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Upon my initial experience with the initial Outer Worlds game, I was instantly captivated by its irreverent, Fallout-like brand of humor. The game featured engaging exchanges, character diaries, and propaganda materials that portrayed a company-run society that was simultaneously bleak and humorous. My primary concern heading into the follow-up was that this version – without blame from itself – wouldn't be as comedic like the original.

Sure, things weren't perfect. Yet society undoubtedly appeared slightly less fractured back then. This game showed a bleak future that didn't strike extremely relatable, and yet accomplished to be both heartwarming and comical. I started The Outer Worlds 2 pretty sure that this installment wouldn't manage to achieve this again, but I'm happy to state that I was incorrect. The Outer Worlds 2 is as laughter-provoking as the game that preceded it, and furthermore presents new themes rather than just recycling the same content like an tired company slogan.

Changing NPCs

Most of the game characters gamers met in the initial release had been defeated by the deeds of business corporations like the fictional company, and were painfully aware of how much their situation was terrible. This installment takes things in an alternative path, featuring characters who are programmed (periodically symbolically, frequently actually). Numerous NPCs aren't conscious of how profoundly disordered their circumstances are, or that there could be options to an existence spent under the boot of a large business or limited by the doctrines of a high-demand religion.

This follow-up investigates methods of business domination that are more insidious than only making the people destitute. Numerous characters have been programmed with the sort of extremely eager "grindset mindset" rhetoric you might encounter on social media accounts that promise to reveal the key to success when you buy a costly program, or put money into a questionable digital currency plan. Even the game's corporate propaganda has progressed.

Current Topics

There remain plenty of discouraging displays throughout facilities warning about deducting employee wages who dare to think about taking a day off, but additionally there are references to network marketing methods, including a new hire handbook that proudly declares, "Unfamiliar individuals are simply customers YOU still need to meet!" As someone who developed within a multi-level marketing family, I promptly exploded laughing upon viewing this mention, because it's a refrain I have regularly listened to repeated exactly by individuals in lower positions of these systems.

Thankfully, this sequel is equally humorous and satirical as the initial release.

This sequel furthermore explores the predicament various individuals experience when it comes to work, government, and even consumer choices: Having to pick the smaller of two or three evils. While attempting to determine if to back a risky company or a problematic faith organization within the title, I found myself siding with the familiar evil: A familiar company structure that sucks (though just utilizes promotion to program its members), rather than the religious group, which is equally bad, but employs a horrible approach termed "psychological renewal" to control its members in line.

Unreliable Masters

Additionally, the individuals you work for might not be trustworthy. In the role of an galactic official, your mission involves trying to reestablish order to this outpost subsequent to an aggressive business acquisition, and you rapidly learn that both the invaders and the residents follow distinct (yet equally horrific) doctrines. However, a rapid inspection of the transmissions on your ship's terminal show that the Earth Directorate isn't precisely the universe's most principled employer either, as demonstrated by an answer to a distress call that informs the caller it will take "3-5 corporate years" for a response to their transmission. (This period is roughly the duration it takes for many people to get a hold of a non-robot customer service agent over the phone currently.)

Recognizable Scenarios

Many moments in this installment are painfully relatable, but it's a cathartic sort of relatability, and this title succeeds in balancing its depressing dystopian setting with humor that's authentically amusing without feeling out of place. A primary concept is the rapid beginning of deterioration that appears to occur in the wake of significant business mergers. Staff members from all factions of this installment's big merger find their existence worsen as a result, while the leaders in charge of the hierarchy are, naturally, accumulating profits hand over fist.

Hey, at least I recognize where I stand.

Similar to the original title, this sequel is inherently funny, but furthermore doesn't shy away to get serious. At a certain time, while exploring around the release's primary explorable world, I discovered a corpse with a recording close by. The audio log showed that this individual (associated with the programming faith group) had perished in an incident while trying to hunt down and eliminate her significant other. This loved one had apparently defected from their faction, and the now-dead NPC was incensed at her lover's {traitorous