The Outer Worlds: Bridget You Really are not Charming

I have been playing The Outer Worlds obsessively over the last week and just finished the main quest. It turns out that Bridget’s lack of charm meant that she struggled to gain a positive reputation with factions and use her companions as effectively. She was all over the place with dialogue but managed to blow her relationship with Pavarti early on. She did keep her focus on tech skills but developed stealth and sniping skills as well. I was a little disappointed in science bonuses until Bridget began tinkering a lot. Her favourite weapons were an assault rifle modded for corrosion damage, the Shrink Ray and the Mind Control Ray. The game is quite forgiving in normal mode depending on party members. Bridget ruled Monarch with Sam and Nyoka who was equipped with an N-Ray spewing machine gun. They handled Mega beasts, Automechnicals and mobs with ease. Otherwise, Bridget was a little dull. I can’t say I was all that invested in her but I was distracted by the main story and was quite anxious to see how it all worked out. Things ended well for the most part and she was acknowledged for the brilliant doctor and scientist she was. With a little more charm she might make a good candidate for a survival run although the early going would be rough.

I did get a little bored doing side quests but I enjoyed the main story and the faction quests. There was one task I couldn’t finish and I am certain I missed a few quests. Because of Bridget’s charm deficit she never got beyond friendly with most of the factions and was on shoot to kill status with a couple of them. I don’t know if the extra attribute point is worth choosing a below average status for any attribute besides Intelligence. There’s so many different ways you can either boost or handicap your character it’s head spinning.

I give Obsidian credit for providing decent tutorials and help but this is such an information dense game that I failed to absorb much of what I saw. What I did absorb was consistently surprising or amusing. Finding domestic chickens in such a goofy alien environment was oddly comforting and I actually did become phobic of robots and their beeping. There’s nothing like Sam enthusiastically shouting “Entering quiet mode” when we attempt stealth.

On one play through it’s difficult to give a review beyond “works out of the box” and “it’s a hoot”. I am already planning another character and hopefully this one will be worth a journal. This time I will do a thorough inspection of the ship before we head out. I picked up collectibles that I either didn’t notice or looked futilely in the inventory for if I did. For some bizarre reason I thought companions would use their special attacks automatically which I now don’t believe they do. I just let them run around doing their thing and never managed them beyond keeping them close. I used the Shrink Ray like it was a combo which worked well actually. I seem to have missed a significant facet of game play. This next character should focus on managing and exploiting companions.