Outward 2 Is A Cautionary Tale About The Importance Of A Well-Packed Bag

It was all over for me when I forgot to pack up my tent. I didn’t realize my mistake until the next night, when it got too dark to see more than a few feet in front of my face and I found a nice out-of-the-way corner that I’d planned to sleep until morning in. Instead, I ended up having to stumble my way through the dark toward town — until I slipped off a cliff, lost my backpack and everything in it, and woke up with a sprained ankle surrounded by hungry wild animals.

In Outward 2, it’s the most mundane items that matter the most. A good weapon and a healing potion will help you out in combat, but without a backpack, a full waterskin, and a meal to eat, you’ll be out of the fight before swords are even drawn. Developed by Nine Dots Studio, the hardcore survival RPG is gearing up for its first playtest from December 9 to 15, ahead of a planned release next year. Based on the few hours I’ve spent with it, it’s one of the biggest RPGs to keep your eye on next year if you’re looking for a game that puts a heavy emphasis on the ‘adventure’ part of action-adventure.

Nine Dots’ 2022 RPG Outward has gained something of a cult following for its slow pace, punishing combat and survival mechanics, and emphasis on making you feel like a person doing their best in a hostile world, rather than the hero sent there to save it. Its sequel isn’t looking to change any of that, but rather to double down on the things that made the original stand out, while smoothing out some rough edges.

“We’re not going to be any less cruel this time,” creative director Guillaume Boucher-Vidal tells Inverse.

That’s evident from the first moments of the game’s playtest version. While the final game will give you three starting cities to choose from, each of which has its own introductory quest, the demo is limited to the city of Haboob, built into a mountain. This scenario begins with you buying a house in the city, only for its previous owner to frame you for murder that very same night. That kicks off a quest to track the homeowner down, discover what exactly he was up to, and clear your name lest you remain exiled from the city.

As Outward 2 is still a long way from release, the playtest is fairly limited in scope. Haboob itself is rather small, with just a few merchants to chat with, and features like crafting are limited. What the playtest does offer, though, is a sense of the dangerous freedom of Outward 2. There’s nothing stopping you from walking in any direction you want the moment you leave Haboob, except for the possibility of being torn apart by bandits and wild animals the moment you do. Rather than following glowing quest markers to your destination, you need to talk to NPCs, actually listen to what they say, and pay close attention to your environment.

Failing to do so can end in your quick defeat, but rather than a game over, the story continues. When you perish in Outward 2, you’ll wake up again bearing the scars of your defeat. You’ll need to find your way back to your backpack to recover the items inside, and you may end up with a long-lasting status effect or placed in a perilous part of the map. If you’re lucky, healers may rescue you and send you on your way with a push in the right direction.

In my time with the game, the biggest difference from the first Outward is in combat, which feels substantially less rigid, giving you more ability to chain together attacks, more weapons, and a more fluid feeling to your movements overall. But you’ll still need to be smart with your timing, pay attention to where you’re fighting, and maybe cheat a little by luring your opponent into a dangerous monster den and book it to leave them fending for themselves like I had to do on more than one occasion.

Outward 2 doesn’t have a release date yet, but Nine Dots is planning to launch it in late 2026. Until then, its PC playtest gives a small taste of what already seems like one of the most exciting adventures of next year, with signups available on the developer’s website.