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When I first experience with the original Outer Worlds game, I was instantly captivated by its sarcastic, Fallout-like brand of humor. This title featured engaging exchanges, individual logs, and advertising displays that depicted a company-run society that was simultaneously bleak and amusing. My main fear heading into The Outer Worlds 2 was that this installment – through no fault from itself – wouldn't be as humorous like the original.

Sure, situations weren't flawless. Yet society definitely felt a bit less broken at that time. The Outer Worlds depicted a grim society that didn't hit extremely relatable, and nonetheless succeeded to be both touching and uproarious. I began the follow-up rather certain that this release wouldn't be able to accomplish this again, but I'm delighted to announce that I was mistaken. The Outer Worlds 2 is just as chuckle-inducing as the game that preceded it, and furthermore presents original ideas rather than just recycling similar elements like an tired company slogan.

Changing NPCs

The majority of the game characters players encountered in the initial release had been defeated by the activities of business corporations including the fictional company, and were painfully aware of how much their existence was miserable. This installment moves events in a different direction, including personalities who are programmed (sometimes figuratively, frequently actually). Many of these personalities don't even realize of how profoundly screwed up their conditions are, or that there might be options to a life lived beneath the control of a large business or restricted by the beliefs of a high-demand religion.

This follow-up examines forms of corporate control that are more deceptive than merely maintaining the masses poor. Various personalities have been brainwashed into the kind of excessively zealous "grindset mindset" rhetoric you might encounter on social media accounts that vow to show the path to accomplishment if you pay a costly program, or participate in a dubious blockchain project. Even the game's business promotion has progressed.

Contemporary Issues

There are still plenty of unmotivational posters in various locations warning about deducting staff compensation who even contemplate having a break, but additionally there are mentions of multi-level marketing methods, featuring an employee manual that confidently announces, "Unfamiliar individuals are simply clients you have yet to encounter!" As someone who developed within a network marketing family, I immediately burst out in amusement upon viewing this reference, because it's a refrain I have regularly listened to repeated exactly by individuals in lower positions of those structures.

Luckily, The Outer Worlds 2 is just as funny and irreverent as the first game.

The Outer Worlds 2 furthermore explores the situation many of us find ourselves in concerning work, government, and even personal purchases: Needing to choose the lesser of several poor choices. While attempting to decide whether to support a risky company or a dangerous religious group within the title, I found myself aligning with the devil I know: A recognized company structure that is terrible (but only uses propaganda to brainwash its subjects), as opposed to the cult, which also sucks, but uses a horrible approach termed "psychological renewal" to keep its adherents compliant.

Questionable Employers

Furthermore, the characters you serve might not be dependable. Playing as an Earth Directorate agent, your assignment includes working to return order to this settlement subsequent to an aggressive business acquisition, and you rapidly learn that both the aggressors and the invadees follow differing (yet equally horrific) doctrines. But a quick examination of the messages on your vessel's computer demonstrate that this organization is hardly the world's most ethical employer either, as evidenced by a reply to an emergency signal that informs the caller it will take "3-5 organizational cycles" for a reply to their communication. (This duration is approximately the time it takes for me to reach a real help desk employee via telephone nowadays.)

Familiar Situations

Numerous instances in The Outer Worlds 2 are extremely familiar, but it's a cathartic sort of relatability, and the game succeeds in balancing its bleak societal vision with wit that's authentically amusing yet not seeming incongruous. An important idea is the rapid beginning of deterioration that happens to unfold in the wake of significant business mergers. Employees on both sides of this installment's major acquisition experience their living standards decline as a result, while the CEOs in control of the food chain are, naturally, accumulating money quickly.

Well, at minimum I recognize my situation.

Similar to the original title, The Outer Worlds 2 is intrinsically comedic, but additionally isn't afraid to become dramatic. At one point, while traveling around the game's first accessible planet, I stumbled across a deceased individual with a recording in the vicinity. This recording revealed that this character (who was aligned with the indoctrinating cult) had been killed in an event while attempting to hunt down and eliminate her romantic partner. This loved one had apparently defected from their faction, and the perished individual was angry about her lover's {traitorous