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''Outward'' is an
open world In video games, an open world is a virtual world in which the Gamer, player can approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay. Notable games in this category include ''The Legend of Zelda (video game ...
fantasy
role-playing video game Role-playing video games, also known as CRPG (computer/console role-playing games), comprise a broad video game genre generally defined by a detailed story and character advancement (often through increasing characters' levels or other skills) ...
developed by Canadian studio Nine Dots and published by
Deep Silver Deep Silver is an Austrian video game publisher and a division of Plaion. History Deep Silver was announced in November 2002, with their first release to be '' Anarchy Online: The Notum Wars''. According to Craig McNichol, who ran Koch Medi ...
.Outward's open-world RPG makes you a nobody... and treats you like it
, ''IGN''
The game can be played in multiplayer both online and locally through split-screen. The game focuses on survivalOutward review – surviving with friends
, ''Metro''
as well as the concept of the player being a commoner rather than a hero, and features several
survival game Survival games are a subgenre of action games which are often set in hostile, intense, open-world environments. Players generally start with minimal equipment and are required to survive as long as possible by finding the resources necessary t ...
aspects. It released for
PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...
,
Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
, and
Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...
in March 2019,
Google Stadia Stadia was a cloud gaming service developed and operated by Google. Known in development as Project Stream, the service debuted through a Software release life cycle#closed beta, closed beta in October 2018, and publicly launched in November 20 ...
in November 2020, and for
PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North ...
and
Xbox Series X/S The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are the fourth generation of consoles in the Xbox series, succeeding the previous generation's Xbox One. Released on November 10, 2020, the higher-end Xbox Series X and lower-end Xbox Series S are part o ...
alongside the launch of ''Outward: Definitive Edition'' in May 2022.


Gameplay

On top of more traditional gameplay of
action role-playing game An action role-playing game (often abbreviated action RPG or ARPG) is a video game genre that combines core elements from both the action game and Role-playing video game, role-playing game genres. Definition Action role-playing games empha ...
s, ''Outward'' includes several survival aspects, such as having to carefully watch one's warmth, hunger, fatigue and thirst. It's also possible for the player character to suffer from such conditions as a
cold Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjectivity, subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute t ...
, a disease or indigestion. Losing all of one's health in battle can lead to a variety of consequences, including being imprisoned by enemies or being brought back to safety by an NPC. The game has an auto-save system, meaning the player is unable to manually save and return to earlier saves upon death or other such setbacks. While the game has a magic system, spells were specifically designed to be challenging to obtain. Similarly, skills and stat increases must all be earned by completing quests for NPCs or paying experts to receive training. Quests have multiple outcomes, and success or failure can permanently affect the game world and how the story progresses, such as a character being convinced to stay in a faction, or an important city being permanently destroyed if the player fails to kill certain characters.Fantasy RPG Outward is the survival game I've been looking for
, ''PC Gamer''


Story

The game starts with the player character, an inhabitant of the city of Cierzo, getting shipwrecked off the coast of their home city. They had previously inherited a debt called a Blood Price from their ancestors, a debt that must be periodically paid. A Blood Price affects all members of a given family, and the voyage was meant to pay it off. Now penniless, and despite having barely survived the deadly wreck, they are given only five days by the desperate townsfolk to pay off this debt and retain the family holdings. Once this debt has been paid, or the players home has been seized, the player is given multiple ways to react to their unfair situation and the true story begins. They can free themselves of their bloodline by joining the Holy Mission of Elatt, enter a new spotless bloodline by helping the Blue Chamber Collective, or free themselves of the entire system through the Heroic Kingdom of Levant. These three factions are trapped in a stalemate; the Blue Chamber wants to uphold the current status quo, the Kingdom of Levant wants to overthrow what they see as an unfair Blood Price system and let people live for themselves, and the Holy Mission similarly rejects the bloodline and social systems upheld by the Blue Chamber but only because it hinders the forming of a unified front against the common enemy of mankind, an otherworldly force called the Scourge. After the player joins a faction, the stalemate starts to crack and global events begin to progress. The main part of the story consists of three parallel storylines, one for each of these factions, all of which are perspectives of the bigger story. Main quests have time limits, though these are typically several months.


Development

Nine Dots set out to design a game that was intentionally ambitious for a small studio as they wanted to prove that it was not necessary to use what they deemed as unhealthy habits, such as crunch, when making games. The ability to play the game in split screen came about because CEO Guillaume Boucher-Vidal loved playing games that way with his family and bemoaned the fact that he couldn't play RPGs such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Oblivion that way. Boucher-Vidal noted that implementing such a feature was "extremely difficult" and that the team had to make "heavy sacrifices to make it work", noting that "Making it happen in our game made us understand why it was so rare nowadays". The team also noted that the relatively low budget prevented the game from having elaborate cutscenes or
lip synching Lip sync or lip synch (pronounced , like the word ''sink'', despite the spelling of the participial forms ''synced'' and ''syncing''), short for lip synchronization, is a technical term for matching a speaking or singing person's lip movements ...
, which made it difficult to construct marketing material. The game was ported to
Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...
by Sneakybox and published by
Plaion Plaion GmbH (formerly Koch Media) is an Austrian media company headquartered in Höfen, Tyrol, with an additional office in Planegg, Germany. It was founded in 1994 by Franz Koch and Klemens Kundratitz. The company operates video game publishi ...
.


Downloadable content

The first downloadable content for ''Outward'', "The Soroboreans", was released on 16 June 2020 for PC and 7 July 2020 for PS4 and Xbox. The Soroboreans adds a new region called the Antique Plateau, a fourth major quest-line path, new dungeons, bosses, enchantments and more. The second DLC, "The Three Brothers", came out on 15 December 2020 for PC and 18 May 2021 for consoles. It adds a new end-game region called Caldera, and end-game quest line, bosses, and more.


Reception

The game received "mixed or average" reviews according to
review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
. ''Outward'' has sold over one million copies.


Sequel

A sequel, ''Outward 2'', was announced in March 2024. It will be released for Windows and unspecified consoles.


Notes


References

{{reflist 2019 video games Deep Silver games Fantasy video games Role-playing video games Video games developed in Canada Windows games PlayStation 4 games Xbox One games PlayStation 5 games Stadia games Multiplayer and single-player video games Xbox Series X and Series S games Nintendo Switch games