[PS5] The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition Review

The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition from Private Division and Obsidian Entertainment is ready for you on PlayStation 5. Learn more in our The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition review!

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The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition from Private Division and Obsidian Entertainment is ready for you on PlayStation 5. The Outer Worlds was originally released on the PlayStation 4 back in 2019. It’s now 2023, and with the PS5 in full swing, we’re now getting the definitive version of this action RPG on Sony’s now current-gen console. That means that along with the main game, we’re also getting all of the DLC in one go. You’ll be able to play narrative expansion Peril on Gorgon and follow up Murder on Eridanos.

On top of having all content available in a single package, there are also some extra bells and whistles to consider that make this the best way to experience The Outer Worlds. The content has been remastered to take advantage of the power of the PlayStation 5, so you’re getting better graphics, the option of outputting content at 4K with a capped framerate at 30 FPS or a performance option that outputs at 60 FPS with dynamic resolution implemented. Add some new animations here and there, as well as a higher overall level cap, and you can see why this one is the best way to take on this experience.

In The Outer Worlds, your character is part of a colony that entered extended hibernation after a terrible malfunction. It’s a new alternate universe where corporate greed rules supreme, and everyone works as hard as possible to make ends meet. How bad are things? You don’t even get to own the plot where you’re buried… you rent it from the big corporation! You’re part of the people in the Hope, one of the two ships sent to colonize Halcyon, a faraway star system. Hope never managed to fulfill its goal, and it’s not until mad scientist Phineas Welles breaks into the ship and wakes you up from hibernation that you realize how bad things have gotten.

The game can be played in one of four different difficulty settings so that gamers of all skill levels can have a chance to enjoy this journey. You can play in Story Mode, in which enemies have less health and deal less damage. If you play on Normal, then you’ll have the standard experience, which means that enemies will have standard health and will deal standard damage. In Hard Mode, enemies will pack a punch, and you’ll need to deal more overall damage to be able to defeat them. The last one is Supernova, which deserves its own paragraph in this The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition review.

If you really want a challenge and are eyeing the Supernova difficulty setting, I would recommend that you first play the game on Normal or Hard before doing so. That way, you’ll get to know the game and will be able to better understand what you’ll be going up against. Supernova is recommended as your second full run of the game because it adds some extra challenges that are not going for everyone since it introduces survival elements. You will, therefore, need to eat, drink, and sleep to be able to survive. On top of that, companions can die permanently, crippled body and limb conditions can only be healed with bed rest, and weapons and armor are almost useless when at zero durability. Oh, and you can only fast travel to your ship, save at your ship, or sleep inside of your ship.

The first step before diving into the game proper will be to work on the specific type of character you’ll be playing as, including its initial build. You’ll have a set number of points to distribute for attributes that will affect your strength, dexterity, intelligence, perception, charm, and temperament. Strength will affect melee weapon damage and the amount you can carry. Dexterity will affect melee attack speed as well as ranged weapon reload speed, which is crucial during combat.

Intelligence will directly affect critical hit bonus damage. Perception will affect headshot and weak spot damage bonuses. Charm is a tricky one since it will affect faction reputation as well as your companion ability cooldowns, which could be very important during some of the more challenging combat segments in the game. Temperament will improve your natural health regeneration, which can help you heal your wounds over time, even if only by a little bit.

Next up will be skills. These are split into melee, ranged, defense, dialog, stealth, tech, and leadership, with each one affecting additional subskills. Say you use one of your available skill points to improve melee. Doing this will increase your critical hit chance with handheld weapons up to 50 points. Once you reach that point, you’ll be able to add points directly to 1-handed melee or 2-handed melee based on your playing style. If you boost dialogue, then you can improve your ability to talk with NPCs, boosting your persuade, lie, and intimidate subskills. You’ll get more skill points as you level up so that you can continue to improve your character.

After that, you can work on selecting an aptitude for your character from the 15 different aptitudes on offer. To give you an example, you could go with Sub Sous Chef. With your role as an assistant to the second deputy chef’s aid comes a small boost to your 1-handed melee thanks to your performance in the kitchen. Or maybe you would like to go with Tossball Team Mascot! There is no problem that can’t be solved with a bit of extra team spirit, and your ability to extra cheer will boost your inspiration.

The last set of steps will have you select the overall appearance of your character, as well as its name. You can select your character’s genre and configure its face by selecting from the different options for head, skin ton, eye color, brow, eye position and size, jaw position, mouth position and size, nose size, tilt, width, and position, as well as the size of your cheeks. You can then focus on your character’s hair style and color, eyebrow style, facial hair, and color. You can also add some makeup, dirt, and scars and select your character’s age.

You’ll control your character with the left analog stick as you look around with the right one. You can sprint if you press in on the left analog stick. Pressing in on the right analog stick will activate a quick melee attack. The X button will be for jumping. You can crouch and search with the Circle button. If you’re considerably damaged, you might want to consider pressing the L1 button to use the emergency medical inhaler to give you a fighting chance. The Square button will be for talking with others or interacting with objects. It will also be used to reload your weapons as needed.

As expected, the L2 button will be used for aiming with your weapon so that you can shoot with the R2 button. If you press and hold down the R2 button, you can charge a power attack. All that time spent in extended hibernation has had some unexpected side effects. It seems that your brain now processes time differently! The good news is that you can use this to your advantage. You can press the R1 button to activate Tactical Time Dilation – or TTD. TTD use is limited by the TTD meter. Standing still will drain it at a slower pace, while running or attacking will quickly drain it. And if you ever need to check your inventory, press the touchpad on the DualSense. If you press it and hold it down, you will be able to view your map.

Thanks to the wonders of the Crux 2000 Workbench, you’ll be able to repair, upgrade, and modify your weapons and armor so that you’re always ready for combat. Your weapons and armor will lose durability as you use them, and if you don’t repair them, you could find yourself in a world of trouble! If you’re short on supplies for fixing your stuff, you can always break down some items for parts.

Trophy-wise, this one offers a long trophy list with a Platinum at the end of your journey. The list for the base game includes 50 Bronze trophies, 17 Silver trophies, and a single Gold trophy. The list for Peril on Gorgon has 7 Bronze trophies and 3 Silver trophies. The one for Murder on Eridanos also has 7 Bronze trophies and 3 Silver trophies. You’ll get a trophy as soon as you land in Emerald Vale at the start of your journey. After that, there are a ton of things to do, so you’ll get trophies for using the medical inhaler hundreds of times, defeating 50 enemies with sneak attacks, selling 10,000 bits worth of items to vendors, acquiring 3 flaws, finishing a companion’s quest line, raise a skill to 100, recruiting all companions, and completing the game – as well as doing that when playing in the Hard and Supernova difficulty settings.

The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition brings us the definitive version of the game on PlayStation 5. Along with the main game, we’re also getting both story DLC expansions Peril on Gorgon and Murder on Eridanos. On top of that, the game’s content has been remastered, which means we’re getting better graphics, two options for the game to output at a 4K resolution with a capped framerate or a performance mode at 60 fps with a dynamic resolution, new animations, and a higher level cap. The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition is out on PlayStation 5 at a $59.99 asking price.

Disclaimer
This The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Private Division.