Microsoft's annually held summer game bash, the Xbox Games Showcase, has come and gone once again. A huge range of different and diverse developers showed off projects they're bringing to Xbox, PC, and Xbox Ally handheld players soon, but one studio in particular stood out: Obsidian Entertainment.
Following up on the release of Avowed earlier this year, the storied RPG developer also showed off two more games coming later in 2025 with The Outer Worlds 2 Direct — a follow-up presentation to the main show in which we got a deep look at both The Outer Worlds 2 and Grounded 2.
The former is headed our way on October 29, 2025 (you'll get Early Access if you preorder the Premium Edition) and the latter is coming in Early Access at the end of June, with both set to launch on Xbox Game Pass. Notably, The Outer Worlds 2 is Microsoft's first $80 game, though after seeing everything shown today, I'd say there's a good chance it's worth that asking price.
Indeed, there was a ton of information in Obsidian's presentation; so much, in fact, that a standard news article wouldn't have been nearly enough to cover everything the studio had to share. Below, though, I've broken down everything revealed about both The Outer Worlds 2 and Grounded 2 in detail. Without further ado, here are seven big The Outer Worlds 2 highlights from the show, along with a look at Obsidian's survival game sequel.
Everything will be bigger and deeper than the original
Obsidian went into plenty of detail about both The Outer Worlds 2 and Grounded 2 during its Direct presentation, and rest assured, I'll get into all the juicy stuff below. In its opening few minutes, though, the developer gave a broad overview of what to expect from the former sequel that I'll summarize here.
With The Outer Worlds 2, Obsidian has focused on making the follow-up RPG a larger and deeper experience than its predecessor, with the studio taking advantage of more development time and a larger budget. Players can look forward to expanded and/or more impactful options for character building, combat, roleplaying, along with a meatier story and more reactivity to their actions on Arcadia and beyond.
Treating the first The Outer Worlds as a baseline, Obsidian has expanded all of these gameplay pillars in the sequel to better support player freedom and expression — with a particularly large focus on skills, traits, and how they come into play throughout the experience.
Fallout: New Vegas-style traits and skills are here
One of The Outer Worlds 2's biggest advancements comes in the form of deeper character creation options, with Obsidian looking to its widely beloved, critically acclaimed 2010 RPG Fallout: New Vegas for strong inspiration. The first step of the process is selecting one of many backgrounds; this gives you a basic idea of where your character comes from and how they fit into the game's setting, and will give you unique options in conversations and gameplay scenarios.
Then, you'll pick traits, which have replaced The Outer World's attributes and are very similar to the traits from classic Fallout titles. These come in both positive and negative varieties, and provide you with sizable buffs and debuffs while also making some unique interactions available like your choice of background does. Lucky, for example, raises your base critical hit chance by 5% and will lead to options you wouldn't have otherwise too.
Skills are next, and these govern how effective you are at using different types of gear or solving problems in a given way, and in The Outer Worlds 2, they've been condensed to address bloat in the first game while simultaneously making each point you put into skills as you level up more impactful. Your skills also dictate what kinds of perks you can take; these open up new gameplay options and abilities, with The Outer Worlds 2 said to feature more perks than Fallout: New Vegas.
Last but certainly not least are Flaws, which return from the first game with a rework that transforms them from purely negative attributes to quirks that have both positive and negative gameplay effects. One, called Bad Knees, permanently buffs your movement speed but causes your character's knees to make a loud popping sound when you stand up after crouching — ruining any chance of stealth. Another, Kleptomaniac, lets you sell stolen items for more money, but can cause you to automatically steal an item owned by someone else if you get close to it.
There's a huge emphasis on player freedom
Supporting player agency and choice is a massive part of what makes any open RPG like The Outer Worlds 2 fun to play, and Obsidian has assured players that they won't feel restricted in the sequel. During the presentation, it showed how there are a multitude of different ways to lower and cross a bridge in one of the game's early quests.
Talking your way past its security checkpoint with a silver tongue is one way, as is going in guns blazing to storm the bridge itself. You can also sneak in, lower the bridge, and then sneak under it to cross, and certain items you find like a gas shield or double-jump boots can allow you to circumvent the bridge entirely by safely crossing the hazards it was built to deal with.
There's even one particularly dark solution in which you can sell out one of your companions wanted by the faction guarding the bridge, earning yourself a pass to cross it in the process. The developer said it best during the Direct: "When you build your character your way, we're there for you. We really want you to have the experience you want out of this."
Arcadia, factions, and the story it's telling
Whereas the first The Outer Worlds took place in the Halcyon system, the sequel primarily features a new colony world called Arcadia where a three-way war is being fought over the planet. It's controlled by a heavily militarized and authoritarian group called the Protectorate that sacrifices personal freedoms for security, and was founded by the inventor of the skip drives that enable faster-than-light travel in the setting.
These skip drives have begun to cause mysterious and dangerous rifts in space time, however, leading the Earth Directorate governmental body to send you — an agent of the organization — to Arcadia to try and find answers. As you investigate, you'll also interact with the other big players in the war: The Order of the Ascendant, an offshoot of the Order of Scientific Inquiry with a scientific religion about finding a way to predict the future for mankind's benefit, and the Auntie's Choice megacorporation — a merger of Auntie Cleo and Space's Choice from the first game.
The Protectorate wants to find a solution for the rifts to protect its legacy and wealth, while the Order seeks to fix them so they don't threaten innocent life and stop complicating their efforts to "solve the universal equation." Auntie's Choice, meanwhile, just wants to find a way to control the rifts so it can exploit them to manipulate intergalactic trade.
Obsidian says the three factions are integrated into the story far more deeply than they were in The Outer Worlds, complete with distinct types of satirical humor and high reactivity to the player's choices. Notably, the studio is bringing a Fallout-style radio to the experience with faction-specific stations you can tune into; depending on the decisions you've made and actions you've taken, you'll be able to hear them react positively or negatively to your influence.
Meet the game's companions
The Outer Worlds had six companions in total, and its follow-up sequel has six as well. Each one has their own questline to progress through during your adventure, as well as interesting ties to the game's three factions and character arcs you can influence.
Five of them were introduced during the Direct, so here's a quick overview of each one:
- Niles: Another Earth Directorate agent at a crossroads trying to decide if he wants to keep the job or turn his back on the Directorate. Has an automech drone named Val, too.
- Marisol: An aging, but ruthless assassin working for the Order of the Ascendant that has "unfinished business" to attend to. The player can help her with it.
- Aza: A cultist that worships the skip drive rifts and is obsessed with violence; you can either try to turn her away from her fanaticism or encourage her to further embrace it.
- Inez: A combat medic that survived a failed Auntie's Choice experiment to graft animal parts onto soldiers. You'll be able to help her fix her graft.
- Tristan: A loyal Protectorate adjudicator that wears heavy armor from head to toe. You can help him dole out his sentences or "show him what true justice looks like."
Obsidian says that similar to the factions, the companions will each react to your choices based on how they align with their own values as well as how you've influenced them over time. It's also suggested something drastic will happen at the end of the game "if you haven't been treating them well."
The "World War 1-like setting in space" aesthetic
Obsidian's first The Outer Worlds title was notable for its bright, vibrant colors and sci-fi space frontier style, but the sequel is going for something a bit different. With Auntie's Choice's invasion of Arcadia and the conflict between both groups and the Order of the Ascendant at the heart of the RPG, the developer has chosen an aesthetic that's noticeably darker and grittier — describing it as "World War 1-like setting in space" during the show.
In line with this direction, the game's three factions and its various settlements are characterized by heavy militarization and the frequent use of propaganda, with one example being Fairfield — a Protectorate town taken over by Auntie's Choice in which the latter has repainted structures, spread propaganda holograms, and posted guards on every street corner.
The studio has also prioritized making sure each group and faction has distinct and recognizable styles for their clothing, armor, and structures, ensuring that players aren't confused about who they're talking to or fighting throughout the game.
New weapons and gameplay enhancements
In the final segment of The Outer Worlds 2 portion of the Direct, Obsidian showed off many of the new gameplay additions, weapons, and more that players can expect from the sequel. Mobility and movement options, for example, have been greatly expanded with sprinting, sliding, double jumping, and mantling. Also, you can go into the third-person perspective if you'd like to, allowing you to appreciate the look of your character and gear.
The developer also focused heavily on elevating gunplay with improved animations, recoil impact, and sound effects, and has introduced new weapon types as well as throwables and bespoke unique weapons and armors, too. Of these, the following were shown:
- Boarst Blaster: A firearm that shoots exploding tumors you can also eat yourself to regain health
- Rookie's Reward: A rifle that levels up with you as you use it throughout the game
- Pop-Up: This weapon fires out drones that play corporate ads and distract enemies; the drones can be made to explode to hurt them
- Armageddon: A launcher that fires little arm tendrils that stick to surfaces and repeatedly damage any target that comes close to them
- Spectrum Dance Saber: This sword gets damage bonuses if you swing it to the beat of a song, essentially creating a rhythm game minigame
- Big Bang: A huge gun that shoots rift energy, vaporizing anything in its path; ammo is very, very scarce
- Gary: An armor that's essentially a wearable monster that lashes out at enemies that get close to you
Oh, and the Shrink Ray is returning from The Outer Worlds, now with longer-lasting shrinkage and the ability to squish any enemy you hit with it under your boot like an ant for an instant kill. And, speaking of bugs...
Everything we know about Grounded 2
The Outer Worlds 2 was definitely the primary focus of Obsidian's Direct, but Grounded 2 also got its own segment as well. In it, the developer revealed that the sequel to its 2020 survival game — widely praised for the unique concept of shrinking humans down to bug-size and forcing them to contend with backyard creepy crawlies — is on the way, with an Early Access release scheduled for July 29, 2025 next month.
Being developed in partnership with Eidos-Montréal (Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy) and with community feedback from Early Access, Grounded 2 takes place two years after the first game did in 1992 and will feature the same four characters in Brookhollow Community Park — a map three times the size of Grounded's Backyard setting.
Brookhollow will have multiple different biomes to explore as a result of man's influence, such as a toppled over ice cream cart that serves as a wintry region on the map. Fans can also look forward to an expanded combat system with dashes, light and heavy attacks, and blocking; these maneuvers are used by enemies, too, and interact with one another in a rock-paper-scissors manner.
There are also many new types of passive and active mutations to support creative buildcrafting, and notably, Obsidian is even adding mounts — a highly requested feature that never made it into the first Grounded. These "buggies" will help you fight as well as transport materials and travel faster; at launch, there will be red ant soldiers and orb weaver spiders, but further "buggies" will come in future updates.
The developer says that with Grounded 2, fans can expect updates to be larger and more substantial than they were with the original, though they might take a bit longer as a result. The sequel is also launching with a public roadmap that will be updated as Obsidian grows the scope of the title.
