The Outer Worlds is a space frontier, planet-exploring RPG shooter set on beautiful far-flung alien planets and has a shorter length than most sprawling epics like Fallout or Skyrim. Going through several gorgeous planets, players explore barren alien landscapes, corporately built human cities and settlements, and every weird alien creature in between.
With corporate board meetings determining policy, it’s quite fun to see how the associated interests hilariously alienate workers, complicate everything with red-tape bureaucracy, and generally try to adapt every tragedy into a brand slogan.
Sharing much of the irreverent tone and cynical humor of the Fallout series, as well as a developer, The Outer Worlds avoids some tedium with more diverse missions, worlds, and NPCs. Your companion crew, for instance, provides lots of style and customization possibilities. Each companion combo gives access to unique and funny chat interactions.
Although mission variety can get a bit repetitive, the play length is one of the best elements of the game because it can be a quick, enjoyable run-through or a meticulously detailed experience. Of course, all credit goes to the expert data at HowLongToBeat.
Main Story Only
In a game that presents you with morally ambiguous choices, your choices determine the fate of individual NPCs to entire settlements of NPC people. In that way, playing just the main story without spending extra time choosing faction benefits, trying out companions and weapons, and exploring the zany world of The Outer Worlds is not likely. Someone will distract you with some ridiculous.
However, minding your own business, ignoring all the side quests, and pummeling through missions of The Outer Worlds will see the main story complete in about 13 hours. In such a beautiful and fun game it’s almost impossible to resist every side quest or faction-building opportunity.
Filthy Casuals
Between managing certain faction reputations and hunting down the powerful science weapons, most players won’t be in and out with just the quests. Chances are if the game hooks players in the first 30 minutes or so, they’ll have a mid-to-long playthrough based on the quality of the experience alone. This is especially true for those that love Fallout and other similar genres.
The average casual playthrough should last around 26 hours. This is the likely range for most who enjoy the game, take their time, and finish at their own pace.
100% Life By The Drop
Just can’t put the controller down? For those taken in by the charm of the setting, fighting mechanics, skill trees, NPC’s, and overall tone of The Outer Worlds, completing 100% is fairly hefty. Taking on every side quest, companion, and event possible will take a lot longer than the main story alone.
For those that want to search every corner of the Halcyon System, a play for 100% completion could take about 38 to 50 hours.
DLC Time Expectations
The Outer Worlds has two expansions that bring increases to the level cap, new weapons and enemies, and interesting story additions. Each DLC stands alone as a separate story as well.
* Peril on Gorgon introduces the new planet, Gorgon, where the crew discovers a cryptic secret that leads them to a mystery around a scientist’s doomed science experiment. Here the story will take around 4 hours while one hundred percenters will clock in around 12 or more hours for the DLC.
* Murder on Eridanos is the final game’s DLC and also introduces a new planet, Eridanos, where players will investigate a suspicious murder and explore corporate beverage Rizzo’s base of operations and famous Purpleberry Orchards. This DLC raises the level cap to 36 and should take around 6 hours for the main missions, 8 hours for casuals, and over 12 hours to 100%.
