I got it on game pass and then paid $40 for the premium edition (despite the fact that I don't actually own the game) like the dirty little paypiggy consoomer whore that I am. Just for the early access, y'know? And I gotta say: I have approximately 0 regrets. I will probably buy the game outright at some point in the future, but doing it this way saved me like $30 for this month. First impressions? "Shit's lit." It's everything The Outer Worlds could have been...
should have been.
It really hit me while I was reading computer entries in the pirate base you're sent to near the start of the game, on a miserable little shithole called Kreet. In The Outer Worlds, every terminal would have read something like this:
ATTENTION EVILCORP™ EMPLOYEES
YOU ARE CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED TO 200 HOURS OF UNPAID LABOR EACH MONTH BEFORE YOU START RECIEVING PAY.
COMPLAINERS WILL BE SHOT AND THEIR CORPSES TURNED INTO DELICIOUS EVILCORP™ NUTRIENT PASTE.
"MAKE HASTE, MOM'S COOKING PASTE!".
PS: CAPITALISM IS THE BEST THING EVER.
And instead of being greeted with the most quirky, ham-fisted, shitty satire ever put into words, I was instead greeted with... just... intriguing logs about the trials undertaken at that location by a faction's "xenowarfare" research division. Not to say it was completely devoid of Quirky Humor - you can't escape completely from that in the Year of our Lord 2023 - but Bethesda opted to avoid beating you over the head with it (whereas Obsidian seemed keen to pulverize players' heads into Evilcorp™ Nutrient Paste with their writing). What I'm sayin' is it was a lovely. Compelling lore! Flavor! (Relatively) restrained attempts at comedy that don't make you groan constantly!
Refreshing. Haven't been playing it for long (well, I have, but I am slow and haven't gotten far - I just reached "the Lodge"), but holy shit this game's got alotta potential.
I fiddled with the shipbuilding for a good 45 minutes before giving up on it because I couldn't figure out how to rebuild mine in a way that met all of my functional and aesthetic needs. It's some pretty in-depth shit though. I was considering getting Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon because I had an urge to customize mechs, but surprisingly this is satisfying the underlying desires behind that urge pretty well. I mean what is a spaceship if not a... mech... bird? I guess?
Anyway, 10/10 would recommend.
Or like, more genuinely, tentatively 8.5/10 (it's nailing the tone and atmosphere, gunplay is solid, ship building is cool, no bugs to speak of so far... but it's Bethesda so you can count on there being some hilariously bad ones at some point, *and* my 1070 can actually run it despite technically being below minimum specs!). Maybe even a 9/10 tbh, but I'm not very far into the game. Would 100% still recommend. It's grrrrrreat.