The Definitive Edition of Outward was originally released on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S in 2022. It features numerous improvements over the base game, including deeper integration of elemets from DLCs The Soroboreans and The Three Brothers.

Players are put into the shoes of ordinary adventurers that are thrown into a magical world where they will have to figure out how to survive against threatening creatures and hazardous environmental conditions.

Outward: Definitive Edition encourages players to come up with their own unique solutions to problems they might face in the game by making use of the numerous tools and items available to them. The game can also be played in local and online co-op with up to one other player.

A sequel, appropriately titled Outward 2, is currently in the works, and will be coming to PC and consoles.

The story sees the player venturing through the world of Aurai, helping people and making their mark. It’s fairly unforgiving though and there are plenty of scenarios where you may end up downtrodden, imprisoned or worse. The Definitive Edition features new defeat scenarios, new diseases to endure and new encounters in its dungeons.

Those interested in co-op can avail of improvements like your stash being accessible in another player’s world. For more details about the base game, check out our review here. If you own the game and The Three Brothers DLC on PC, then you can receive the Definitive Edition for free.

Outward: Definitive Edition includes the base game and its paid DLC, The Soroboreans and The Three Brothers. There are new encounters in its various dungeons, new diseases to contend with and even new scenarios to endure upon defeat. Various quality of life improvements like being able to access your stash in another player’s world have also been added.

For PC players who own the base game and The Three Brothers DLC, Outward: Definitive Edition is free. If you’re curious about the base game’s content, check out our review here. It’s received a number of updates and bug fixes over the years, which should provide a more stable experience. Stay tuned for the full list of improvements and changes when the Definitive Edition launches next week.

In terms of content, the Definitive Edition features the base game along with The Three Brothers and The Soroboreans DLC (though many features of the latter are now disseminated throughout). There are also new unique encounters in dungeons, new diseases and new defeat scenarios for players to suffer through. Fortunately, there are various quality of life achievements like accessing one’s stash in another player’s world, more accessible crafting, and much more.

If you already own the base game and DLC, then the Definitive Edition will be free. Outward is currently available for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. NineDots is moving on to its next project following its release so stay tuned for more details on that in the coming months.

ENDER LILIES: QUIETUS OF THE KNIGHTS

Adglobe’s ENDER LILIES: QUIETUS OF THE KNIGHTS is an incredibly chill game that uses its Soulslike mechanics to great effect. The game’s narrative also has a fair bit of charm to it as you uncover the myriad mysteries of a once glorious kingdom. The game has some great boss designs and is one game worth experiencing for fans of the genre.

Don’t Starve Together

Expanding upon Klei Entertainment’s excellent survival experience, Don’t Starve Together is more than just the base game with co-op mechanics. It offers three modes – Survival, which turns dead players into ghosts that drain the sanity of the living; Wilderness, which puts each player in a random location; and Endless, where players can respawn endlessly. With its plethora of content – from DLC like Reign of Giants, Shipwrecked and Hamlet to new characters and free updates – Don’t Starve Together remains one of the premiere multiplayer survival experiences.

WARGROOVE

Position itself as a spiritual successor to the fan-favourite Nintendo series Advance Wars, Wargroove had a lot to live up to, and for the most part, it met those expectations expertly. And among the many things that endeared Chucklefish’s strategy title to the masses was its difficulty- Wargroove is a challenging game, and nearly every fight, every skirmish in the game is an uphill battle. And while Wargroove does occasionally become a bit too harsh with its difficulty, by and large it maintains a pretty healthy and consistent balance.

Dark Souls Remastered

Combat in FromSoftware games always has a straightforward explanation – hit this button to attack, this button to dodge etc. However, the greater nuances like stamina management, invincibility frames while rolling, the significance of certain stats and what to build towards take more time to understand. That’s not even considering the design of bosses in games like Dark Souls Remastered or the order to go to certain areas given the game’s world design. Suffice it to say but if this or the original was your first Dark Souls, it was a struggle.

Outward is an open-world RPG where you have to survive by any means available to you. There is a loose story along with some NPC dialogue peppered throughout, but this adventure will mostly be shaped by whatever you end up spending your time doing. Nothing is really explained to you, but through playing, you can learn more about the culture of Outward and what kind of a situation you find yourself in when you boot up the game. There’s plenty of examples of effective environmental storytelling and it really goes a long way to make the world of Outward more interesting than it appears at first.

"All in all, combat will most likely be familiar to people who have played an action-RPG in the past decade and the real challenge will come from the variety of enemies you’ll encounter."

To get one thing out of the way up front, Outward is a downright brutal game. You’ll die and struggle against smaller enemies for your first handful of hours. Immediately upon starting your game, you’re given a deadline of 5 in-game days to collect a relatively high amount of money or else you lose your house. I, of course, ended up dying a few times to chickens outside the village and failed to raise enough money, losing my home in the process. This just sets the tone for the rest of the game. Enemies hit hard, tangible progress is slow to come, and to top it all off, there’s no fast travel in this game. Outward strips away many of the niceties that open-world RPGs have come standard with for the past decade and gives you a distinctly “hardcore” experience, for better and for worse.

Controls are easy to get the hang of but they don’t push any boundaries. You have a health and stamina meter and combat should be familiar to anyone who’s tried a Dark Souls title. You have a variety of weapons at your disposal, from broadswords to spears. Managing meter and choosing your opportunities to attack is the name of the game and aside from a few tricks thrown in like deployable traps and spells, it never really deviates. A nice touch the game includes is the ability to instantly drop your backpack at the press of a key. Getting into combat, you’ll need every bit of mobility you can get, so dropping your pack once you find an enemy will become second nature. Combat is serviceable without ever being too exciting. The main issue comes from the lack of fluid motion.

Most of your attacks have heavy ending lag, leaving you unable to block a counterattack from an enemy that stopped being stunned by your hit ages ago. And although the stamina meter is important in balancing out offense and defence, once depleted, it takes far too long to fill back up, killing the pace of battles. All in all, combat will most likely be familiar to people who have played an action-RPG in the past decade and the real challenge will come from the variety of enemies you’ll encounter.

"Environments and character models all have a good amount of detail and creativity present in their designs."

You also have survival aspects to contend with, having to deal with hunger, thirst, sleep, and disease. You have to balance all of these needs if you want to survive in the world of Outward. When you sleep, you’ll have to devote some time to security in order to prevent bandit attacks. But if you spend too long sleeping and repairing weapons at your campsite, you’ll be hungrier and more thirsty when you wake up. If you’re not careful, you can leave yourself in a bad position. And even if you are careful, you can still fumble up and acquire acute indigestion from a raw egg with no real knowledge of how to cure it. Like I said before, Outward is brutal. The information that you need to survive in Outward is in the game but you have to sometimes travel far and wide to find it. Even with its lengthy tutorial that explains the basics, Outward is a beast that needs to be tamed over dozens of hours and countless deaths.

Appropriately, the defining feature of Outward comes from your many deaths. You can’t save your progress in Outward. Instead, every time you die, a scenario will play out and you’ll have to figure out how to progress from there. Sometimes you luck out and get dragged back to the starting village where you can safely resupply.

Other times you won’t be so lucky. One of my favorite moments with this game came from when I died against some bandits, whereupon I was dragged to their mines and forced to slave away. I had plenty of people to talk to, alliances I could have formed, and a few different methods of escape I could have pursued. Eventually, I worked up enough coin to bride a guard into sneaking me out in a bag. These moments really serve to give death some personality in this game. No longer can you just retry and scenario over and over until you win. Now, you’ll have to deal with whatever consequences your defeat brings.

"This game is a big mountain to climb and a lot of the footholds that line the path are loose."

The presentation in Outward is a mixed bag. Environments and character models all have a good amount of detail and creativity present in their designs. The soundtrack also helps set the tone, embracing the ambiance of the world. However, with all these positive aspects, Outward certainly isn’t perfect. Once you’re out in the field, you’ll run into framerate dips and graphical glitches that occasionally serve to take you out of the experience. If you’re unlucky, you might even have your Pearlbird quarry clip up the side of a mountain while you’re in the middle of a hunt.

Voice acting is all on-par for this type of game and does its job. Outward does have this strange habit of only voicing some of the written dialogue or in some cases completely different dialogue. Whether it’s because of budget restraints or time deadlines, it’s a distracting aspect of the game and instead of creating a half-hearted attempt, Outward may have been better off opting out of voice acting entirely.

It should be said that Outward is also playable split-screen with a friend. It’s staggering how performance doesn’t suffer much from this and the developers should be commended for putting this into the final product. Both players start together and can synergize abilities and weapons to progress through this harsh world side by side. A couple of adventurers may have to share the loot, but they can also revive each other when one gets knocked out which is more than worth the price of admission as far as I’m concerned. Playing with a pal is a great addition and should really help players ease into this type of game if they’re not used to it.

Outward is a game that is not for everyone. If the idea of dying over and over without much meaningful progression for hours at a time doesn’t appeal to you, this game may not be for you. But if you stick through the grind, you might be able to sift through the jank of this game and find something worthwhile. This game is a big mountain to climb and a lot of the footholds that line the path are loose. But at the end of your trek, you might find an experience that you can’t have anywhere else. Because after the hours of tears and frustration, Outward can end up giving you satisfaction in something as simple as finding a backpack.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

Nine Dots Studios’ ambitious open world RPG Outward is now available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Unlike your typical medieval fantasy titles, Outward is all about pure grit and effort as you conquer any challenges thrown at you. Which usually results in a lot of dying.

Along with survival elements, which see players managing their stamina and staying vigilant while camping, Outward employs a complex magic system. It’s all about crafting the right seals and preparing your magic beforehand as opposed to instantly casting spells. There’s also split-screen co-op, which allows two players to venture into the world together.

So you could battle enemies together, manage different inventories, and even watch over the other person at camp while they recover. Outward doesn’t boast the most impressive visuals, but its gameplay does provide a large amount of choice. Check out the launch trailer below and see if it scratches your own fantasy RPG itch.