The Outer Worlds was released on 25th October and is a spiritual successor, at least in my opinion, to Fallout: New Vegas. It’s a brilliant, almost old school RPG with all the good bits from the Fallout games plus much smoother combat and in-depth options that affect how the game plays out. There are lots of systems to take into account and lots of things you can do that aren’t immediately obvious. In this list, I’ve pulled together some of the things I’ve learnt during my time with the game so far.
You can reset your skill points
Don’t be overly concerned about how you spend your skill points, go with whatever feels like the best fit for your playstyle. If you want to be the fiercest gunslinger in the galaxy put your points in guns, want to be a smooth talker go for the speech options. If you find you’ve made a mistake or want to try something different you can reset your skills via a workbench onboard the Unreliable. You do need to have got the ship off the ground though before you can do this but as this event happens pretty early in the game you should have no issue. You can find the workbench on the upper floor of the cargo bay.
Use companion abilities
Whilst this sounds like an obvious one, companion abilities are easy to forget. I didn’t even notice they had abilities until I was about six hours into the game. They can make a massive difference in any fight plus the animations can be fun to watch. They have pretty short cooldown times by default which can be reduced even more as you level up. As soon as I’d discovered them combat was a breeze compared to not using them. You need to have at least 20 points in leadership to unlock their abilities.
Explore companion side quests
Each companion has their own background story and side quests to explore. The quests allow to find out more about your fellow adventurers and their quests can offer some serious XP gains. Upon completion of each companion quest, you also unlock a unique perk so they are definitely worth doing.
Invest skill points in dialogue
Spending enough points in the dialogue skills opens up a whole raft of conversation options that you wouldn’t otherwise have access to. These options can make many of the quests much easier to complete, plus you might just be able to haggle a better rate of pay for completion. As a nice little bonus, you also get a small amount of XP each time you successfully use a speech skill.
Invest skill points in hacking/lockpicking
Hacking and lockpicking can save you lots of time when out on a quest. Terminals can provide crucial information to aid your quest or they can unlock doors, give you access codes and so on. Lockpicking will ensure that you can open up all of the loot crates and safes that are scattered around and it’s usually worth doing so as they often contain much better loot than their unlocked counterparts.
Adjust companion behaviours
You can adjust how your companions react in combat situations. You can set them anywhere from ultra-aggressive to only acting when fired upon. You can also fine-tune their role in your party with their perks. For example, I started out using two tank-like characters armed with heavy melee weapons and shotguns. Their perks made them generate more threat and as I’d put them in heavy armour they were well suited to taking a battering as I picked off enemies from afar.
You can adjust the difficulty level as you go
The normal difficulty setting is actually quite easy and you might find yourself getting a bit bored after a while. If this happens to you, the level of difficulty can be changed mid-game to make things more of a challenge. The opposite is also true so if you’re finding things tough going don’t be too proud to drop the difficulty level.
Make sure you tinker with your weapons
You don’t need to spend ages looking for a better weapon, you can upgrade your favourites as you go. When at a workbench you can spend credits to improve the stats on any weapon meaning that they stay useful as you progress. Obviously, there may come a time when you loot something much better but until then stick with your favourite weapon and keep it upgraded.
Don’t be too precious with weapon or armour mods
When I first discovered mods I thought they were going to be much rarer than they actually are. As a result, I was reluctant to use them early on for fear of wasting them. In hindsight, this was a bad move as they are actually quite abundant and I was limiting my options from the off. Now I know better I use them as soon as I think they are going to be of benefit safe in the knowledge that I’ll soon find more.
Stealing is fine as long as nobody sees you
In Fallout games, there was often a serious downside to stealing, not so in The Outer Worlds. As long as no one sees you whilst you put your sticky fingers to work there’s nothing to worry about. Once in your inventory, items appear exactly as they would if you had obtained them honestly.
The Outer Worlds is out now on PC, Xbox One and PS4.
