Outer worlds dlc : Murder on Eridanos, the second and last DLC for The Outer Worlds, arrived with little fanfare about a year and a half after the game’s initial release: a quiet end to a great, yet all-too-brief, space adventure. Nonetheless, the wait is well worth it.
The Second DLC for ‘The Outer Worlds’ Is Bleak, Brutal, And Brilliant
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Despite its flaws, Halcyon’s last storey contains some of the series’ best, funniest, and most macabre moments.
The extended downtime between additions to The Outer Worlds will see you inevitably spend an hour remembering how everything works, before realising you’ve got more weapons, ammo, bypass shunts, and adreno than you know what to do with; even time dilation feels redundant with such an overpowered character, as it did with the impressive Peril on Gorgon.
Nonetheless, this sense of near-immortality allows you to rediscover the game’s strange universe–and boy, has Obsidian pulled out all the stops with its storytelling.
Since the first DLC, the developer has definitely learned from its mistakes. Murder on Eridanos features some of the game’s strongest writing to date, which is no small feat given how high the bar had already been set.
Unfortunately, it’s not easy to fall in love with right away; in fact, it starts off in the most perplexing way possible, which may disappoint those with high hopes for the series finale.
Murder on Eridanos doesn’t truly expand on the cosmos, despite the fact that there are so many unknown planets.
Hephaestus, Typhon, and Olympus are all unexplored, and Eridanos is confined to a mid-sized crossroads-style region that looks and feels like Columbia in BioShock Infinite, if it were created by folly rather than idealism.
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Eridanos’ candy-colored resort-spaceport hybrid floats in a tiny pocket of breathable atmosphere above a brutally unfriendly planet, packed with the normal fauna as well as an all-new parasite whose role underpins the entire experience.
You’ve been called in to investigate the assassination of Halcyon Helen, a Rizzo’s-funded actress, who was one of the solar system’s most recognised celebrities.
Murder on Eridanos, a campy, telenovela-style tale of intrigue, opens with a dramatic film noir beginning riddled with overacting and predictable commercial advertising, in which Helen is killed by an unknown assailant.
This opener pitches itself as an episode of an in-universe TV show, but one that… actually happened in real life?
You have no idea what’s going on in the first handful of tasks, and venturing off-piste to investigate Eridanos won’t help. The storey is so well-crafted that the only way to really appreciate it is to yield to Obsidian’s command.
While this may turn off some who prefer to control their own fate, this restrained approach to world-building works off, seamlessly combining The Outer Worlds’ idiosyncratic combination of absurdity, horror, comedy, and bureaucracy.
You and your motley band of followers have been pulled in to help fix this sad mess, and you’ve been given a new tool to do so: the Discrepancy Amplifier.
Helen’s footsteps around Eridanos, right before her untimely death, are traced by this self-aware, snarky, sci-fi version of an interactive magnifying glass, which is one of many wonderful characters in the DLC.
You’d believe Obsidian if they said the delay was due to the time it took to develop and record the script for Murder on Eridanos.
It’s a masterclass in language, with superb character exposition for even the smallest characters, especially those affected by the show’s true stars: Eridanium gigasius, a slug-like parasite native to Eridanos that Rizzo’s employs as part of its Morale Improvement Program.
The blank and painful-looking smiles are one thing, but the discourse of humans who have been possessed by these animals is outstanding.
In one scene that has stuck with me, Felix asks if one of the infected women is “really joyful, or just dying inside,” and she enthusiastically responds, “I sure am!”
You meet a self-obsessed elder thespian, the world’s worst sports player, a primal-owning recluse, a drunk cow, and the galaxy’s most unscrupulous salvager, who nearly wears his crookedness as a badge of honour as you find evidence of foul play.
Murder on Eridanos gradually teaches you about the planet and its inhabitants, as well as the evils that lurk beneath the surface–and in plain sight.
Still, it’s storyline arc and “surprises” are a touch too predictable, much like Peril on Gorgon.
Even while you’ll eventually look back on the entire detective element as an on-rails experience, it nevertheless gives you an outstanding feeling of freedom.
Even your final binary option yields the same true result–only a sociopath would pick the obvious bad option, especially because there’s clearly nothing to benefit from it unless you enjoy being a jerk.
While the journey is enjoyable, it is not without flaws. Despite the fact that the game has been upgraded for Xbox One X and PlayStation 5–promising 60 frames per second–framerates often drop to a crawl in more open regions, particularly during battles.
Its map is uninspiring, and it’s backed up by a fast-travel mechanism in serious need of UI improvements so you can pick your location by choice rather than luck.
Furthermore, classic antagonists are repeated with cynical reasons; the possessed Rizzo’s employees and parasites serve as the sole new baddies, despite their amusement.
Most importantly, throughout the final phases of the game on Xbox Series X, the game will not cease crashing.
I was booted to dashboard eight times in a row after the final sequence–something I could only fix by pulling other levers or moving in different directions in the hopes of triggering an automatic checkpoint.
Even then, quick travel would cause the game to crash, requiring a long walk back to Unreliable to complete the storey.
Even if you know there’s still a lot of gas left in the tank, you’ll feel accomplished and satisfied when you leave.
The Outer Worlds, like Control, offers a distinct, weird, mesmerising realm with nearly limitless potential, yet it has only seen a couple of DLCs that barely scrape the surface.
Let’s hope Obsidian (and Remedy) delivers the long-awaited sequel, even if it takes a decade; genius can’t be rushed.
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