Following the Xbox Games Showcase 2025, where The Outer Worlds 2 received its official launch date, Obsidian dedicated a good portion of its Direct (which also featured Grounded 2) to the upcoming action RPG sequel.
Creative Director Leonard Boyarsky highlighted that the game has benefited from having a bigger budget and more time in development. This allows The Outer Worlds 2 to be a much more ‘true Obsidian reactive RPG’ compared to the original The Outer Worlds.
Skills and traits are also even more important now. They not only affect combat, but also conversations and areas that the developers are calling ‘RPG interactions’. In these instances, players will be able to use their skills, perks, and backgrounds to solve challenges in many different ways.
While the previous installment pitted players as the Stranger, essentially a blank slate character for players to fill, this time, Obsidian is giving more structure to the player character’s background. They are an Earth Directorate agent, whom the developers compared to space marshals. However, players will still get to choose why they joined the Earth Directorate, with options such as Ex-Convict, Gambler, Lawbringer, Professor, Renegade, and Roustabout.
The Outer Worlds 2 won’t have attributes. Obsidian leaned into traits for this sequel because they wanted more meaningful changes. Some of those shown in the Direct include Lucky, which provides a 5% higher critical chance and opens up certain opportunities, and Nimble, which increases crouch speed and combat sprint speed by 25%. However, you can also select negative traits, like Dumb, which locks five of the twelve available skills from being upgraded at all and also adds a few appropriate conversation options. Selecting a negative trait lets you add an extra positive trait.
After traits, players pick skills, which are the backbone of your character’s play style. Examples include Speech, Sneak, Science, Observation, Guns, Melee and more. Additionally, Obsidian is essentially ‘borrowing’ the perk system for Fallout: New Vegas while also expanding on it. For example, Pickpocket lets you steal from NPCs, while Heavy Handed empowers melee power attacks with a knockdown (which has an internal cooldown to maintain balance). There’s even a Serial Killer perk that adds a chance for killed humans to drop their hearts; consuming the hearts provides a permanent max health bonus.
The Outer Worlds 2 also brings back the Flaw system. These are also trait-like things that define your character with pros and cons. For example, Bad Knees lets you move faster but also produces a loud popping noise whenever you rise up from crouch, alerting nearby enemies. Sungazer makes weapon spread 100% worse, but also gives the player character continuous healing while outside during the day (up to 50% health). Overprepared increases the size of all weapon magazines by 50%, but also inflicts a 40% debuff for 8 seconds if you completely empty a magazine.
When it comes to reactivity, players will be given all sorts of options when dealing with obstacles. For example, they’ll have to cross a heavily patrolled bridge area at some point, and one of the available options is to make a deal with those non-player characters who patrol it by sacrificing one of the companions (of which there are six). Of course, doing so may have serious repercussions even with the relationship with the remaining companions.
Obsidian also touched on the colony of Arcadia, which is the setting of The Outer Worlds 2. This is an isolated solar system with plenty of natural resources that is run by an authoritarian faction called The Protectorate. Arcadia is in trouble due to the appearance of space-time rifts, allegedly caused by skip drives (which allow interstellar travel). As an Earth Directorate agent, they’ll have to find out what can be done to stop them. As you would expect, each faction has its own vision about what’s happening and, most importantly, how to solve it.
The game even has a radio system, another nod to Fallout: New Vegas. There are three radio stations to tune into, each belonging to one of the major factions. Obsidian also said that the radio will also respond to what the player is doing, increasing the feeling of reactivity to the player’s actions. Lastly, third-person view is fully featured this time around for those who don’t love first-person view.
The Outer Worlds 2 will be released on October 29 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X. As usual for Microsoft-owned companies, the game will be available on day one via Game Pass for active subscribers.
