Review for Outward. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 26/03/2019
In addition to creating games of remarkable quality, FromSoftware has the undoubted merit of having brought back what was one of the founding characteristics of old school videoludi: difficulty. Together with a complicated and hostile world, the Japanese development studio has re-grafted into the pumpkins of modern gamers that video games are, above all, a pastime with a challenging flavor. Outward, result of the partnership between Deep Silver e Nine Dots Studio, in some ways it has learned and made its lesson its own, proposing itself on the market with its very personal playful offer based on a combination of very promising characteristics.
Will all that glitters be gold?
Outward is a third-person role-playing game, which contains within it a vast and colorful open world and mechanics typical of survival games. After the very first (and for some rather difficult) hours of play, Outward he will drop the mask and show his true face, coming directly from those shelves of a few decades ago filled with complicated and "brutal" games in the way of being and welcoming users. The title Nine Dots, in fact, it drinks from the same source of the "soulslike", in turn linked to an old school role-playing heritage, leaning its playful style on a conceptually simple combat system, but difficult to fully control and with a rather high level of difficulty , framed by a world as free as it is dangerous and merciless. And that's why, right from the start, the game reviewed here will require a fundamental pre-requisite to be able to fully appreciate it: patience.
In fact, the title will not take anything for granted, it will not help us in any way (or maybe just by not letting the death of our alter ego be "final") and will "abandon" us to ourselves in a world as rich as it is dangerous. As anticipated, the game will base its structure on the most classic trappings of the rolistic genre, focusing on exploration, the collection of objects and materials, together with the specific growth of the skills of one's alter-ego, who will start the adventure in order to pay off a heavy debt. Our hero will not be chosen, nor will he be endowed with any particular skill or special instrumentation: in the most classic of “trial and error” mechanisms, we will have to improve, plan and reflect. For example, to improve our skills with the sword or the bow, we will have to find and look for an NPC capable of teaching us new and powerful skills.
To be ready for any eventuality, we will have to manage a limited inventory and at the same time essential to actually survive: better an extra steak or a potion? The same inventory whose weight will substantially affect combat (and which for this reason the game will allow us to temporarily "unload" on the ground to face the threat). From this small example, Outward will make us understand from the very first bars that nothing will be given to us and everything will be earned with effort, with planning and, of course, death. Indeed, deaths, in the most classic of ways. The difficulty of the game can be understood from some, simple details: as mentioned, in the title we will actually have to survive, thus procuring food, water and building tents in which to rest our tired limbs. Well, food could poison us. We could be attacked while we sleep outdoors. We may get sick from being too cold or die of dehydration from intense heat. At that point, we may suddenly find ourselves in a random spot on the map. Map that, at the same time, will not show us where we are with a convenient indicator.
Outward will offer a rather large game world, consisting of four large regions with different biomes. Traveling around the game world, we will meet a series of factions which will each give life to a different story, all not particularly original and basically victims of the classic clichés of fantasy fiction, but well defined and wedged in a sufficiently deep and credible world. In general, a run up to the final stages of the game, with a good number of these secondary and exploration, will require a period of time that is around 35/40 hours. Hours of play that multiply enormously considering the various viable storylines and the many possibilities offered by the character growth and customization system.
At the heart of the game, as one might expect, there is a deliberately difficult combat system to master and extremely punitive towards the player. Even the simplest of enemies could inflict a potentially fatal wound, due to a lightness or a more purely mechanical error. As mentioned, the enhancement of our protagonist will not be directly related to a classic experience point collection system, but will take place through the purchase of skills and abilities from certain trainers, scattered throughout the game world. It is good to underline that in Outward there will not be given the opportunity to learn all the skills, as for the most important, which will allow us to access the most advanced branches of the chosen path, it will be necessary to spend particular points which will be very numerous. limited. Obviously, we will also have the ability to learn skills of a magical nature, which will be managed by a rather deep and articulated mechanism: in essence, most magical abilities will first require the evocation of a sort of "elemental field", through the use of some transportable items in our inventory. In addition, in a particular mechanic also shared with melee and ranged weapons, some skills may need another skill or even a combination of skills to summon before they can be used.
Outward, from the first initial enemies, makes us understand that approaching a clash in a casual way, which in a modern standard title is almost an essential dogma, rather often means succumbing. Here, as in very few games, it will be important to study the opponent in front of us at a minimum, perhaps by placing ad hoc traps or using potions that can help us in combat. Also because the game will not have an ordinary save and load function, but will automatically save our progress in the background, effectively making every action, event or decision of the final player irreversible. Dying will mean losing everything and potentially starting again at a random point on the map or even in a totally random condition: we could wake up in a prison for example and have to figure out how to escape our jailers. Or, unexpectedly, a mysterious wanderer can come to our rescue and save us at the last minute. In any case, the management of death in Outward, which is more like a loss of senses, will be rather original and well addressed in a role-playing perspective.
If conceptually the game is not absolutely original but certainly personal, offering plenty of content and a vast and well-made world that can even be explored in online cooperative or via local split-screen, the real drawback of the entire production is certainly the technical sector, battered by a visual rendering that seems to come from the same old shelves as above. The general quality of the title, despite an overall good level of cleanliness and a fairly solid frame rate, will therefore be affected by the texture of models and environments that are often really subdued and that recall, as mentioned, productions of a long time ago, despite the use of Unity graphics engine.
A not particularly positive mention should also be made to the animations, very good those of the classic movements, as opposed to the movements in combat which will turn out to be really woody and unreal. Another important concern on a technical level will be the hitbox, not perfectly calibrated both in attack and in defense. Although the game supports the dynamic 4K of premium consoles, not even the superior power of PlayStation 4 Pro will be able to save an aesthetic which, unfortunately, will have a decisive weight on the actual usability of the title. Be that as it may, aesthetically, the work carried out will not be completely negative and will nevertheless be able to count on a general design of the game world, the landscape and the towns that is more than sufficient and worthy of being "lived".
Outward is a valuable and certainly interesting role, which will put on the plate an interesting mixture of features and specific characteristics. Too bad that everything is seasoned with an old and not particularly performing technical apparatus, especially from an aesthetic point of view.
► Outward is an RPG-type game developed by Maximum Games and published by Deep Silver for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 26/03/2019
