Whenever a new game is being discussed you’ll quite often hear the phrase ‘made by gamers for gamers’ banded around. What this really means can sometimes get lost amid all the hyperbole surrounding a new product launch. But sometimes it’s a fit description of a new offering. Outward is a perfect example of this rare breed of games. Every second you spend in Outward’s fantasy world of Aurai reminds you that this title was lovingly crafted by gamers for gamers.
The brainchild of Nine Dots Studios, a small development studio of around 10 people, Outward is an open world RPG that favours exploration and tactical combat over everything else. The premise of the game is refreshingly pedestrian. Rather than casting you in the role of a superhuman warrior or mage, in Outward you play an ordinary Joe who is forced to leave town and pursue quests because he owes a lot of money. The details are just as commonplace. Your character had inherited his family’s debts. A sea-faring mission to plunder treasure has ended in disaster with you losing your ship and now the towns people you owe money to have given you just five days to cough up the cash or else you lose your home.
And so you are forced to leave the (very meagre) comforts of home and risk it all on adventuring outside the town walls. A word of warning here: Outward is tough and unforgiving. How tough? Think of a grizzly bear armed with a flick knife and you’re almost there. Here there are no magical way points or brightly lit paths to guide you on your way. No convenient GPS markers or fast travel options. In Outward, if you want to get somewhere, you have to study the map as carefully as you can, try and work out which direction you’re facing and then walk. To some this can be seem unusually harsh and unforgiving. But to others, and we include ourselves in this group, it means the feeling of finding hidden caves, concealed areas and hard to get treasure is all the more rewarding.
We were also caught off-guard by the noticeable absence of a manual save option. As the game decides when and where to save, it means your decisions are final as you probably won’t be able to quickly re-load and try something else.
As you can tell, Nine Dots have spent a lot of time and money focussing on the survival nature of the game. Here you’re as likely to die of hunger or disease as you are to be killed by an opponents blade. If you neglect to eat or drink, you’ll get tired and hungry. The same if you don’t find somewhere safe and warm to sleep. And if you do sleep, you’re perilously vulnerable to being attacked. When the game begins you get to choose one of four factions to join. They are the Blue Chamber Collective, easily the largest and most powerful faction in the game. Then you have the Heroic Kingdom of Levant, the religious Holy Mission of Elatt and finally the science-focused tribe known as the Soroboreans.
Each faction has its own storyline, quests and side quests. We completed the Blue Chamber Collective story in just under 12 hours and estimate it’ll take another 50 to work your way through the other three. As you journey through the magical and perilous world of Aurai, you’ll travel through four distinct regions; the dense forests of Enmerkar, the dry and harsh desert region of Abrassar, the mountainous lands of Chersonese and the swampland of the Hallowed Marsh.
Each new area is as distinct from the last and each offers its own unique set of challenges and rewards.
Graphically, Outward varies from beautiful to acceptable. Some regions are simply breath taking the first time you arrive in them. And then there are moments when the game suffers from lack of detail on some commonplace objects such as trees.
The only other minor niggle we had with the game was the often imprecise fight mechanism and the difficulty setting of the game. Well, by that we mean the lack of a difficulty setting. For the first six or seven hours, you’ll be dying a lot as every creature and enemy seems to be stronger than you. As you make your way through the game, you get to learn new skills and abilities, not to mention spells, that go some way towards redressing the imbalance when facing off against a creature or bandit.
The voice acting in Outward is, on the whole, believable and engaging. The fact that not all the dialogue is voiced is fairly common for RPG’s. But what voice work there is, is polished and engaging.
One highlight of Outward that has to be mentioned is the fact that the game offers a local split screen option, so you can play the game with someone sitting beside you. Now that’s pretty amazing. Traversing the world of Aurai by yourself can be a challenging and sometimes frustrating experience. Playing it with a friend is something else entirely. That feature alone is enough to make Outward an unforgettable adventure. By no means perfect, Outward’s strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. This is a praise worthy RPG that will keep you engrossed for months. If you can overcome the steep difficulty curve and challenging combat system you’ll uncover a true gem. Go buy.