Obsidian's Back With 'Choices That Matter' (And a Few That Are Obvious Traps)

This isn't your average RPG. The Outer Worlds 2 has some mean, permanent decisions you're going to have to make, and some of them are designed to screw you over if you're not paying attention.

I've been digging into the first big set of "consequential" choices you have to make in The Outer Worlds 2, and it's a fascinating mix. Some are classic, tough Obsidian dilemmas, while others are just straight-up "Do you want the good reward or the bad one, dummy?" tests.

If you're just landing on Paradise Island and about to walk into that town hall, here's what you're facing.

Milverstreet vs. Kaur: The Bureaucrat or the Bruiser?

This is your first big faction choice, and it's a classic. When you enter the town hall in Fairfield, you're immediately caught between Minister Milverstreet and Acquisitions Officer Kaur. They hate each other, and helping one locks you out of the other forever.

Siding with Kaur is the "brute force" option. She's direct, gets you a path to the main quest (the Vox Relay Station) faster, and gives you heavy armor and a shotgun for your trouble. It's for people who want to shoot stuff and move on.

Milverstreet is the politician. His route is slower. He literally makes you complete an entirely separate quest before he'll even give you the info you need for the main story. But his rewards? Light armor for evasion... and a hat. This isn't just any hat, though. It gives +5% critical chance and +40% critical damage.

My take? Kaur is for the impatient. I'll gladly kiss a politician's ass and run an extra errand for a hat that gives me 40% critical damage. That's a build-defining piece of gear.

Inez's Graft: The Fake Choice

This one looks like a big, emotional choice, but it's a trap. Your companion Inez has a broken graft, and you need to pick a monster part to fix it. This choice is permanent and unlocks her only skill tree.

Your options are a Crabble Claw or a Raptidon Fin. The Crabble Claw sounds metal as hell. It lets Inez shoot plasma balls that reduce armor and add burn damage. The problem? The guides all say the damage is "quite low" and "not much of a game changer".

The Raptidon Fin, meanwhile, lets Inez turn invisible (which is useless, since companions don't break stealth anyway) and... it lets her heal you. This is huge. Only one other companion in the entire game, V.A.L.E.R.I.E., can heal.

This is a no-brainer. A weak-ass plasma DoT versus a second source of healing in your party? Give me the healer. It's pure utility over flash, and the flash isn't even that good. Don't pick the claw.

Alva vs. Svoboda: The "Do You Want a New Friend?" Test

Here's another one that's barely a choice. You're sent to a manufactory to find a traitor who launched a bomb. You narrow it down to two people: Alva, who's locked in a control room, and Proctor Svoboda, who's outside.

If you side with Svoboda, you have to kill Alva (who is apparently a tough fight), you get no companion, and it's later revealed you sided with the actual guilty party.

If you side with Alva, she comes out, kills the real traitor (Svoboda) for you, and you get the option to recruit her as a new companion named Marisol.

So, the choice is: A) Get a new companion and be the good guy, or B) Get no companion, do a tough fight, and be the villain's chump. This is just an idiot test. Side with Alva.

The Vox Relay: The First Real Gut-Punch

This is it. This is the first choice that feels like classic, painful Obsidian. At the end of the "Saboteur of Paradise" quest, you accidentally trigger a fail-safe, and the entire giant space station is going to crash and wipe a town off the map.

Your choice is where it lands: Fairfield (the default) or Westport.

This one has real stakes. If you let it hit Fairfield, the main town hub is gone. Rubble. No more shops, no more quests. Even worse, your companion Inez will be so pissed off that she might permanently leave your party. That's a massive consequence.

If you switch the target, Westport gets wiped out instead. It's a less valuable hub, but it's still a town full of people.

But this is an Obsidian game, which means there's a "golden path" if you built your character right. If you have a Hacking skill of 4, you can just reroute the station into space, saving everyone. If you took the Lucky trait at character creation, you can "hit it" and it'll fly off into space.

This is the real choice: did you invest in Hacking, or are you about to find out just how much your decisions (and your build) actually matter?