The Spacer’s Choice Edition has drastically reduced loading times to around 4.5 seconds on average. One of my original quibbles with The Outer Worlds was its dreadfully long and frequent loading screens, even playing the PS4 version on my PS5. This one errant occasion should not be interpreted as the game being a buggy mess, however, as there were no additional issues that arose during the review period. I have yet to encounter anything game-breaking or immersion-breaking, but I did encounter one instance where reloading a save caused a single group of enemies on a side quest to become stationary, letting me pick them off with ease. I can recall several moments where enemies would clip through terrain and behave erratically: This seems to no longer be the case. Speaking of AI, enemies’ behaviors seem to be improved to a noticable degree. This is a breath of fresh air compared to other RPGs with companion AI who would often go rogue and/or become bullet sponges. During this playthrough, Parvati would successfully target groups of Marauders and mechanicals, letting me clean up enemies easier than ever before. In my first runthrough with the base game, I would occasionally accidentally use Parvati’s Overload and Vicar Max’s Trickshot too late, or even in an incorrect fashion, missing a group of enemies and wasting their abilities. The Spacer’s Choice Edition is advertised as containing a reworked and improved combat and companion AI, and during my playthrough I noticed that Parvati, Vicar Max, and SAM’s AI has drastically improved. If I had my druthers, it would come to the PlayStation ecosystem, too. The Halcyon universe deserves so much more love that simply updating the game’s framework is the tip of the iceberg that is expanding the universe, and I’m left wishing for The Outer Worlds 2 to come sooner rather than later. If anything, it’s the edition of The Outer Worlds that I’ve always wanted, featuring a better companion AI, less bugginess, much more immersive graphics, and more. I wholeheartedly agree that the Spacer’s Choice Edition is worth it for current and new The Outer Worlds players. However, if you’re a series-veteran, you’re probably wondering: Will, is it worth the upgrade? Obsidian and Private Division have made considerable upgrades behind the scenes to The Outer Worlds to allow new players and veterans alike to experience the game as it honestly should be. Let’s now fast forward to 2023, where we find ourselves presented with The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition that has been updated for the next-generation consoles. I can imagine some folks wanting outcomes with greater stakes (like the multiple endings of Fallout: New Vegas), but The Outer Worlds successfully teaches the player that there is no inherently good option when inserting oneself into decisions buried within grey areas held together by the red tape of capitalism and a reality of poor-decisionmaking. If anything, I found myself appreciating the depth, rather than the breadth, of The Outer Worlds’ universe by the time I finished the base game after a good sixty hours. While the story itself is moderately linear, it doesn’t truly open up until around 12-15 hours in (depending on how much time you’ve spent on sidequests). You shouldn’t go in expecting The Outer Worlds to be “as open as” a Fallout title. In no way does The Outer Worlds advertise itself as a futuristic Fallout: New Vegas, but I can see how folks can assume it to be given similar gameplay mechanics, mildly branching story-driven paths, a familiar reputation/faction system, and UI. If I could add on to the review, however, it would be as such: As a fan of the Fallout series and Obsidian’s prior work, I would emphasize caution for those wanting a modern Fallout-like RPG while we wait patiently for Bethesda’s Starfield. I won’t rehash too much from Ben’s original review, but I do recommend that you read our review of the base game before continuing further. I myself invested a good 60 hours or so playing through it in Winter 2021 during one particularly cold spell, and I was very quickly pulled in to the capitalism-forward universe of Halcyon that featured gameplay reminiscent of one of my favorite Fallout installments that happened to also be developed by Obsidian. Ben’s review score of a 9.25/10 praised its stellar writing/worldbuilding, the gameplay choices, and the depth of character-building, and to that end, I absolutely agree with his assessment at that time. In 2019, our Ben Sheene originally reviewed The Outer Worlds on the PS4 Pro.
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