Everything That Happened in The Outer Worlds (So You Know It All Before Playing The Outer Worlds 2)
This text incorporates spoilers for 2019’s The Outer Worlds.
With The Outer Worlds 2 imminently about to drop, we predict it is a good time to brush up on the basics of Obsidian’s high-concept sci-ifi universe and recount the occasions of the primary recreation. The following 2,000 phrases or so will work properly as a refresher for individuals who completed The Outer Worlds ages in the past, and in addition as a primer for these of you diving into the sequel with none prior data. It goes with out saying, then, that what follows incorporates spoilers for The Outer Worlds 1. If you don’t need something spoiled… effectively, the lengthy and wanting it’s that unregulated capitalism is dangerous. That is sufficient to get you going with The Outer Worlds 2.
However you did not come right here for tl;dr. You clicked on an article to learn it, so here is all the things that occurred in The Outer Worlds.
Divergence
The Outer Worlds’ story arguably begins in 1901 with a non-event. That’s, President William McKinley not getting assassinated by an anarchist for failing to manage the firms, and subsequently, uh, leaving the firms unregulated for the remainder of his time period and apparently for the remainder of time, placing humanity on track to colonise the celebrities, however as an entrenched, hyper-capitalist society during which employees rights aren’t remotely an idea. So this is sort of a nightmare model of Star Trek the place all the things sucks until you’re absurdly wealthy. Thank god that is simply fiction.
Quick ahead a couple of hundred years, and The Earth Directorate, a one-world authorities established after a devastating conflict, is granting licenses to varied conglomerates to go off and colonise distant planets, the titular Outer Worlds. We don’t know precisely what number of galaxies have been colonised, however a number of programs are talked about by means of the course of the sport, together with Septerra, Tyrannus, Draconis, and from the upcoming Outer Worlds 2, Arcadia.
The Outer Worlds 2 is not a direct sequel to its predecessor, in order that’s technically all the things it’s essential know. However there’s each likelihood that someone or somefactor from the unique recreation will make an look, be that as a aspect character, easter egg, and even an necessary occasion within the story. So learn on to brush up on all the things that occurs previous to your journey in recreation two.
Misplaced Hope
Our story happens within the troubled system of Halcyon, and that bother begins earlier than the colonisation effort even reaches the system. Of the 2 huge colony ships despatched there, just one arrives on time – The Groundbreaker. After seeding all of the inhabitable planets with colonists, it turns into an impartial freeport area station and floating strip mall, a necessary hub for commerce on the intersection between small time personal enterprise and the remainder of the corporation-controlled system. The second ship, the Hope, carrying tens of hundreds of scientists and thinkers in suspended animation, has a skip drive malfunction enroute from Earth and finally ends up limping to Halcyon at sublight speeds.
Presumed misplaced, it’s then found by The Board, Halcyon’s company overlords, and as a substitute of being allowed to finish its journey, it’s tethered to a distant ice moon and hidden from view. The Board don’t have the tech or the need to revive the Hope colonists, they usually don’t need to should take care of a public outcry about it, both. And so they’re content material to let it stay frozen and forgotten in time.
This, nonetheless, irks one among their scientists, one Phineas Welles, who’s so incensed by The Board’s inaction that he takes issues into his personal fingers and begins experimenting, in secret, on the Hope’s colonists with a view to discover a viable methodology of resurrecting them in any case this time. He succeeds, however not earlier than turning into a disgraced outlaw and probably the most wished man in the complete system.
Sadly, the resurrection course of requires numerous uncommon materials that’s troublesome to collect whenever you’re on the run, and so Phineas decides to make use of his one and solely take a look at batch of revival serum on a single Hope colonist. In a last-ditch raid on the deserted starship, he selects somebody to revive at random within the hopes that they’ll change into a loyal ally and assist him end his grand scheme: to revive each Hope colonist, seed the Halcyon system with good individuals who aren’t idiots, and free the colonies from company management. He efficiently does so, however not with out his personal ship sustaining important injury, grounding it completely.
Who he revives is determined by you, the participant, and their abilities and character traits rely in your selections in each the character creator and the sport’s narrative. And so begins a grand selection and consequence story during which the optimum outcomes are locked behind gates of competency – that’s, if this heroic Stranger needs to realize probably the most free and least bloody end result for the individuals of Halcyon, they’re gonna have to cross some lofty speech checks. And we’re assuming that’s what they did, as a result of overlaying each potential permutation of The Outer Worlds’ story would take much more time than any of us fairly has.
The Unplanned Variable
Earlier than the participant character arrives – nearly forty years late – to the Halcyon system, The Board is content material to preside over a system of surprising inequality, sustaining management by means of stifling forms and manufactured shortage. However not each employee is a senseless drone, as we discover out in Emerald Vale: the primary main take a look at of The Stranger’s resourcefulness, charisma, and political savvy – a gap chapter that units the blueprint for all of the conflicts to return.
However first, The Stranger wants a journey, and a information. Welles arranges with a recognized privateer and normal Han Solo archetype, Captain Hawthorn, to fulfill The Stranger on the planet Terra 2. Sadly what Hawthorn truly meets is the Stranger’s drop pod, violently, with the highest of his head. This leads The Stranger to commandeer Hawthorn’s now captainless ship, The Unreliable – a type of chubby Millennium Falcon with a feisty onboard laptop – and take off on a grand interplanetary journey.
Uh, besides, not but: it seems that The Unreliable wants a alternative energy regulator earlier than it will probably go, which is annoying, however the pursuit of a brand new one does give The Stranger a chance to recruit two immensely helpful companions: engineer Parvati and philosophical space-priest Vicar Max, each of whom present boosts to The Stranger’s essential Persuade and Intimidate abilities, important for the wheeling and dealing that lies forward.
After checking in with the boss of Emerald Vale’s largest company city and Spacer’s Selection Saltuna cannery, Reed Tobson, it seems that there are two energy regulators within the space: one in his manufacturing facility, which he’s understandably reluctant to surrender, and one at an deserted Botanical Lab, now house to a set of deserters who, disillusioned with the systemic mistreatment they skilled as lifelong, typically multi-generational indentured workers of Spacer’s Selection, have determined to discovered a brand new cooperative society free from firm oversight. Sadly, which means the Saltuna Cannery is chronically understaffed, and so Reed asks you to chop off their energy on the native plant with a view to pressure his employees again into the fold, which is able to make it protected so that you can nab their energy regulator.
It looks as if a strong plan, however it does include the draw back of propping up an odious bootlicking toad like Reed on the expense of individuals whose solely crime is desirous to be freed from a system that’s hostile to them. The apparent different is to screw him over and divert energy to the Botanical Lab, however successfully killing the city of Edgewater on the identical time – not solely is Edgewater a protected walled metropolis the place individuals reside, additionally it is the house of companion Parvati, so destroying it comes with a big private value.
There’s, nonetheless, an optimum answer: The Stranger decides to close down the Botanical Labs and take its energy regulator, initially making an enemy of the deserter chief Adelaide, however convinces Reed Tobson to step down as chief of Edgewater, cleverly utilizing his personal firm loyalty in opposition to him by mentioning that he’s remarkably crap at his job, and that the very best end result for Spacer’s Selection is for him to simply disappear. Morbid, positive, however they may have simply shot him, so this actually is the very best end result for all involved. The Deserters return to the city, Adelaide takes over as administrator from Reed, and units about making the colony extra sustainable by rising meals in soil enriched by, uh, corpses. Which is ok. Look, nonetheless you slice it, life is reasonable right here. There’s, because it seems, no good answer to any of Halcyon’s issues – however this manner, the individuals of Edgewater get a little bit extra well being and happiness with out having to surrender the company infrastructure they so depend on.
Groundbreaker
With a freshly put in energy regulator and an keen new crew, The Stranger units off to Groundbreaker Station, Halcyon’s premiere procuring vacation spot and hive of scum and villainy. Most of it of the white collar selection.
There, they recruit two extra companions: Felix, a canny dockworker with a excessive Persuade increase, and Ellie, a roving sawbones loyal solely to her subsequent pay packet who comes full with a lift to the celebration’s mendacity abilities.
The Stranger’s subsequent job entails visiting the moon of Monarch, however that is difficult as a result of the planet has been deemed off-limits by The Board as it’s topic to an entrenched civil conflict and a communications blackout. Having been reduce off from board oversight, it’s usually assumed that the place is dangerous information. Dangerous Information, nonetheless, is The Stranger’s center identify. Or names. It’s not likely. However look, nothing will deter The Stranger from going there, not even a company embargo or threat of sure demise. They display this willpower by doing a bunch of busywork in one other semi-abandoned company settlement simply to get sufficient bits to purchase a bootleg black market navkey to the city of Stellar Bay within the Cascadia area of Monarch.
Clearing the Air
Phineas wants to acquire a uncommon substance known as Dimethyl Sulfoxide in giant portions to revive all of the colonists nonetheless frozen on The Hope. To trace some down, he’s made a take care of an info dealer on Monarch with the assistance of Nyoka, The Unreliable’s closing recruitable companion, however has but to obtain the intel for causes unknown. So he sends The Stranger there in his stead to seek out and retrieve this important piece of the puzzle.
Upon arriving on Monarch, The Stranger makes contact with Nyoka and units off to Satan’s Peak, the ominous horned mountain that hosts a big communications station the place the Data Dealer is at the moment holed up, and learns (after doing numerous homicide, like, hundreds and a great deal of it) that the explanation Phineas hasn’t obtained the intel is that the area’s communications are being drowned out by pervasive broadcasts by Monarch Stellar Industries, the company remnant nonetheless holding onto energy on Monarch, and The Iconoclasts, a gaggle of anarchists decided to free the colony of Board management.
That is just like the Edgewater vs Deserters scenario on steroids, and confirms what Phineas has informed you about Halcyon: the system is falling aside, and The Board are content material to let it, somewhat than relinquish its stranglehold on the employees. However The Stranger is remarkably good at brokering unattainable offers – getting individuals from opposing factions to see purpose, and work collectively towards a typical objective. They work this magic on Monarch, first to finish the broadcasts and release the comms tower to ship Phineas his intel, after which – simply as an encore, you perceive – put an finish to the battle totally with a little bit deposing right here, a little bit of finessing there. Seems diplomacy’s a bit of piss.
Byzantium
Finding out the mess on Monarch offered a powerful basis for the well being of the Halcyon system going ahead, however there nonetheless remained the problem of The Board and their sheer indifference to the horrific situations that persons are having to reside with exterior of their glittering capital metropolis of Byzantium – which is strictly the place the intel sends The Stranger with a view to retrieve these important chemical compounds, that are being utilized by The Board to run experiments on human take a look at topics in suspended animation.
It seems that The Board’s reply to the Halcyon system’s collapsing financial system and complete lack of meals safety is the Lifetime Employment Program – a scheme the place all of Halcyon’s employees can be positioned in indefinite suspended animation, revived solely when wanted, with a view to reserve the colony’s dwindling meals provides for the societal elite in Byzantium. And, y’know, their scientists will completely get onto fixing the entire meals scarcity factor within the meantime. Positively. Yep. Oh, and this entails killing everybody left on board The Hope to create space within the fridge for this deliberate batch of employee popsicles.
This being unconscionable, The Stranger shuts down the board’s analysis and retrieves the Dimethyl Sulfoxide, the second to final piece of the puzzle wanted to revive the Hope colonists. The ultimate piece being the ship itself.
Endgame
Phineas sends The Stranger again to the place it began, the Hope, with a plan to restart its skip drive and produce it to Terra 2, so the work of reviving its colonists – mentioned to be Halcyon’s finest and brightest – can get underway. It’s Phineas’s perception that they’ll be capable to resolve the colony’s meals shortages and systemic conflicts with science, know-how, and pragmatism.
As soon as the ship is retrieved, although, it’s found that Phineas’s secret lab has been ransacked, and he himself imprisoned on Tartarus, Halcyon’s notorious penal colony. The combat that ensues entails nearly everybody The Stranger helped out on their travels as much as that time – with each the MSI and the Iconoclasts exhibiting up as allies to help on this cosmic jail break, together with the crew of The Groundbreaker itself.
Regardless of a sure acceptable degree of bloodshed being inevitable, The Stranger’s progressive fame, historical past of even-handed pragmatism, and relative lack of a murderous streak places them able to barter peacefully for Phineas’s launch, locking in his imaginative and prescient for reviving the Hope colonists, and setting its sensible thinkers on the trail to fixing the colonies.
The Halcyon system was not saved by violent motion, however by negotiation, compromise, and calculated political manoeuvring. And likewise a little bit of violence. A smidge. A mandatory pinch of taking pictures and battering. Additionally petty theft and the odd swindle. However principally the entire diplomacy factor. And through these actions, a ragtag group of colonists from all walks of life managed to ship true, lasting systemic change to Halcyon earlier than going their separate methods and their ship, The Unreliable, falling into legend.
Additionally in some unspecified time in the future they misplaced contact with Earth and no person is aware of what occurred to it. I suppose we’ll discover out in The Outer Worlds 2 – a recreation on which, so far as we all know, nearly none of this has any bearing in any way. Nonetheless, saves you having to play it once more, proper?
