[Note: All footage is from a work-in-progress alpha build.]
Welcome to our newest IGN First – a month of unique protection in April, and it is all about The Outer Worlds 2. That is the first actual have a look at its gameplay in actual time, and it takes us thru a quest the place you infiltrate the N-Ray Facility to sing their own praises a number of of the sport’s new options and mechanics, in addition to the way it’s rethinking degree design. And probably the most greatest issues that stood out to me is how a lot deeper it’s going to be as an RPG with developer Obsidian having a look again at its previous or even drawing inspiration from immersive sims like Deus Ex and Dishonored.
Whilst that DNA has all the time been part of first-person RPGs, The Outer Worlds 2 has extra refined methods in comparison to the primary recreation like a real stealth device and higher equipment to make the playstyle viable, together with efficient melee guns and abilities to make silent takedowns conceivable. Take, as an example, the well being bar above enemy heads – there’s a purple-colored readout that presentations how harm a stealth assault will do, serving to you pass judgement on whether or not or now not you’ll get a one-hit kill or if it’s even price pouncing in your goal. Enemies will even stumble on lifeless our bodies and alert guards, however you’ll temporarily blank up you probably have a talent to crumble our bodies at the spot.
Later within the quest, you pick out up the N-Ray Scanner, which helps you to see sure items and NPCs/enemies thru partitions. Whilst that is an important for locating necessary portions of extra concerned environmental puzzles, it’s additionally a very powerful software for a stealth and battle. There are enemies right through the N-Ray Facility who cloak themselves; invisible to the bare eye, however now not in a position to flee the lens of the N-Ray Scanner. In the event you’re now not dilligent about the use of it, cloaked enemies can simply run up on you. That is only one instance of the way the addition of devices upload a brand new wrinkle to gameplay.
There are a number of interlocking methods that issue into how you are able to play, leaning extra into the RPG components that make up explicit personality builds. So, stealth and the ones immersive sim sensibilities aren’t the one means gameplay is increasing in The Outer Worlds 2. Making improvements to gunplay was once a significant focal point for Obsidian, bringing up Future as a touchstone for what just right gunplay must really feel like. Now not that this recreation goes to become an all-out shooter, but it surely performs nearer to how a first-person recreation with firearms must play.
You spot an instance of this within the method to the N-Ray Facility motion after we move in weapons blazing. Motion has been tweaked to counterpoint gunplay as neatly, letting you be extra nimble and do such things as sprint-slide whilst aiming down attractions like an motion hero – and with the go back of Tactical Time Dilation (TTD), the bullet-time delusion is once more an efficient a part of your battle rotation. We had been in a position to peer throwables, which is in no way progressive for a recreation like this, however with their inclusion this time round, you could have any other software that you’ll weave into your arsenal – or even do one thing unwell like tossing a grenade, activating TTD, and capturing the grenade midair to have it blow up on unsuspecting enemies.
There isn’t a lot to percentage at the tale entrance as of but, let by myself the context across the quest within the N-Ray Facility, however we do see how conversations had been tweaked reasonably within the sequel. Within the gameplay video above, there is a second we confront an NPC named Exemplar Foxworth who is survived the cultist takeover of where. She’s bleeding out and you’ll lend a hand patch her up in response to your Scientific stat, or reply relying in your Weapons or Melee stats. Even if we could not dig into partners in additional element, this phase additionally highlights the brand new spouse named Aza, a former cultist who is a little bit frantic however joins you to reputedly lend a hand undo what they have carried out.
Many of those components had been a part of the unique Outer Worlds in some shape, however the place that recreation was once extra about laying a brand new basis for Obsidian, The Outer Worlds 2 seems to be to be a completely learned model of what it was once seeking to construct with the primary one. Along with checking it out early, I had conversations with the oldsters at Obsidian to get perception on a ton of its new options and the imaginative and prescient that drove this sequel. It sort of feels enthusiastic about wielding the RPG roots of the studio’s previous whilst making an allowance for what a contemporary first-person RPG may also be within the vein of a Fallout – and to be transparent, they ceaselessly referred to Fallout: New Vegas as a touchstone when making The Outer Worlds 2, so my hopes are definitely top.
That is only a style of what is to return in The Outer Worlds 2 and what we are protecting on this month’s IGN First. I will be breaking down personality builds, the brand new flaws device, all of the wild and wacky guns, and what sort of larger this sequel is thru interviews with key other folks like authentic Fallout developer and inventive director Leonard Boyarsky, recreation director Brandon Adler, and design director Matt Singh. Stay checking again at IGN all April lengthy for extra!
Michael Higham is the tech evaluations editor at IGN, however is likely one of the RPG sickos on body of workers who nonetheless talks about Fallout: New Vegas frequently. You’ll be able to to find him at @brazyazn.bsky.social.
