The Outer Worlds 2 Takes Away A Key Choice For You To Make Role-Playing More Rewarding

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Commander Ash, a skilled negotiator known for her shooting, lockpicking, and persuasive abilities, was dispatched by Earth Directorate to resolve a worker’s strike at Auntie’s Choice. The mission was intended to win favor with the powerful corporation, and I believed her unique skillset would allow her to reach a positive outcome for the workers with relative ease.

I managed to get inside the restricted area and found compromising information about the manager before speaking with her about the worker’s strike. I presented the workers’ demands, hoping my persuasive skills – I’d put a lot of effort into developing them – would convince her to agree.

It soon became obvious that simply talking wouldn’t resolve the conflict. The manager believed that making any compromises would prevent the factory from meeting its production goals. While someone with technical skills – like an engineer or hacker – might have been able to fix the problem with the equipment, my character didn’t have those abilities. My character was only good at a few things, and I’d already tried and failed with lockpicking and negotiation.

Commander Ash dealt with the situation as she always did: with a gunshot to the manager’s face, leaving the striking workers to handle things from there. While it could have felt like a letdown that the game didn’t offer a more peaceful option, considering the character I’d created, it actually felt like the correct course of action.

I’ve often struggled to connect with the stories in games like Fallout, Cyberpunk 2077, and the first Outer Worlds. It’s not that I dislike the stories themselves, but my playstyle leads me to focus on exploring everything a game has to offer, rather than deeply engaging with role-playing. I prefer to experience a game fully in one playthrough, rather than needing to replay it multiple times to see everything.

I usually ended up with a mix of skills – some for fighting, some to carry more stuff because I always picked things up, and others for unlocking doors. This meant my characters were okay at a lot of things, but not truly good at anything when it came to difficult challenges. If the game let me reset my skills, I would, or I’d spend a lot of time earning more skill points. While I experienced everything the game had to offer, it sometimes made things predictable and reduced the chance of unexpected events.

Unlike some RPGs, The Outer Worlds 2 doesn’t let you completely reset your character’s skills after the very beginning of the game. Leveling up is also slow, and you only get a couple of skill points each time. This means my preferred way of playing could really hinder my progress, leaving me without the skills needed for cool interactions and forcing me to deal with the fallout.

I had a specific idea for my character from the start. I created a commander with a shady past and specialized in using guns, talking her way out of trouble, and picking locks. I envisioned her as a charming space cowboy – able to talk or sneak her way into places, and fight her way out if necessary. I even put a couple of points into medicine, but that meant I was slightly underprepared for a lockpicking challenge in an early part of the game, even though I was otherwise much stronger than the enemies there.

My ability to talk my way out of trouble worked sometimes, but not always. Some people simply aren’t open to reason. I could usually get what I needed through conversation, but occasionally I’d face obstacles that required skills I hadn’t developed. Ultimately, I always found a way to succeed by relying on the skills I did have.

Playing The Outer Worlds 2 really drew me into the role-playing aspects. I appreciated that I couldn’t undo my character’s choices after leveling up – it forced me to accept the consequences and adapt. It was really satisfying to manipulate weaker enemies into turning on their leaders, avoiding fights altogether. And when a villain launched into a long speech, choosing to immediately attack felt perfectly natural. I’d had enough talk and was ready for a fight.

It might seem obvious to highlight the benefits of role-playing in a game called an RPG, but many similar games now let you completely change your character’s build too easily. When I played Avowed earlier this year, I had a clear idea of my character’s personality, but I often found myself redoing their combat skills and abilities – either to try out new weapons or to handle challenges in a different way.

Playing The Outer Worlds 2, I frequently encountered unexpected results based on the skills I’d selected. The game’s flaws system actually encouraged this – I often reloaded to get a better outcome, and the game rewarded me with a damage boost for doing so, as long as I didn’t run out of ammo.

These choices deeply affected those around me, most notably Niles. He went from being a loyal and optimistic agent of the Earth Directorate to someone who operates outside the law, much like myself. I showed him that big organizations aren’t reliable, and that sometimes force is the only answer – a lesson he now fully accepts.

Even though shooting the factory manager in the face seemed like an easy way out in The Outer Worlds 2, it felt true to my character’s personality. Instead of avoiding the consequences of my actions and weakening the story, I got to fully embrace what my character would naturally do, which made the moment feel meaningful.

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2025-12-26 17:10