Channeling big Fallout energy means The Outer Worlds 2 could be the Starfield I always wanted

Playing through the opening of The Outer Worlds 2 I'm reminded of something – RPGs like this can just be fun, whether that's aiming down the scope of a futuristic pistol to drop a guard patrol, or navigating the strange bureaucracy of a weird, colorful planet. It's been a while, but that's always been the case. Playing the opening of The Outer Worlds 2 for an hour or two, I feel more connected to its zany world than any RPG like this in a long time.

For as serious and grim as games like The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion or Fallout: New Vegas can be, it's never those bits that stick with me. Instead, it's the awkward encounters with strange NPCs, the bizarre quests and moral dilemmas that litter the wasteland, or simply the ragdolling of corpses after (ideally) some sort of explosion. The Outer Worlds 2, coming from the developers behind Fallout: New Vegas, seems to better understand this than Bethesda themselves. The Outer Worlds 2's take on space questing packs so much life that it makes Starfield look like a curled, clingfilmed sandwich in comparison.

Corrupted by capitalism

Don't get me wrong, I do like some aspects of Starfield. The NASA-punk style is a little too streamlined, but I did like the aesthetic. Yet, little about the game felt like it was designed to inject the world with those little moments of interactivity that become talking points over Discord within minutes. It's mind boggling to me that Bethesda, whose games are otherwise known for being to the contrary, decided to fill Starfield with barren, empty planets to trek across while holding forwards on the analog stick, and for Starfield's most intriguingly strange moments to be designed specifically around multiple new game plus runs.

Starfield was a game painted almost entirely with heavy, broad brushstrokes that only become interesting if you looked at it from afar – forgetting that open world RPGs like this really shine when you're immersed, revelling in the finer detail and artistry within every inch of designed space. The Outer Worlds 2 is all about getting up close and personal, whether that's unravelling the quirky relationships between the average joes who work on these strange planets, or blowing guards into limb-shaped pieces.

In large part I think that's because The Outer Worlds 2 isn't afraid to dial in the scope a bit. The Arcadia colony you find yourself in – caught in the middle of a power struggle between factions – is still large, but not full of empty galaxy. Mixing together dense facilities and settlements with wilderness, there's a cohesion in design to both the places you explore and how you're doing it, even if for me that mostly involves being a rootin' tootin' gunslinger with a silver tongue and itchy trigger finger.

I've yet to play around in the full diversity of space Arcadia offers, my onboarding session allowing me to explore different wings of a science facility on a space station – but we've had a generous look beyond, glimpsing all the variety of environments The Outer Worlds 2 will eventually take us through. What's exciting to me is that focus – I'm sure there will be lots of small quests to solve, but the hyper-capitalist push-and-pull around what happens to Arcadia is what guides it all.

I love how that comes to the fore visually as well, creating a tangible space where big money interests really feel like they're drilling down roots into this new frontier of space like it or not. The sci-fi Art Deco style gives The Outer Worlds 2 its own identity. Unlike the more Randian take in BioShock where we see the architectural style battered and bruised in the inky black depths of the sea, The Outer Worlds 2's implementation of the style shows it glowing in full swing – an excitable commitment to technological forward progress mimicking the vibe in America's roaring '20s. A similar fervor fuels the interests behind colonizing Arcadia Bay – or at the very least, to leverage and sell that feeling to a factions' own ends.

After only a couple of hours playing The Outer Worlds 2, it's a great sign I can even write the above theorizing about its world and struggles as I get excited to jump back in. I played many, many hours of Starfield (more than I should have) and can barely tell you a thing about, say, Neon City, other than it's the place with the nightclub – and that's one its most memorable locations.

Arcadia is already shaping up to be a fascinating place to explore, and it'll hang over all the events of The Outer Worlds 2 – from how the crew members you ferry about on your ship feel about its factions, to how you move through each zone and choose to finish quests. The Outer Worlds 2's impeccable sense of place is everywhere you look and, importantly, Obsidian Entertainment are eager to let us reach out and touch it – shaping our own story with whatever kind of Earth Directorate agent we choose to play.

The Outer Worlds 2 is "going deeper and more complex" with its companions, and I'm already making grabby hands at this RPG