The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition was controversial even before its release, and after its debut many fans said it was better to go back to the original version of the game.
The Outer Worlds captured the hearts of many gamers in 2019 and has now received an upgraded edition. So it would seem that fans should celebrate the refresh of their favorite game. Nothing could be further from the truth, because The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition it was heavily criticized by gamers, including on Steam.
We’ve written about this remaster’s cold reception since its launch, but back then it was the original that took the hit, after Steam reviews bombarded it. However, 52% positive reviews in the last 30 days is still a good result compared to what the new The Outer Worlds faced.
Refreshed The Outer Worlds isn’t drowning in player praise. Source: Own / Steam.
It is true that Spacer’s Choice Edition has so far been rated by twice as many users as the original in the last 30 days. However, only 20% of the positive reviews strongly testify to the sullen mood of the fans.
Interestingly, the unfavorable reviews don’t focus on needing to pay more for an upgrade to the original The Outer Worlds. The reason the original was bombed was, in fact, the decision to include several fixes in this build, including those related to optimization, for which owners of the original have to pay an additional $10 (along with this “special” price that only applies if you already own the base game and story DLC).
Ironically, buyer complaints The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition focus on optimizing bad games. The new version seems much less efficient than the original, even on the most powerful PCs:
“It works much worse than the original version. The “improved” design doesn’t make up for huge performance hits and animation stutters that weren’t there before. Aside from the higher character level cap, (The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition) is worth anyone’s time. Unless this version of the game is significantly improved soon, it’s not worth the price increase.
Just buy the cheapest original; The Outer Worlds is awesome,” wrote Tyler McVicker.
Similar views prevail on The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition product card on Steam. At 4K resolution, even the GeForce RTX 4090 only allows the game to run at 30 frames per second.. Weaker GPUs struggle to maintain 60 fps stability at lower resolutions, even though in the original they often exceeded 200 frames.
Similar complaints can be found on social media. These threads confirm it. Optimization issues also affect consoles. There are also rare comments about new bugs, but most of them are vague.
Some Internet users claim that it is a “courtesy” of the Virtuous studio, which was commissioned by the publisher Private Division to prepare the port for the PlayStation 5 console and Xbox Series X / S. The same team was responsible for the PC release of Horizon: Zero Dawn, which was also found to be poorly optimized at launch.
Passionate about video games (and others) for years, he completed an MBA in linguistics, defending a thesis on games. He started his adventure with GlobeLiveMedia in 2015, writing in the editorial department, then also covering movies and oh, horror! – technology (also a contributor to the Games Encyclopedia). He started with platform games, which he still loves (including metroidvania), but he also likes card games (including “analog” games), fighting games, soul games and virtually any other kind of game. Don’t ask about the graphics: after a few hours of exposure, you can revel in pixelated game characters reminiscent of the days of the Game Boy era (if not older).
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