The Outer Worlds 2: Rumors, leaks, gameplay, and everything we know

Obsidian is expanding the universe of The Outer Worlds, a move that should leave fans incredibly happy as the first took many by surprise with its humor and gameplay. It became one of the best Xbox games after it was released, so hopefully its sequel can do the same. Announced at E3 2021, The Outer Worlds 2 takes us to a brand-new solar system with a new set of characters. It's still in early development, but we'll run through everything we know so far about the upcoming RPG. Judging by its reveal trailer, it has that signature Obsidian humor that we've come to love from the first game.

The Outer Worlds: What is it?

The Outer Worlds is an action RPG series developed by Obsidian Entertainment, and some have likened it to a spiritual successor to Fallout: New Vegas, albeit in a completely different universe. It has that typical RPG jank, but it also crafts a memorable world imbued with its own unique sense of dark humor. Players can go through the game a number of ways depending on their choices, befriending or killing various factions and characters. The Outer Worlds allows people to play the game exactly as they'd like, whether they want to stealth through entire sections or blast their way past enemies.

What made it so interesting, as I've mentioned before, is its humor. Taking place in the Halcyon solar system in an alternate universe, megacorporations have taken over and turned everyone's lives into living hells. Of course, Obsidian plays with this and makes it as funny as possible, taking shots at our own capitalistic culture.

The Outer Worlds: The story so far

To set the scene, The Outer Worlds takes place in an alternative universe where President McKinley is never assassinated, meaning Teddy Roosevelt never succeeded him and never paved the way for strong anti-trust laws. As a result, mega-corporations arose and everything became a capitalist hellscape. Fast forward to 2285, the mega-corporations have begun to colonize space and terraform alien planets. Unfortunately, of the two ships sent to colonize the Halcyon system — the Hope and the Groundbreaker — only the Groundbreaker made the voyage.

In 2355, the year the game takes place, the ship that disappeared is suddenly discovered adrift and the player character is woken up from cryo-sleep by mad scientist Phineas Welles. Thus begins your journey to secure the resources needed to wake up the rest of the colonists and hopefully save the crumbling colony.

Depending on your choices, the game can end in a few different ways. Regardless, players end up learning that all contact with Earth has been lost.

The Outer Worlds 2: Gameplay

Like its predecessor, The Outer Worlds 2 features primarily first-person gameplay, allowing players to use a variety of melee and ranged weapons in combat. It plays very much like Fallout, in that regard. In its announcement trailer, we see characters that have some form of rocket-powered boots. Though we haven't seen any real gameplay footage of The Outer Worlds 2, you can expect it to look much like the original, but probably with enhanced graphics and textures.

Expanding on the original, The Outer Worlds 2 is expected to let players create their own character by selecting various attributes, perks, and skills they'd like to focus on. For instance, if you want to carry a large amount of items without being over-encumbered, you'll invest in your Strength attribute.

The Outer Worlds also allowed players to upgrade any of the weapons and armor they earned while exploring. Of these weapons, we're hoping to see Science weapons and Unique weapons make a return as they offered special abilities that normal weapons did not.

The Outer Worlds 2: Story and characters

We don't know anything about the story in The Outer Worlds 2 except that it will feature a "new solar system, new crew, same Outer Worlds," according to the trailer description. The first game was set hundreds of years in the future as humanity expanded colonies across the galaxy. In order to save the failing Halcyon colony, players took on the mega-corporations that ran everything. To keep things consistent, we may be seeing the return of the Board in some way, but that's merely speculation.

The Outer Worlds 2: Release date and platforms

The Outer Worlds 2 appears to be early in development, as indicated by its reveal trailer. Obsidian did not announce a release date or platforms, but it will likely release on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC. Because Obsidian is now owned by Microsoft, The Outer Worlds 2 should release into Xbox Game Pass on day one.

While the original game launched on PlayStation 4, this was because it was announced for that platform before Microsoft purchased Obsidian. It's hard to imagine that The Outer Worlds 2 will hit PS5, especially considering that games like Starfield have already been confirmed to be Xbox exclusive.