I have seen a little about this game and it looks interesting. Anyone playing it? Do you like it? Will it run on an older PC?
“Older” is pretty subjective. Here’s the minimum and recommended specs:
Min:
OS: Windows 7 (SP1) 64bit
CPU: Intel Core i3-3225 or AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
RAM: 4GB
GPU: Nvidia GTX 650 Ti or AMD HD 7850
HDD Space: 40GB
Recommended:
OS: Windows 10 64bit
CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K or Ryzen 5 1600
RAM: 8GB
GPU: GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or Radeon RX 470
HDD Space: 40GB
My rig (about 3-4 years old) might run it, at low settings. I’m particularly low-spec in the GPU. I’d love to play it, but HW upgrades are not in the near future, and I’d hate to be taken out of a game I’m enjoying by stutter and lag.
Downloaded today and getting ready to launch.
ETA oops posted before I was done. I ran the “can I run it” app and it my comp passed all the minimum requirements. I have absolutely no expectation of running it anywhere near pretty; I just want to play it.
I’m building a new machine this winter, I’ll do another, prettier playthrough on that one.
My specs ftr:
AMD Phenom II 3 GHz X4
Radeon 8750D 2GB
8 GB RAM
Game auto-detected medium graphics. I’ll report back!
As a Microsoft first-party title, it’s available on Xbox Game Pass for PC. That costs like $5 a month.
One year till Steam grr. But it’s okay, I’ve got a backlog of games, so I’ll check it out some day.
Waaaay too late to edit, but I did want to check into something else about the game before I decide to spring for it.
Moddability. The only reason the Bethesda-engine Fallout games were tolerable.
Anyone heard about the moddability of The Outer Worlds? It’s be perfect if a modding community springs up on The Nexus site. It’d be a game-breaker if the only (or best) mod support was something like Beth’s lame “Creation Club” abomination.
I don’t know about modding…but it’s not a Bethesda game; it’s by Obsidian.
I’m aware of that. The point is that the Bethesda games after Fallout 2 were only really tolerable because of modding. The Outer Worlds appears to be the rightful spiritual heirs to the Fallout spirit, even (or especially because) it’s not by Bethesda. But moddability is key.
Googling around, it looks like the developers have promised the game will be moddable, but not in the initial release. Reasonable, I guess. I think I’ll hold off until that happens. Anyway, with Steam initially exculded, I won’t be in any great hurry. I intend to “belong” to only one downloader, and Steam is it by virtue of being first.
Right. It’s like a Fallout game…only by people who can write. 
Been playing a bit this evening. Enjoying it a lot, Very much A Falloutesque game mechanically, with a good scoop of Borderlands thematically. Combat is a little weird, but that’s probably because I have been playing end game badasses exclusively for the last while, and have lost my edge for when I actually have to pay attention to things like mines, and enemy numbers.
Played it for a couple of hours last night, and will probably play a bunch this weekend.
I’m enjoying it a lot so far. It’s not quite “as Fallout” as most have said, IMO–the resemblance is there but it’s still its own thing.
Aesthetically, I’m getting a big Bioshock vibe, between the art deco, the capitalist themes, the vending machines, and a few other things. It takes itself less seriously than Bioshock but there’s definitely a taste of that. Not a bad thing. A bit of a Firefly vibe as well, with a kind of old-timey mode of speech (my engineer companion, especially).
It feels less “explorey” than Fallout, but maybe that’s because I’m still in the starter area. We’ll see how much it opens up further in. I just got the ship running, which seems pretty badass. I like games with my own mobile base.
The writing is excellent so far; at least on par with Fallout: NV, and significantly better than Fallout 4 (not to mention the Fallout which will not be named).
Write? Yes. Code? I’m a bit worried after Fallout: New Vegas. That said, I’m going to get the game. (And I really don’t understand the Epic Games dislike some people have, but that’s a hijack for this thread.)
Fallout: New Vegas was on the Gamebryo engine, just like Fallout 3, which is where most of its glitchiness came from. Outer Worlds is on Unreal 4. (Though I have to admit that I kind of enjoyed the zany glitches you could get on the old engine. I have fond memories of the Yao Guai Space Program.)
I don’t remember any big bugs in NV. As far as Bethesda, I started with Daggerfall, so I know what bugs are.
Oof, Daggerfall. I played it for ages and literally never found the plot. I think it got on a boat and sailed off without me.
As to bugs in NV, they were mostly engine glitches, as I implied. Weird physics behavior, corpses turning inside out or bouncing around, tiny objects stuck in the geometry and jittering fast enough to damage you if you touched them. Even so, none of them matched the yao guai thing I referenced. (If you hit a yao guai with Paralyzing Palm at just the right point in VATS, just as it jumped to attack you, it would sometimes continue upward and fly off over the horizon. IIUC, Paralyzing Palm swapped the NPC model for an object model that had inertia, but no weight, so it just kept going until the effect wore off.)
I played way too much of it yesterday and have just left the second location, opening up the broader map.
The game feels like somebody created a series of large set pieces, any of which could be in a Fallout game, and stitched them together with load screens and fast travel. That’s not a bad thing at all. Sometimes I forget that I’m being a little railroaded and really do feel like I’m in a huge open world.
The dialogue is great. The weapon modification system is fine - better than not having one at all. I like that there are only three types of ammo to keep track of. The combat itself is also just fine, though perhaps it gets more interesting as one gets further.
I love the overall aesthetic. Some of the propaganda posters are absolutely wonderful.
I, too played a bunch yesterday. Like some others, I made it to through the first stage before I quit. I’m not exactly sure how long that took, since I was wrangling kids etc. the whole time but I’m going to guess maybe 4 hours?
And I’m playing on Story Mode, because I suck at games and honestly that’s largely what I enjoy. I still die… 
I’m playing a stealthy talker with some tech thrown in, which seems to be working pretty well.
I. Love. This game. I don’t remember being immediately sucked in to a game like this since forever.
Scratch that, it wanted to run the game at 768. Everything REALLY looked like crap, but when I realized it had defaulted to that resolution I changed it to 1080. No choice, since I’m playing on a TV.
So at 1080, it auto sets “Low” graphics. But if anyone is worried that it’ll look like crap, it doesn’t. I mean sure, I’ll bet that it looks A-FREAKING-MAZING at higher settings, but there’s nothing low about “Low”. Still a beautiful game, I almost never dipped below 30 fps, which I know is like ugggggggh to most people, but it’s completely playable. Yes, there are texture pop-in issues, especially when talking to NPCs, but I have NO problem with the game sacrificing a little detail for a few moments in order to run more smoothly.
It’s easily better looking that Borderlands 2. Not as pretty as Dishonered or D/2. Looks better than Fallout:NV with all of the texture updates etc.
The writing is superb. How theses geniuses managed to convey the dark seriousness of the area, while also being constantly funny just blows my mind, and it’s incredibly impressive.
Also, the quests and NPC stories are very well thought out. F4 often times felt like everybody on the team came up with a story or quest, and then they tried to fit them all in to the world willy-nilly. So far, everything about this game story-wise is super tight. I’m really looking forward to seeing more.
So other things I liked:
Gunplay seems to be pretty good. I’m playing with a controller so I’m having some trouble getting the sensitivity dialed in just right. Probably just me, since I suck. I like the time dilation and the way it was introduced. I LOVE that there are only 3 ammo types. Weapon mods are there, but not as involved as F4. It was fun to mod guns in F4, but that’s not what this game is going for. Still lots of fun gadgets to tack on to your guns.
The talking heads are done really nicely, as is the voice acting. NPCs and companions, for lack of a better term, emote well wrt their facial expressions.
I love that your choices have quantifiable consequences. That was missing so hard in F4.
Things I had trouble with:
The inventory interface takes some getting used to, but I’m playing with a controller so it might be easier with a K/M.
I ran in to a couple sounds glitches. The biggest one was at the Geothermal Plant, the first time I used the Plasma Rifle. As soon as I started using it, the only sounds I heard were my footsteps and reloading sounds.
Also a few times, there were bodies I couldn’t loot no matter how much I walked around them and looked.
Some screens (tutorial screens, sometimes in the inventory) the button that I needed to push on the controller wasn’t shown.
Flaws aside, and I assume they’ll be patched soon enough, I love this game harder than anything I’ve played in recent memory. It really does have the feel of F:NV, mixed with (as others have pointed out) Borderlands and Bioshock.
I can see myself playing thought his at least 3 times, upping the difficulty each time.
Did I mention I’m in love so far? Gotta go play.
I’m guessing that Calculon may exist in this world. There is a transition screen for Titus Androidicus…
Now that I think about it, the logo for Spacers Choice is reminiscent of the Planet Express logo.
I played a bunch more today as well. I am loving parts of it very much, the story, the characters, the setting, just feeling of the universe, with the obvious love and respect they have for their influences from Jules Verne, to 30s space serials, to various video games.
I am still not liking the combat however. I have put sooo many rounds into my companions asses and heads as they run through my line of fire. And I can sometimes fight 3 of X mob using Y gun without sweat, but the the next time i come across a single X I get my ass smoked. There are variables I am just not getting that control the fights, and getting a bit frustrated. And most of the time I try a sneak snipe attack on wildlife, it just does nothing,passes through like a ghost bullet. I seem to have to aggro them to effect them with a shot, which kind ruins the stealth thing a bit.
I also don’t understand the steal mechanic in the game. Is there an effect at all? I started sneaking a trinket here and there in a dark closet far away from everyone, then got more and more brazen till now I am just stealing in crowded rooms, and seeing no attempt at comeuppance at all.