The Outer Worlds is the newest game made by Obsidian, the previous creators of Fallout: New Vegas. And, if you loved that game, you'll love this one much in the same way. They both play pretty similarly, though Outer Worlds is an improvement and definitely manages to have a darker tone, which is surprising considering New Vegas takes place in a post-nuclear apocalypse world. In any case, Outer Worlds is rife with unique weapons, abilities, and gear.
There's a fair amount of planets to explore which means plenty of room for the developers to hide secrets. Some of these "secrets" are mechanics that aren't explained well, some of them are hidden items, and even a few are just secret ways to make the game better. We've done our research, fared all the planets (each more dangerous than the last), scoured every menu or setting, and returned home to let everyone know some of the most important secrets players might be missing.
10 There Are Tons Of Science Weapons To Find
There are quite a few Science Weapons in The Outer Worlds, and all of them seem to have some sort of wacky effect. Whether it's floating enemies, switching between elements, or shrinking foes to pint-sizes, all of them are a blast to use. We aren't expecting a lot of people to miss all of them entirely, but we know that there are at least a few most players won't find.
The most obvious ones is the Prismatic Hammer found on Groundbreaker and Phineas' Shrink Ray found right in his secret base. And, because we didn't want to fill this entire "secret" article with all the Science Weapons, we instead just decided to go ahead and say keep an eye out for them!
9 Players Can Make A Big Junk Pile
Originally, we thought that the "Junk" category of items was just like the random creature pelts we were picking up and empty boxes of food. But actually, Outer Worlds has a Junk labeling mechanic very similar to another recent game, Borderlands 3. Basically, anything the player wants to sell, they can mark as Junk with a button press.
Once they're at a vendor, they just have to hold another button to sell all "Junked" items at once. It's really handy for piling up all the useless stuff that sells for a mediocre price. Again, not a secret per se, but we've noticed plenty of players missing out on this or getting confused as we did originally.
8 Make The Perfect Companions
Companions are insanely strong in Outer Worlds. Their special moves do some crazy damage, they passively buff the player's stats, and they also add some insight or extra dialog to most scenes. What people may not be aware of, however, is that they can actually choose how their Companion acts!
It's not hidden, but these options are buried just deep enough for players to miss. In these settings, you can change the distance, preferred weapon usage, and overall temperament of each companion for the most optimal experience. Also just because companions use certain weapons in their special moves doesn't mean they can only use those weapon types.
7 No More Un-Killable NPCs
Sure, this next secret will likely only be discovered by the truly deranged and murderous players. But there was always an annoying little "feature" in past Fallout games, and that annoyance was that some NPC's weren't killable. Players would shoot a quest giver and they'd simply be knocked out, which would hint that they were important to the main story.
This, quite frankly, was lame as it spoiled the important characters and took agency away from players. Luckily, this is no longer the case with Outer Worlds. Developers have confirmed that the most twisted players can murder everything and everyone in sight and still make it to the end of the game just fine.
6 The Ship Has Tons More Storage Than Expected
There is no "My Storage" area of the Unreliable. Players don't have a storage box with a specific label that allows them to store things any differently than they normally. Honestly, we wish there was an end-all-be-all sorting chest.
However, any container on the ship can still work as one. The lockers near the door, the box in the captain's quarters, heck players could even store their armor in the fridge if they wanted to. Everything in the ship works as a "storage area" for the player character, so people don't have to worry that the stuff they dropped off will dissappear anytime soon.
5 Perks For Completing Companion Quests
Another reason not to go it alone in Outer Worlds are the companion Questlines. These are a series of smaller quests that culminate in "solving" a crucial part of each companion's motivations or backstory. For Vicar Sam, it's the heretical religious text he's looking for. For Pavarti, it's helping her find a girlfriend.
Each one plays out differently but the rewards are all the same, namely a neat character-specific Perk for each companion that's worth the effort. Plus, we love helping these loveable misfits!
4 Standardized Skill Check Numbers
It's not stated anywhere in the game, but Outer Worlds absolutey has standard numbers it uses for the skill checks that it sprinkles throughout the game. Players can have their Hack at 20 if they want, but they should absolutely bump it up to 35 if they want to actually do anything with it.
Sure, every now and again players can threaten someone with only 20 Intimidate. But, most of the important interactions and skill checks will keep to these "standardized" amounts. What we're trying to say is that it's rare to see any 10-20 point Skill Checks. Rather, amounts like 35, 55, 80, 90, and 100 seem to be the set-in-stone numbers that most checks in the game use.
3 The S.A.M Robophobia Dilemna
Not many of the games' flaws have any narrative consequence. It's not like our player character will talk to any of the reptiles they can end up terrified of. But there is one flaw we've noticed that has a pretty hilarious dialog option. Early on in our game, we nabbed the Robophobia Flaw. And, like it sounds, this flaw caused us to be terrified of Robots.
Every time we talked to a robot, there was a dialog option that's nothing but terrified screaming. While traveling with SAM, we noticed that this speech option was present once again. Hilariously, our phobic debuff was constantly active, meaning that running around with SAM keeps us terrified 100% of the time! It makes us wonder just how many other flaws have gameplay aspects like this.
2 Not Every Skill Check Should Be Taken
This is a fact anyone who played the Dead Money DLC for Fallout 3 knows about, and that's the fact that skill checks aren't always positive. Sometimes they ruin potential future sidequests, and other times they straight up lead to conflict. Sure, there's an EXP bonus whenever the player uses one, but that doesn't always make it the right answer.
Players should pay attention to the entire conversation, then pick the option that makes the most sense rather than just looking for skill checks. Otherwise, players will end up threatening almost every interactable NPC.
1 You Can Do Multiple Mission Objectives At Once
The last thing the min-maxers from the Fallout era like ourselves are willing to share is the most efficient way of doing quests. Basically, it involves completing all the different paths of a quest at once for bonus EXP. For example, in Monarch, there's an NPC is looking for a certain drug, and the pharmacy won't give it to her. Our options are to complete the quest are either to threaten the pharmacist, Lockpick the storeroom upstairs, or dig up the previous pharmacists grave for his key.
Now whats the best option? Normally, any of the three work. But, to maximize content and EXP gain it becomes Lockpicking the storeroom, but don't grab the drugs. Instead, grab the key from the old deceased pharmacist, then threaten the new one. This way, we've essentially completed all three optional objectives at once and received bonus exp three different times along the way.