Outward

Last updated

Outward
Outward cover art.jpg
Developer(s) Nine Dots [lower-alpha 1]
Publisher(s) Deep Silver [lower-alpha 2]
Director(s) Guillaume Boucher-Vidal [1]
Designer(s) Guillaume Boucher-Vidal [1]
Engine Unity
Platform(s) PlayStation 4
Windows
Xbox One
Stadia [2]
PlayStation 5
Xbox Series X/S
Nintendo Switch
ReleasePS4, Windows, Xbox One
26 March 2019 [2]
Stadia
30 November 2020
PS5, XSX
17 May 2022
Nintendo Switch
28 March 2024 [3]
Genre(s) Role-playing
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

Outward is an open world fantasy role-playing video game developed by Canadian studio Nine Dots [4] and published by Deep Silver. [2] The game can be played in multiplayer both online and locally through split-screen. The game focuses on survival [5] as well as the concept of the player being a commoner rather than a hero, and features several survival game aspects. [2] It released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in March 2019, Google Stadia in November 2020, and for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S alongside the launch of Outward: Definitive Edition in May 2022. [6]

Contents

Gameplay

On top of more traditional gameplay of action role-playing games, 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, 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. [4]

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. [2] 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. [1]

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. [7]

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". [7] The team also noted that the relatively low budget prevented the game from having elaborate cutscenes or lip synching, which made it difficult to construct marketing material. [7] The game was ported to Nintendo Switch by Sneakybox and published by Plaion.[ citation needed ]

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 reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic. [8] [9] [10]

Outward has sold over one million copies. [16]

Sequel

A sequel, Outward 2, was announced in March 2024. It will be released for Windows and unspecified consoles. [17]

Notes

  1. ↑ Ported to Nintendo Switch by Sneakybox.
  2. ↑ Published for Nintendo Switch under the Plaion label.

Related Research Articles

<i>Dragon Quest XI</i> 2017 video game

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age is a role-playing video game by Square Enix. The eleventh entry in the long-running Dragon Quest video game series, it was released in Japan for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation 4 in July 2017 and worldwide for the PlayStation 4 and Windows in September 2018. An enhanced version, Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition, was released for Nintendo Switch by Nintendo in September 2019; for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in December 2020; and for Stadia in March 2021. Taking place in a world called Erdrea, the game follows the hero's quest to save the world from an impending darkness. Throughout the game, he explores challenges related to his prophesied Luminary identity as he endures persecution from those who demonize him.

Nacon is a French video game company based in Lesquin. It designs and distributes gaming accessories, and publishes and distributes video games for various platforms. In 2020, Bigben Group was consolidated to form Nacon.

In the video game industry during 2019, both Sony and Microsoft announced their intent to reveal their next-generation consoles in 2020, while Nintendo introduced a smaller Nintendo Switch Lite, and Google announced its streaming game platform Stadia. The controversy over loot boxes as a potential gambling route continued into 2019, with some governments like Belgium and the Netherlands banning games with them under their gambling laws, while the United Kingdom acknowledging their current laws prevent enforcing these as if they were games of chance. The first video cards to support real-time ray tracing were put onto the consumer market, including the first set of games that would take advantage of the new technology. The Epic Games Store continued its growth in challenging the largest digital PC game distribution service Steam, leading to concern and debate about Epic Games' methods to seek games for its service. Dota Auto Chess, a community-created mod for Dota 2, introduced a new subgenre of strategy games called auto battlers, which saw several games in the genre released throughout the year. Blizzard Entertainment faced criticism due to their involvement in the Blitzchung controversy, which began after they had banned a Hearthstone player for making comments during a tournament regarding the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.

<i>Dragon Quest Builders 2</i> 2018 video game

Dragon Quest Builders 2 is an action role-playing sandbox game developed by Square Enix and Omega Force, with Square Enix publishing it. It is the sequel to Dragon Quest Builders, and was released for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in Japan in December 2018 and worldwide in July 2019, for Windows in December 2019, and for the Xbox One in May 2021. The game shipped over a million copies by August 2019 and received generally favorable reviews from critics.

In the video game industry, 2021 saw the release of many new titles. The numerous delays in software and hardware releases due to the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacted development schedules, leading to several games being delayed into 2022 or even postponed indefinitely. Additionally, computer and console hardware were impacted by the combined effects of a semiconductor shortage and a rising growth of bitcoin mining that strained the supply of critical components.

<i>Black Book</i> (video game) 2021 video game

Black Book is an adventure role-playing video game, developed by Morteshka, which created The Mooseman, and published by HypeTrain Digital. The game was released on August 10, 2021.

In the video game industry, 2022 saw the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the industry, slowing hardware sales for most of the year as well as development delays for major titles. The industry continued its trend of acquisitions and mergers, highlighted by Microsoft announcing its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion. The industry as a whole continued to deal with issues such as workplace harassment and discrimination, alongside crunch periods, leading to at least the quality assurance staff at three separate studios to vote to unionize.

<i>Edge of Eternity</i> (video game) 2021 video game

Edge of Eternity is a 2021 role-playing video game developed by Midgar Studio and published by Dear Villagers. It first released for Windows before releasing on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch in February 2022.

<i>Monster Crown</i> 2021 video game

Monster Crown is a 2021 role-playing video game developed by Studio Aurum and published by Soedesco. Heavily inspired by early games in the Pokémon series, it features similar mechanics, but with a darker fictional universe and storyline. The game received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its gameplay and graphical style, but noted significant bugs and performance issues, and also criticized it for game balance issues as well as its story.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Outward proves you don’t need crunch to make a massive RPG Archived 29 May 2019 at the Wayback Machine , VentureBeat
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Outward's open-world RPG makes you a nobody... and treats you like it Archived 7 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine , IGN
  3. ↑ "Outward: Definitive Edition for Switch launches March 28". Gematsu. 15 February 2024. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
  4. 1 2 Fantasy RPG Outward is the survival game I've been looking for Archived 24 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine , PC Gamer
  5. ↑ Outward review – surviving with friends Archived 12 June 2019 at the Wayback Machine , Metro
  6. ↑ "Outward: Definitive Edition launches May 17". Gematsu. 6 May 2022. Archived from the original on 22 October 2023. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  7. 1 2 3 Parijat, Shubhankar. "Outward Interview – An Ambitious Splitscreen Co-op Open World RPG". Gamingbolt. Archived from the original on 29 March 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  8. 1 2 "Outward for PC Reviews". Metacritic . CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
  9. 1 2 "Outward for PlayStation 4 Reviews". Metacritic . CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 2 October 2020. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
  10. 1 2 "Outward for Xbox One Reviews". Metacritic . CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 3 July 2020. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
  11. ↑ Porreca, Ray (30 August 2021). "Review: Outward". Destructoid . Archived from the original on 30 August 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
  12. ↑ Schmeyer, DM (30 August 2021). "Outward Review". IGN . Archived from the original on 12 June 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
  13. ↑ Livingston, Christopher (10 April 2019). "Outward review". PC Gamer . Future US. Archived from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  14. ↑ Coles, Jason (30 August 2021). "Outward review: a survival RPG that has no respect for your time". PCGamesN . Archived from the original on 20 September 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
  15. ↑ "Outward Review (PS4) | Aces high". Push Square . 30 August 2021. Archived from the original on 30 August 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
  16. ↑ Romano, Sal (1 December 2020). "Outward sales top one million; DLC 'The Three Brothers' launches December 15 for PC, in 2021 for PS4 and Xbox One". Gematsu. Archived from the original on 2 December 2020. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
  17. ↑ Romano, Sal (7 March 2024). "Outward 2 announced for consoles, PC". Gematsu. Retrieved 3 June 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.