Outward is a beautiful game that challenges the player and inspires creativity. Dropped in this vast world you quickly realize that combat is not easy, however neither is anything else. Nine Dots Studio has created a wonderful balancing act that creates the feeling of an epic journey. For quite a while you really feel like a nobody. If you aren’t careful a regular old bandit will take you down with ease. But the music really sets the mood. Even at the beginning with rags for clothes and a quarterstaff or farming tool for a weapon, you step outside and the music makes you feel like Bilbo bagging at the start of his epic journey.

This game is an emotional roller coaster. The feeling when you take down a difficult enemy is great, and likewise when you underestimate a pearlbird and die to this oversized chicken it can be frustrating. Death in this game has a very interesting approach, rather than dying you are knocked unconscious and a random event happens. Sometimes this is great for the player and a traveler will pick you up and take you to the city you were on your way to. Other times you wake up as a slave in a dark prison thirsty with only river water to drink, upon drinking the water you may now have indigestion and the slow climb back to stabilizing yourself begins.

The story is nothing too incredible, but it forces the player to explore this vast world which is where you create your own story. There are a lot of different styles of play available to the player and of the ones I have tried they all seem to have their strengths and weaknesses, and all have a feeling of “viability”.

My favorite things are the availability of play styles, the beautiful scenery, simple yet expansive crafting system, and so much forced creativity. As someone who put a lot of time into Fable and ES3: Morrowind when I was younger, Outward is the game I forgot I wanted.

The few complaints I have are as follows: voice acting is awful and doesn’t match the text(this can be avoided by turning off voice volume), some of the textures look bland or even unidentifiable, inventory management takes too much time and I think it should be looked at again.

9/10 Would recommend!