Outward Released – Reviews and Interview

Survival, exploration, and adventure await you in Outward, Nine Dots Studio’s action-RPG that you can now purchase on Steam for $39.99 or your regional equivalent, or pick up for your PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. The game will let you experience the life of an adventurer who is simply trying to stay alive in a fairly inhospitable world over the course of three mutually exclusive quest lines. Here’s the official launch trailer:

And here are the game’s main features:

You are not a god, nor a chosen one. The path before you is fraught with perils.

Outward delivers an immersive RPG experience coupled with survival gameplay, offering a deeply-rewarding challenge for the most avid gamers.

As an ordinary adventurer, you’ll not only have to hide or defend yourself against threatening creatures, but also brave the hazardous environmental conditions, protect yourself against infectious diseases, make sure you get enough sleep, and stay hydrated. Embark on perilous expeditions across untamed lands to reach new cities, undertake varied missions and discover hidden dungeons crawling with formidable enemies.

In order to survive in the dazzling yet deadly world of Aurai, you’ll have to be cunning, clever and prepared. Devise diverse strategies to defeat your foes and don’t neglect your basic needs, sharing your journey with a friend, locally or online.

• Survive in the wilds as you explore the land
• Play solo or cooperatively, split screen locally or online
• Ritualistic, step-by-step approach to spellcasting
• Constant auto-saving means you must live with your decisions
• Encounter dynamic defeat scenarios
• A unique experience with every playthrough

You should also check out these early reviews:

Destructiod 6/10:

Outward’s four main environments are home to three different faction-based storylines. After completing an early quest, players are free to adventure around the world or progress through their selected story path. The entire game can be experienced alone or cooperatively, a nice concession for players looking to even the odds in such a punishing world. Whether alone or solo Outward doesn’t hurt for content. There are plenty of dungeons, ruins, and caverns to explore. Just be prepared to fight tooth and nail.

Taken as a whole, Outward practically screams “cult classic.” Its consistent challenge, cumbersome combat, and co-op systems won’t resonate with everyone. But for a particular type of player—ones that don’t mind trading dozens of frustrating moments for open-ended experiences—Nine Dot Studios’ RPG is sure to find a dedicated audience. Outward’s aspirations are commendable, but just like its protagonist, the end result is just average.

PC Invasion 3/5:

Finishing the quest line I picked took me a bit more than 30 hours. However, the idea of building up another extremely weak, vulnerable character from nothing and slowly selling loot for money in order to try out more possibly-useless skills was not a pleasant prospect. There are certainly a lot of great ideas in Outward, and there’s co-op that works really well. As such, I’m sure that plenty of people will enjoy walking this tedious world with friends.

As for me, I’ve had more than enough. There are a lot of cool things to see in this game, but everything in it is accompanied with tedium. So, I won’t be going back anytime soon.

You may also be interested in this PC Gamer interview with Guillaume Boucher-Vidal, Outward’s creative lead where he talks about the game’s unusual defeat mechanic. An excerpt:

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, I talked with Guillaume Boucher-Vidal, creative lead on Outward and CEO of developer Nine Dots Studio about this unusual system in Outward and how it came about.

“When playing RPGs one of those things that remind me it’s a game is that I always knew I could go back [and reload a save],” Guillaume said. “And so the story that kind of emerged from that is: you never fail.”

Just like my undefeated Dragonborn. But failure can be what makes a journey interesting: Guillaume compared playing an RPG to running a game studio, where you sometimes make wrong turns and wind up making choices you regret—but those mistakes teach you something along the way. “You fail your way to success,” as he put it.