Published on March 13th, 2023 | by S. Masoud Kazemi
Outer Worlds Spacer’s Choice Edition Review
Summary: Outer Worlds Spacer’s Choice Edition is a good chance for all the people who missed the game when it first came out to experience this sci-fi game.
4.5
Space fun!
Outer Worlds is an action RPG made by Obsidian that has a good reputation for making detailed and rich role-playing games. Their latest AAA game was Outer Worlds, where you get to travel through different colonies and planets in order to help a scientist named Phineas Vernon Welles fight against the corruption of a mega-corporation called The Board and also find the necessary items and tools to help him fix the dire situation he mistakenly created. Recently a new edition of the game called Spacer’s Choice Edition has been released that contains all the DLCs and also some visual improvements for new hardware.
The biggest changes in the Spacer’s Choice Edition are mostly the visual enhancement for the new generation of consoles and also PCs. As far as the word enhancement goes, you won’t get a groundbreaking visual upgrade in this version of the game.
Since they have tweaked the visuals a little bit, the game now requires better hardware to run smoothly which is where the main problem of the PC version of Spacer’s Choice Edition shows itself. There are many times you will get insane frame drops if you go from a closed location to an open area or the location you are is packed with NPCs.
Maybe I would have let this slide if the visual enhancements were really good, but unfortunately, you wouldn’t notice the difference match, unless you put the two versions side by side. So if you have already played the original version of the game, there is a good chance you won’t see much of a difference from your previous experience to the new one.
And the performance issues aren’t just the frame drops. somehow the game puts too much pressure on your hardware, even if your PC has high-end hardware. It’s not game breaking issue but it is really getting frustrating to see so many studios not put enough time to polish the PC version of the game.
But on the good side, Outer Worlds is still a fantastic game thanks to its core gameplay and amazing lore. The gunplay and combats of the game are satisfying and the good variety of enemies, as well as weapons in the game, keeps it fresh until the end.
It’s not just the variety but also all the extra perks you can add to your weapons such as electricity or burn damage which broadens the categories of weapons even more. The more important thing about customizing your weapons in Outer Worlds is that you can easily understand what you are doing and whether it is going to work for your style of play or not.
And it’s not just the weapons customization, the whole UI of the game is simple and easy to grasp. You can easily navigate through the menus of the game, which weapons you want to carry, and of course the long list of quests you get in the game that each has been categorized to help you prioritize which quests you want to complete first.
Speaking of quests, Obsidian has once again shown why it is one of the best RPG makers in the video game industry. Not only the design of each quest is marvelous, but how each quest and side quest connects which other and is intertwined like a big spider web is truly fascinating.
There is something else that has helped Obsidian to create better quests and that is its unique design of the open world. Rather than making a massive map, they decided to create many smaller areas which gave them the freedom to create more different and unique locations that may not have been possible if all the map was attached to one another.
Now add some great character-building, unique lore, a good story, and some of the most realistic companions you can find in RPG games. And all of this is thanks to the effort the team of writing has put into the game to consider and add every possible dialogue a person could say in a certain situation.
This has also made the character-building of companions more authentic and organic. When you finish the game, you don’t think you’ve completed the game with a series of NPCs, but rather with a bunch of good friends.
And it’s not just the characterization of them. Each companion you meet on your journey has a unique set of abilities and weapons that you can use and also be familiar with. There are times you need a companion with a powerful arsenal, while the next time you need a companion with high knowledge of engineering.
Fortunately, all the good qualities from the main game can be sensed in the two DLCs, Murder on Eridanos and Peril on Gorgon available in the Spacer’s Choice Edition. Not only that, but they have also made sure to add all the unique ideas they had for the game that didn’t match up with the original game.
But the fascinating thing about the Spacer’s Choice Edition is how good the game still is. It is a good example that if you make a good game with great mechanics, there is a good chance it will stay the same for a very long time.
Final Thoughts?
Outer Worlds Spacer’s Choice Edition is a good chance for all the people who missed the game when it came out to experience it. Unfortunately, the visual enhancement isn’t that good and it has caused some performance issues as well, especially in the PC version of the game. But the original game along with both DLCs is still worth experiencing and you should not miss it if you want a good action RPG with amazing quest design and memorable characters.