When The Outer Worlds released many fans of Fallout hoped it would be a worthy spiritual successor to Fallout: New Vegas. The game was directed by Fallout creators Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, was developed by Obsidian just like New Vegas, and had a sci-fi setting with many of the same satirical trappings as the Fallout franchise. While The Outer Worlds was an impressive RPG, however, it struggled to live up to New Vegas' impressive legacy. The game's world was small and segmented, many of the companion characters were forgettable, enemies lacked variety, and the world lacked the broad interactivity made possible by Bethesda's engine.
With rumors that The Outer Worlds 2 may be in the works, many Fallout: New Vegas fans find themselves hoping that the new series will shoot for the stars and finally deliver a worthy New Vegas successor. Based on the first game, however, The Outer Worlds 2 won't fill the void left by New Vegas without making some significant changes in trajectory.
New Vegas' Balancing Act
New Vegas is considered one of the best Fallout games by many fans for good reason. It breaks the mold when it comes to Fallout's formula in several ways that weren't seen before New Vegas and have not been seen since. Fallout: New Vegas manages to strike a balance that Bethesda RPGs often fail to achieve. Often, Bethesda has found itself choosing between storytelling focus and roleplaying freedom.
In Skyrim, for example, the player character is afforded immense freedom, but in order to achieve this the game's scripted storytelling is decentered, companions are generally nondescript, and the main quest falls to the wayside. In Bethesda's Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, the player character is given extremely personal and character-driven reasons to pursue the main quest, but the player themself has far less freedom to define who their character is and what might motivate them.
In Fallout: New Vegas the Courier starts the game having been shot in the head and robbed of their last delivery. After a miraculous recovery they return to the Mojave Wasteland. Though simple, it's a particularly strong opening. The player is left with some huge questions: why was the Courier's package worth killing for? Who was the man in the checkered suit who left the Courier for dead? Was their survival merely pure luck, or something more? The true genius of this opening is that it gives the player total freedom to define who the Courier is and motivates the player to pursue the main quest on their own terms without making it seem odd if they decide to explore the world instead. After all, if their last delivery left the Courier in a shallow grave, it might not be worth risking another bullet to find out why.
Problems With The Outer Worlds
Despite being made by Obsidian, The Outer Worlds is not able to strike the same balance between roleplaying freedom and scripted storytelling that New Vegas does so well. In The Outer Worlds the player has far less control over who they are. They may get to choose their appearance and dialogue, but they always awaken from cryosleep on The Hope thanks to Phineas Welles, and set about journeying from world to world collecting the resources needed to revive The Hope's colonists.
Unlike the Courier, the player's past is is more clearly prescribed in The Outer Worlds, and their path through the game is far more predetermined even though they can make some vital decisions along the way. The Outer Worlds prioritized depth over scale, most notably in the scale of its in-game world. While that had its advantages, Fallout: New Vegas was able to balance depth and breadth in a way that The Outer Worlds sacrificed from the get-go in favor of a closer focus on its main story.
The Outer Worlds has flaws that a sequel could fix. The facial animations of the player's companions could be more expressive, crafting could be far more complicated, enemy types made more diverse, and the player could have far more opportunities to interact with the world from sitting in chairs and sleeping in beds to manipulating items. Like New Vegas, The Outer Worlds 2 could have more complicated characters with hidden motivations. By the end of the first game it turns out Phineas really is a good guy and The Board really is openly corrupt with no ulterior motives, which is exactly what Phineas tells the player from the very start.
The Outer Worlds' Design Philosophy
While a sequel to The Outer Worlds could make improvements, however, it seems less likely that The Outer Worlds 2 will abandon the design philosophy of the first game. That design philosophy specifically aimed to create a smaller first-person RPG with a more scripted story. If The Outer Worlds 2 follows suit, it isn't that it will fail to achieve the same balance of breadth and depth achieved in New Vegas - achieving that balance simply will not be among the game's goals.
New Vegas' balancing act made it a particularly replayable game that stood out from Bethesda's usual offerings in its memorable characters and unique setting. In The Outer Worlds, there aren't really any good reasons to refuse recruiting companions like Vicar Max - as in games like Dragon Age, the option not to recruit companions really only takes away from the experience of the main story. New Vegas' companions, however, have their own self-contained stories that are less connected to the fate of New Vegas in the main plot. As such a playthrough where the player ignores certain potential followers changes the story but doesn't undermine it, creating more replay value.
The Outer Worlds is not aiming to succeed Fallout: New Vegas, and while there are some key lessons it could learn from New Vegas, a sequel is unlikely to totally rework the balance between story and roleplaying freedom found in the first game. With some speculation that Fallout: New Vegas 2 could be in the works, however, fans of The Outer Worlds and Fallout: New Vegas may both be in luck.
Fallout: New Vegas is available now on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.