Outward Definitive Edition: The Polarizing Souls-Like Survival Game

I have played it for over 800 hours, its not a perfect game but its definitely worthwhile playing it. The lore of the game is AMAZING, the progression is fun once you understand what you need and when, exploring the different hidden dungeons (there are a lot of them) is so fun because every single one of them have their own secrets you need to find out to get special and unique rewards. Truly a beaultiful game with a atmosphere that is so rare nowadays.

Here are a few tips for new players. -Save your house on day one without paying. First, gather everything you can from the village. Two, make or find bandages. Third, talk to the gate guard while holding a weapon you want to use. He'll teach you a useful skill for that weapon. Fourth and most critical, turn around and go through the door under the cliff. It's a storage area, with some enemies. Run past them and leave through the back. Fifth, sneak along the beach until you see a fallen guy. Sneak up and give him the bandages, he'll give you a tribal favor. Use the map and run home, avoid hyenas. Give the tribal favor to the boss lady. Done. No more timers, until you join a faction. -Learn to make Pungent Paste and Fungal Cleanser. Pungent Paste is one of the best stat restorers in the game and Fungal Cleanser will help with some of the diseases found in the game. -Make Gaberry Tartines. Cook four Gaberries into jam and spread it on bread. This thing lasts for weeks in-game, keeps you warm, and is one of the best early-game energy restorers. Don't sleep on tartines.

On a sidenote there is a tutorial mode that is separate. But yea if you want you can hop directly in the game.

Outward is one of my favorite games of all time and the best couch co-op game I've EVER played. I think when everyone's first experience with the game is walking outside the town and getting stuffed by a couple of the basic bandit enemies, it immediately filters a big part of the potential audience. I was pissed and threw my hands in the air like, "why would someone make a game like this?" But the seeds of determination had already taken root. This game gets easier as the player's knowledge scales. That's an insanely difficult mechanic to implement but it makes the most rewarding experience. I love how complicated and nuanced this game is... and the lack of fast travel and minimap is both annoying and its strongest asset. It's a great game... for dads. But also I played this whole thing with my 8 year old daughter so it's not that crazy. We both played classes to stack all of the game's sigils and double-cast spells on top of the totems, trivializing most of the, "difficulty".

Outward is a game I wanted to love, but due to many of the issues mentioned by other comments, I had to stop and put it to the side. Its a wonderful world/game but its just not meant for many people to be able to enjoy. Those that do, will absolutely treasure it. Edit: I should note that at the time of this video, outward is 85% off on steam and is only $5. If you've been curious for awhile, or this video made the game seem like it was worth trying, go do it! You may end up like me. But if you ended up enjoying it at all, you'll find one of your favorite games.

This game captivated me unlike any game has in a long time. I was so insanely addicted to it. It gave me that traditional RPG exploration vibe, and was so fun in doing so. Nothing was explained well, but that added to the fun of the g ame. You had to experiment and figure things out and it was such a joy. The combat made me rather annoyed though. Sometimes it was a blast, other times it was janky and infuriating. Overall though, An absolute blast of a game that didnt get near the recognition it deserves. Developed by a small team that rivals AAA RPGs.

i love outward and im glad there is still content being made for it

I think there is something to be said about the mindless tedium that is playing outward. While I do absolutely love the game, running around region to region can bit a drag. Especially when quest lines have you going traveling multiple regions over, then coming all the way back. It’s extremely easy for newbies to mess up their build. Not helped by one of the worst skill trees being the first and only one you’re given access to in the beginning. Also I hear a ton of praise for the magic system in outward, but it really isn’t all that complex. You take 1-3 points of magic depending on how much mana cost reduction gear your wearing, and cast all the spells you want. There’s no give and take aspect to it when magic builds can easily achieve 80-100% cost reduction while sacrificing little to nothing. You actually take less mana the more you intend on casting, which seems a bit contrary to what the system was intending to do. There should’ve been a magic damage buff, and maybe unique spells tied to taking certain amounts of mana. Maybe better damage boosting gear for mages that offers little to no cost reduction, encouraging you to take more mana to make better use of the equipment. Outside of that, I don’t really have any major issues with the game, before the DLCs released anyways. Combat is a bit clunky, quest timers get a bit weird sometimes, but it’s all just little things you expect from an indie company. The DLCs are a bit of a mixed bag. I absolutely adore most things about the Soroborean DLC. The “fast travel” system is obviously shit and feel like an intentional fuck you to people rightly not wanting to walk everywhere. Enchanting is a great addition and really adds to build diversity. While in most cases, there 1 objectively right enchantment and a bunch of wrong ones, it does bring viability to a whole host of otherwise worthless weapons. The enemies and boss fights are all enjoyable, and and dungeons are all great to explore. Three brothers on the other hand… I absolutely hate three brothers, which is a bit of a shame, because there’s a lot of enjoyable content there. Addressing the biggest issue first, building is absolutely a shit addition, which was unforgiving on release. I played 20+ hours just walking around getting all the resources, trying to get the one item I needed to build the building a wanted with 0 success. Just put the game down for a while after that. Nowadays, you can send out for expeditions to get the rare resources you need, and the chances are much better in general. It definitely helps, and I’ve since completed the DLC multiple times, but it takes an unbelievably shit system to a somewhat bareable amount of shit. Three brothers also adds enemies that ignore significant amounts of your % defenses. This takes those big tank builds that have never really been viable anyways, and shoves them into the shitter. You have to play at a snails pace to reach significant physical defenses. So you could either invest everything into a defensive tank build, and come out to 80-100% physical resist, sacrificing a lot of offensive potential and stamina to get there. Now, a lot of the harder enemies can ignore up to 50% of your defenses. So you’ve invested everything into defensive only to come up to 30-50% resist. What reason would I sacrifice all offensive capability for a measly 30% resist, when I could instead focus offensive power and have a much better time. Tank builds used to enjoy the luxury of significantly easier fights at the cost of experiencing the worst of what outward has to offer significantly more than anyone else, and now they don’t even get that. It’s just downsides, which kills off a lot of build diversity. Not to mention the entire gameplay loop of three brothers is to run around, mine the rare resource nodes, and kill scarlet emissaries to get building materials. Would you rather be running around in your slow and clunky heavy armor, or put it in your bag at the cost of carrying anything else. Or would you just wear light armor and not have to worry about a thing. Running around place to place was already outwards weakest aspect, and the thing literally everyone cites as a complaint against the game. To build a dlc from the ground up purely, where the main gameplay loop is walking from place to place doing nothing is insane to me.

The only thing that prevented me from finishing the game was the insane amount of walking/running you have to do. Maybe one day Ill come back to it because it was fun.

Spend time planning, preparing, adventuring... ...then getting stuck in a wall and eaten by a wendigo. Uninstall. Profit. It's the Outward experience.

In my 40s and I think Outward is my favorite gaming experience in my life thus far. I nearly quit, too, but I stuck it out because I could see tiny bits of progress in myself, and somewhere in the 15-20 hour mark everything started jiving.

With a bigger budget and heaps more polish this game could have been a GOAT. Despite it's flaws, I still love it though. It has the same charm to it as Morrowind did for me. The game has a soul.

I can get behind clunky controls and mechanics, but damn I'd be lying if I said the dialogues and quests didn't disappoint me quite a lot.

Great overview of the game! Thanks. Hope you keep up the great work with your channel. You're doing a great job so far and I think you'll grow huge if you stick with it. On a side note, where did you learn to edit? You're videos are really well done for a new channel. :)

Nice review. cant wait to see what you put out next

walking and spending a lot of time doing it is one of the things that i love about this game, because travel is a thing, you need to plan very well your decisions, the food, loot, etc. You dont know when you will return

I keep coming back to outward and starting a new character despite the frustrations of the early game. The music and atmosphere are 2nd to none.

Outward is a game that I had a rough start with, but really really enjoyed while playing coop with a friend. It takes a while to get going, and is quite uncanny, but at the end of the day it's super fun. Loved how the video explained some of the reasons the game is so rough in some aspects, it's quite unique to say the least.

This game has been on my radar for awhile but never pulled the trigger because souls-like (i hate this term also) games aren't my bag. But survival games are. And KCD is my favorite game of all time. I'm going to give it a shot now. Great video. Appreciate it!

There is a tutorial, it's right there on the menu screen, right below "New Game" you have "Tutorial". But the issue is, just like Projet Zomboid, people tend to ignore tutorials when they show up on menu screens somehow. And it is a good tutorial btw, with pretty much everything you need to start the game and know what you should be doing. Outward is an RPG, and that's why it's not holding your hand. People tend to confuse "adventure games" (which tend to be linear and have tons of quests markers), with a RPG, a game that gives you the freedom to play it however you want. For instance, my personal favorite to pay back the debt don't actually require you to get out of the town much. I want it to be done quickly because if you miss the deadline even by a day, you lose the house. So I use an alternative route that means I don't need to give them any money, I just save one villager who was hurt on the beach near town (that can be access through their storage) who gives me a "tribal favor". Then with a mastery of the looting, crafting and trading system you can make all the money you need early without leaving Cierzo itself. Even though it could definitely be improve, Outward backpack mechanics are probably the best thing about this game. I'd like the death scenarios to be implemented in RPG but not having necessarily our life saved or stuff intact all the time. Because games can sometimes be buggy, I do like being able to save and reload when it happens.