The Outer Worlds was widely seen as a decent stab at mapping Obsidian's first-person RPG style onto a new retro-future sci-fi setting, but what really set it apart was its satirical sense of humor. Unlike similar series like Elder Scrolls or Fallout, the spacefaring setting gave it new avenues to mock corporations and governments. For The Outer Worlds 2, Obsidian is doubling down on those qualities with a premise that's more immediately satirical and opens more options to poke at the edges of its systems.I played roughly an hour of The Outer Worlds at Gamescom, which looked to represent the opening of the game, from character creation and a late title card. Right away the humor shone through, as each archetypal selection had its own funny aside that helped illustrate what made it unique. I chose the Roustabout, described as a person with no skills who essentially fell ass-backwards into their role as a commander in the Earth Directorate. So you have power and influence in an elite covert organization, but you also don't really deserve it. Picture Mass Effect's Shepard mixed with Futurama's Zapp Brannigan.The opening mission has you dispatched to investigate spacetime anomalies and coordinate with an agent on the inside of the Protectorate, a totalitarian colony government that's at conflict with a megacorp. Already you have the ingredients for rich worldbuilding, which is first illustrated with a silly propaganda show for the Directorate and continues with seeing firsthand the way the Protectorate runs its government. Protectorate workers are often portrayed as true-believer zealots in the project, though they occasionally make asides that suggest they're more afraid of reprisals than they are genuinely all-in. But you're no heroes, either, as the Directorate is an overbearing police-force-for-hire that seems mainly concerned with protecting megacorp profits. The stakes of the story felt immediately understandable, which is a nice change since the first game took a while to gain its momentum.Continue Reading at GameSpot