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During my first experience with the initial Outer Worlds game, I was quickly hooked by its irreverent, Fallout-inspired style of comedy. This release featured lively conversations, personal journals, and promotional posters that illustrated a business-controlled nightmare that was at once bleak and amusing. My main fear starting the sequel was that this entry – without blame of its own – could fail to be as funny like the original.

Sure, conditions weren't ideal. But the world definitely felt a bit less broken at that time. This universe presented a dystopia that didn't feel extremely relatable, and yet accomplished to be both touching and comical. I began The Outer Worlds 2 rather certain that the sequel couldn't succeed to pull this off again, but I'm pleased to report that I was incorrect. This sequel is equally smile-generating as the title that came before it, and furthermore presents original ideas instead of simply reusing identical material like an tired company slogan.

Developing Personalities

Most of the game characters gamers met in the original game had been beaten down by the actions of company organizations like the in-game corporation, and were fully cognizant of how much their situation was terrible. The Outer Worlds 2 progresses matters in a different direction, presenting individuals who are indoctrinated (occasionally metaphorically, often literally). A lot of these NPCs don't even realize of how extremely messed up their conditions are, or that there may exist alternatives to an existence spent under the boot of a huge company or limited by the creeds of a high-demand religion.

This follow-up examines forms of company influence that are more subtle than merely maintaining the people destitute. Various personalities have been indoctrinated into the sort of overly enthusiastic "grindset mindset" rhetoric you can discover on online profiles that vow to show the path to accomplishment when you buy for an overpriced workshop, or put money into a sketchy crypto scheme. Even the game's business promotion has developed.

Modern Themes

There continue to be many discouraging displays in various locations indicating reductions in employee wages who so much as consider taking a day off, but furthermore exist allusions to multi-level marketing strategies, including an employee manual that confidently announces, "Unfamiliar individuals are simply patrons you still need to meet!" As someone who grew up in a direct sales household, I immediately burst out with laughter upon viewing this reference, because it's a refrain I have frequently encountered repeated exactly by individuals in lower positions of those structures.

Luckily, this follow-up is as comedic and satirical as the first game.

This sequel additionally investigates the predicament various individuals find ourselves in regarding work, politics, and even personal purchases: Having to pick the lesser of multiple bad options. When trying to determine if to back a harmful business or a dangerous religious group in the game, I realized I became aligning with the familiar evil: An established company structure that is awful (but only uses propaganda to indoctrinate its followers), instead of the cult, which is equally bad, but utilizes a terrible method called "cognitive reset" to control its members compliant.

Unreliable Masters

Even the people you work for might not be reliable. As an Earth Directorate agent, your mission involves trying to reestablish order to the Arcadia colony subsequent to a forceful company buyout, and you'll soon discover that the two the invaders and the defenders adhere to distinct (yet equally horrific) doctrines. But a quick examination of the messages on your vessel's computer reveal that the Earth Directorate is hardly the universe's most principled employer either, as evidenced by a reply to a help request that notifies the contact it will take "several business years" for a response to their message. (This period is about how long it takes for numerous individuals to reach a non-robot customer service agent via telephone nowadays.)

Relatable Moments

Numerous instances in this sequel are extremely familiar, but it's a cleansing sort of relatability, and this release succeeds in balancing its depressing dystopian setting with comedy that's authentically amusing yet not seeming incongruous. An important idea is the quick commencement of deterioration that seems to take place after significant business mergers. Staff members from all factions of this sequel's big merger experience their living standards decrease consequently, while the executives in control of the structure are, of course, accumulating the cash quickly.

Okay, at the very least I understand my position.

Comparable to the original title, The Outer Worlds 2 is naturally humorous, but additionally doesn't shy away to get serious. At a certain time, while traveling around the game's first explorable world, I stumbled across a deceased individual with an audio log nearby. This message disclosed that this NPC (connected to the brainwashing religious faction) had died in an accident while trying to hunt down and dispatch her romantic partner. This loved one had seemingly abandoned from their organization, and the deceased character was enraged by her lover's {traitorous