Earth Directorate Commander Ash was sent to settle a labor strike issue on behalf of Auntie’s Choice, in an effort to gain favor with the corporate conglomerate. A bit of an outlaw, and someone who excels in shooting, lockpicking, and smooth-talking, I felt like my character was primed to work out a result that was favorable for the workers without too much of an issue.
I was able to enter the closed-off facility and even nab some blackmail on the manager in charge before confronting her directly about the labor strike. I conveyed the workers’ demands, and expected to be able to convince her to see things my way–after all, I invested a decent amount of points in speech.
It quickly became clear that no amount of talking was going to solve this dispute. As far as the manager was concerned, any concessions she might make would prevent the factory from hitting its quota. Someone with engineering or hacking skills may have been able to solve this issue by messing with the equipment in the factory, but my character wasn’t built for that. My character was good at three things, and I’d already exhausted the lockpicking and talking options.
So Commander Ash solved the problem the only other way she knew how: shooting the manager in the face and telling the striking workers to take it from there. What could easily feel like a failure of the game–not offering me a more diplomatic solution using whatever skills I had invested in–instead felt right, given the story I had built for myself.
In prior games in a similar style to The Outer Worlds 2, including the modern Fallout games, Cyberpunk 2077, and the original The Outer Worlds, I always had trouble resonating with the story. I would neglect the role-playing part of the RPG, not out of some refusal to engage with the story on its own terms, but because of the particular way I like to play games. I have a tendency to want to do everything and see everything, without the need to play through multiple times.
I would often end up with a hodgepodge of skills, some points to improve combat skills, a few to increase carry weight to deal with my need to pick up everything I find, and a few skills to get me into locked areas. This would always result in me having a character that was good at a bunch of things, but worthless for high-end skill checks. If I had the option to respec, I would cheat my way through, and if it didn’t, I would grind for some extra skill points. Sure, I got to see everything in the game, but that often lessened the chances of something different or odd happening.
The Outer Worlds 2 doesn’t have the option to respec, outside of one opportunity just after the opening sequence. On top of that, leveling isn’t particularly fast, and you are only given two skill points to place into a massive list of skills. My particular playstyle would wreck my adventure here, making me lack the skills for interesting interactions and leaving me to suffer the consequences.
So, I made a game plan during character creation. I gave my commander an outlaw background, and focused on guns, speech, and lockpicking. I built her like a smooth-talking space cowboy, someone who could get into places via speech or lockpicking and when the time came, shoot her way out. I even managed to spare two points of medicine, although even that small deviation meant I wasn’t high enough level for a lockpick in a main quest area I was definitely overleveled for.
For as often as my speech skills could get me out of a jam, they also couldn’t. After all, some people just can’t be reasoned with. While I got through plenty of doors without issues, I would regularly run into a door that required hacking or another skill I didn’t have. But I could always accomplish my goals in one way or another, I just had to make use of the skills I had chosen to invest in.
This resulted in an experience with The Outer Worlds 2 where I felt invested in role-playing. Without the option to run away from or fix my decisions in the level-up screen, I had to work with it. I had satisfying experiences convincing low-level lackeys that their bosses didn’t care about them, causing them to run rather than fight me. When a villain started lecturing me about the state of the galaxy, it felt right to choose the attack now option. I’d heard enough and was confident in a duel.
It feels a bit silly to point out the benefits of role-playing in a genre with role-playing in the name, but respecing has become a crutch for some similar games. Playing Avowed earlier this year, while I felt like I knew who my character was from a personality standpoint, I regularly rebuilt my combat abilities and other skills, sometimes to use a new weapon or to deal with a situation differently.
In The Outer Worlds 2, I often had to deal with an outcome that wasn’t what I was angling for, because I had to play with skills I chose. The flaws system adds to this too, with my penchant for reloading constantly being something I could lean further into by getting a damage buff, so long as I didn’t empty out my magazine.
These thoughtful decisions also resonated with my companions, with Niles turning from a once-dedicated and hopeful Earth Directorate agent into an outlaw of his own. I taught him that large organizations will never have your back, and sometimes the only solution to a problem is a bullet, something that he now believes too.
So while shooting that factory manager in the face might feel like a simple or unsatisfying solution in an RPG like The Outer Worlds 2, it was exactly what my character would have done in that moment anyway. Instead of trying to wiggle my way out of the consequences of my choices, undermining my own story in the process, I was forced to do exactly what my character was built to do, making something simple feel impactful.