bethesda can’t get anything right, and Obsidian goes ahead and release a game clearly derived from what makes Fallout great, but manages to feel like a completely original experience. Ironically enough, for those who don’t know, Obsidian is the developers behind Fallout New Vegas, arguably the best Fallout game. It is definitely the best in my opinion, but for those who disagree, let’s just say for the sake of this argument that it is. What are the odds that the two best Fallout games weren’t even developed by Bethesda? Now, obviously The Outer Worlds isn’t a true Fallout game, but any who have already played it would agree, it is EXACTLY like Fallout in almost every way. And the ways that it doesn’t still work out, that is something that shows fans that Obsidian isn’t some freeloader, they can make their own mechanics and story, and still have a beautiful and cohesive game. Let’s go over what makes The Outer Worlds great.

What Makes The Outer Worlds so Great?

The Companions

In The Outer Worlds, you can explore the world with a choice of six unique companions, you are able to bring two with you at a time, similar to the Mass Effect series. Each companion is completely different, and they all have skill trees that pertain specifically to each companion. One might be good at science, where the other might excels at engineering. It’s helpful to pick companions who are good at the skills that you might be lacking in. Or, you can just pick the ones that you find the most fun to be around, considering that they all have their own individual personalities, which can be interesting.

The Setting and Place

What makes this game different than the Fallout series is the setting veers away from a post-apocalyptic setting and tries for a much more sci-fi feel. There is still the looming threat of corporate domination throughout the game, but The Outer Worlds feels much more tamed. There are vibrant towns that are full of people who work normal jobs and have normal lives. There are legitimate business practices in these cities that all aren’t in constant fear of being attacked by raiders. In certain cities, there is your classic crooked ruler scenario, and there are some ruins of civilizations that are long gone that you are able to explore. But mostly the civilized areas in The Outer Worlds are exactly that, civilized. Not to say that the outside world lacks any of those threats. If you go outside the city walls, there will be a pretty high chance of you running into raiders or giant sci-fi creatures that want to eat you on sight. There are a few packs of people that have distanced themselves from the societal norms and are self-sustaining. All of these features offer a diverse world for you to explore and enjoy.

The Choices You Can Make

In any good role playing game, you need choices for the player. Choices of who lives and who dies, choices of good and evil, choices that affect the ending of your experience. The Outer Worlds hangs its hat on the choices it offers you. The main choice throughout the story arc of the game is that there is a choice between working for yourself, for the rebels or for the big corporation. Those are the three main sides that majorly affect how the story plays out, and they are shown to you relatively early on. With those three main choices guiding you throughout your playthrough, you are given various other mini options to choose from that aren’t as integral to the main story. While a lot of games may offer this or claim to offer this, The Outer Worlds backs it up. I don’t normally play as the evil guy, but it is funny to see how evil you could be when making it through an RPG. The choices you get throughout the game harken back to the glory days of Fallout, where you could choose to level an entire town with an atomic bomb, or you could just let them live their peaceful little lives. The options encourage replay-ability and empower each player to play how they want to. It is nice to have a linear story that gets straight to the point every now and then, but most fans of the genre really appreciate extra options, and that is exactly what The Outer Worlds gives you in the most enjoyable ways.

And the Winner is…

As you already know by the title of the article, The Outer Worlds is my game of the year. It succeeds in almost every way, and where it does fail, it can be forgiven. The guns could be more unique, their version of V.A.T.S is honestly silly and there are more loading screens than a typical current gen game. But these are all things that are far and away outshined by an excellent story, great writing for NPCs, and just an all-around enjoyable time. The Outer Worlds isn’t some massive RPG that takes 100 hours to see the majority of the game like the Fallout series is, but it makes the most out of all 20 or so hours you will put in it. It makes the most out of each quest and doesn’t give you a lot of things that are there just to fill the dead air. It makes me excited to see what Obsidian does next, having been purchased by Microsoft. Maybe if they decide to make an Outer Worlds 2, they will have the funding because of Microsoft to make a generation defining RPG experience. With The Outer Worlds being on Xbox Game Pass day one of release, I encourage any Fallout fan to have a crack at it. Obsidian really deserves all the success that is bound to come to them because of The Outer Worlds.