Outward Definitive Edition

As soon as you think things are going well, a big chicken can come in and inadvertently send you straight to jail, where your belongings will be confiscated, and there is no escaping with them. At least that's where I found myself in this awesome sandbox adventure. It's a punishing experience. I had so far devoted maybe 15 hours to the game, clawing my way to some halfway decent gear in the game's initial map area. I had already died-by-chicken several times and often lost some amount of gear or hard fought coin along the way. Gameplay is fantastic, definitely cousin to Morrowind. While it has a lot less lore and no attributes to develop, it still scratches a similar itch. There's no GPS. There's no going back to a prior save (except, mercifully, there is). There's far less interaction with NPCs, far fewer side quests. But the creatures you battle and the scenery are incredible. I've basically lived by the same principle that exists in nature - if it looks dangerous, it probably is. I have run from as many battles as I've engaged. I lured a horrific glowing deer skull beast near several giant pistol shrimp, and marveled as it ripped them to pieces. I decided to be thankful I could outrun it and come back to fight it another day. As for prior autosaves, there is a save folder within the game files that you can delete if you've truly gotten yourself into a mess. I'm hoping never to use it again, but finding that cheat did prevent me from totally shelving this game.

Definitive Edition is to add DRM back to the game. No good, not worth a positive view--regardless of how fantastic this action/adventure/survival RPG is.

Things I wish I knew: 1. Houses can be bought back if you lose them. 2. Things outside of a house, including your tent and crafting stations, get deleted if you leave them unattended for like three days. If you die, you could trigger an event that instantly causes a few days to pass, deleting your stuff in the process. 3. If you die and get a message “your stuff is gone/stolen!” or something , you almost certainly didn’t really lose it, it’s just in a chest nearby. Die again though before retrieving it and the stuff might be gone. Those are the big ones. The game doesn’t teach how to safely hoard. Do the tutorial if you want to learn other stuff. The game is obviously a great crafting and survival game right from the start. It can seem boring from character design perspective since no stats, but there’s plenty to look into if you google trainer skill trees (you can pick 3). If the hiking bothers you, you can google movement speed upgrades, there’s a bunch. If you enable saves, don’t immediately reload when you die, the most fun I had in the game was probably working my way out of a bandit prison that I was thrown into because I died, got all my stuff back at the end.

At first I was like "okay, I'm bored, let's give it a try". The first hours were hard, but afterwards I got into the game. It caused old Gothic feelings for me. An open world that somewhat rewards looking left and right while running from A to B, but no AC like open world with tons of markers for all kinds of meaningless stuff. You got a Compass on the top of the screen and a map where you can set some own markers but that doesn't display your current location. You really have to orientate yourself based on your surroundings. Also there is no fast travel (at least without cheats). The combat system is fine, once you get into it. Just don't run mindlessly into enemies and try to berserk them. In stead better stay calm and think about your next step. Character progression works mostly over gear. There are some trainers around that can teach you some tricks and allows you to go for 3 more specialized trees but I haven't found any breaking stuff for my warrior build until now. For mages it may be different. There is no EXP/Level-up System, therefore you can't grind yourself up. Another point that you need to get used to, is that the inventory space (even with the bigger backpacks) is kinda limited. You really have to think about what do you take with you when you leave the town and what you pick up on your journeys. If you really want to run everything clear, you spend alot of time running in order to get the stuff sold. But on the other hand, it isn't necessary. After my first hours I got to a point where I was fine with my income. wealthy enough to not need to pick up every junk but still not that rich that I just buy everything the merchants offer without thinking about money. All in all, it's a decent game, but the devs have made some design decisions that won't please everyone. For me personally, I'm like 25 hours into the game, got lots of stuff to do and I'm motivated to do more of it.

The best RPG, pound-for-pound, of all time, in my opinion. Incorporates survival elements, making it so you have to think; seasonal changes in the game world force you to adapt to weather and temperature; skill and buff-based character progression- no immersion-breaking levelling up; real time combat with controller support; and wait until you see what happens when you 'die'. It can take a little getting used to in the beginning, as it is so different from your standard fare RPGs, but you will not be dissappointed in the end. Once you realise the scope and expanse of this game, you won't want it to end.