When it was announced at last year’s Game Awards, I was almost instantly head-over-heels for The Outer Worlds. I was glad to see one of the best teams in the choice-driven RPG business stepping back onto the field, and even more excited when I got invited to try it for myself a few weeks back.

Picking up a controller and stepping into The Outer Worlds felt like putting on a jacket that I used to love but thought I had lost. One that still fits almost as well as it used to, and still looks pretty damn good despite the aging threads holding it together.

“ It's in Obsidian's DNA.

That’s not to say The Outer Worlds doesn’t look or play like a modern game, far from it; it’s just that seeing certain stylistic choices, like the straight-to-camera dialogues and armor being locked into just helmets and bodysuits, on top of the clear focus on player choice, invokes a deep sense of nostalgia for Obsidian’s last first-person sci-fi RPG, Fallout New Vegas. Which makes sense, considering that even one of the TOW’s directors (and original creators of Fallout) Leonard Boyarsky, bills it as New Vegas’s “spiritual successor.”

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The design of TOW’s settlements (for the couple of frontier towns I explored, at least) is the biggest trigger for this sense of deja vu, though its take on retrofuturism is rooted more in the “Gilded Age” style from the turn of the 20th century than Fallout’s 1950’s mid-century modernism. Every sign or advert bears a certain old-timey charm, and computers, though still connected to a network, are more reminiscent of mechanical typewriters than the tube TVs you'll find in The Wasteland.

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All the best hallmarks of an Obsidian RPG are on display in The Outer Worlds, from branching, reactive story paths to VATS Tactical Time Dilation, which allows you to slow combat action to make precise shots and target specific enemy weak points or body parts, to a ludicrous degree of character customization.

“It's kind of in Obsidian's DNA,” says Matt Singh, a Senior Producer on TOW. “The type of games that we value are really about player choice and meaningful consequences... and how do we react to the player in interesting ways?”

I’m especially glad to see that they’ve brought back the option for your character to be “Dumb,” which unlocks unique dialogue options when your Intelligence stat score is low enough. I’ll be honest and say I’d be surprised if this went as deep as the original Fallout’s “Me fail english?” dialogue options, but it’s this level of variability that gets me uncharacteristically excited at the prospect of multiple playthroughs.

The Outer Worlds New Screenshots August 2019 10 IMAGES

I spent roughly an hour exploring the town of Fallbrook and the colorful wilderness surrounding it on the planet Monarch, where Obsidian’s E3 demo took place. I fought an inordinate number of oversized bug-monsters — which seem to just be everywhere on Monarch — and took on a couple of jobs for its inhabitants. None of which went what I’d call "smoothly", but I got them done just the same and had a good time figuring out how to do it.

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The first was the one shown during the E3 gameplay demo, where we were tasked with infiltrating and dismantling the production of a local business baron’s operation (or we could just kill him, or we could ally ourselves with him, or… well, you get the picture). I went for the more hamfisted approach on this one, and while I remembered the hidden entrance behind a waterfall (because where else is a good secret entrance hidden?), I was decidedly less stealthy than my E3 demoist once I got inside.

Combat in The Outer Worlds is a fun mix of simplicity and tactics. Despite technically being a “first-person shooter” because the camera uses the first person and you happen to shoot a lot of things, I wouldn’t compare it to any of the twitch-skill based shooters like Call of Duty or Doom. The Tactical Time Dilation offers the helpful ability to slow down time and target specific weak points, which can create a variety of interesting or strategically advantageous status effects on your enemies. Target the head to concuss or blind an enemy, or the leg to hinder their movement. Refreshingly, T.T.D. relies on your own aim rather than an automated targeting system like Fallout’s V.A.T.S., but it was also forgiving enough that I never felt I had to scramble to pull off the shot I wanted.

Even if I couldn’t, either of my two NPC companions would likely be able to take care of the situation. In addition to providing basic assistance in combat, each of your companions has their own unique ability. My demo companions, the feisty Nyoka and the more reserved Parvati, boasted a massive gatling gun and an electrified warhammer, respectively. The gatling gun was great for painting several targets with a bunch of damage, and the hammer served up a stuff effect that was especially effective on mechanical foes. It felt at times like I was abusing their abilities, using them too often, though I suppose that’s the perk of investing in my character’s leadership skills.

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All in all, while I found the scrapes I got into fun to try and sneak around or shoot my way out of, especially using some of the crazier weaponry, I can’t say I found The Outer Worlds’ action to be particularly challenging. Perhaps it’s because I was playing on the “Normal” difficulty setting - there are two higher ones, including a Supernova mode that incorporates survival mechanics and companion permadeath, so it would make sense that the lower difficulty levels are more focused on exploring the world and the choices you can make within it.

Regardless, that lack of extreme difficulty isn’t necessarily a bad thing (though I’ll admit I did get a cheap laugh or two seeing an enemy walk right up to and past one of my companions blatantly out in the open while they squatted next to me, stealthily concealed behind a control panel). For me, this draw of a game like The Outer Worlds isn’t the high I get from being “good” at shooting bad guys - it’s about figuring out whether or not I have to shoot them in the first place, and what might I gain for my trouble if I don’t. “Would I have had to shoot my way into that building if I’d brought along a companion who knew that gang?” or “How will Monarch’s balance of power shift if I don’t kill this baron and convince the factions to work together?” are far more interesting questions than “How fast can I kill all these guys?”

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And it’s all about questions for Obsidian. While talking to Matt Singh, he referenced a lecture he once sat in on by Warren Spector, the creator of the Deus Ex series. “One of the points he made that really resonated with me,” said Singh, “was ‘Film, as a media, they often make a statement - but games have the opportunity to ask a question*,’ and that really hit home with me in the style of games that we make.

“We're allowing you to explore questions and be able to come up with your own answers to them. And that's just something that I think is super compelling for people.”

What are your burning questions about The Outer Worlds? Let us know in the comments, and for more on Obsidian’s latest, check out everything we learned about its unique setting and design, or how one of it’s coolest weapons started out as a bug in the game.

JR is a Senior Editor at IGN, who really really can't wait to get back into The Outer Worlds and make some dumb decisions. He'll probably talk about it on Twitter.

*The actual quote, I believe, was from a lecture at the Sweden Game Conference in 2016 , and said “Games shouldn't make statements, they should ask questions, ask players to ponder situations. If you really want to make a statement, make a movie or write a book."