I’m in Outer Worlds 2 flaw hell, and I don’t want to leave

Perhaps the boldest and most dynamic aspect of The Outer Worlds 2 is the flaws system, where the game will periodically give you a choice of a new perk with both an upside and a downside to choose from. These will develop organically from your playstyle, and while these were pretty bare bones in the first Outer Worlds, I found the Outer Worlds 2 flaws to be fascinating and, at times, genuinely game-changing. 

On my first playthrough for our Outer Worlds 2 review, I leafed through the flaws as they appeared, got a good chuckle, and threw most of them to the wayside. Some of them seemed like they fit my playstyle, but I didn’t want to risk the downsides on my first go around. However, this all changed when I saw the ‘Easily Distracted’ flaw.

✓ VideoGamer Summary

• The Outer Worlds 2 flaws system is much improved over the first game.
• The ‘Easily Distracted’ flaw was the anchor of my first playthrough, and completely changed how I engaged with the game.
• The Outer Worlds 2 does require some level of specialisation to get the best outcomes, so the build did run into some issues.
• I immediately started a new game afterwards to make use of the flaws to make new Outer Worlds 2 builds.
• Not only do the flaws add depth to The Outer Worlds 2, they also add some fun ribbing at the player’s expense.

The Outer Worlds 2 flaws system defined my playthrough

The ‘Easily Distracted’ flaw gives you more skill points on level up, an objectively powerful boost in a game that gives you more choices and content the more skills you have access to. I don’t care about unlimited power or flashy fighting; what I want is to be the ultimate skill monkey, and Easily Distracted provided. 

Of course, with any flaws upside comes the downside. The ‘Easily Distracted’ flaw will give you more skill points, but forces you to distribute them to the lowest invested skills each time. In short, you’re a jack of all trades and master of none, so you’d better hope that’s good enough.

For most of the Outer Worlds 2, having a wide spread of skills just gives you more options. Fast talk your way to a peaceful solution, use observation to find hidden walls, or unblock malfunctioning doors with your engineering prowess. It’s a very fun way to do a first run and even led me to playing in ways I wouldn’t normally. 

We are our flaws

I love the sneaky sniper route, and I feared my forced points in melee were going to be utterly wasted. However, when I picked up a radioactive scythe that I fell in love with it so much that it became my chosen weapon. If ‘Easily Distracted’ hadn’t put me on that path, I would have barely considered trying it. However, The Outer Worlds 2 doesn’t let you coast with uninvested skills for long, and my playthrough soon started hitting blockers. 

Each skill can be invested in all the way up to 20, an unattainable goal with my jack-of-all-trades restrictions. Some important conversations and investigations brought up unsatisfactory results, and bosses who could not be talked down had to start to die. 

However, this did positively highlight the broad range of options that The Outer Worlds 2 gives you. I found that several conversations with prohibitively high speech requirements became more manageable with the right information in my pocket. I could beat them down with facts as well as charm.

Time for a new, flawed run

When the credits rolled on my first run-through on The Outer Worlds 2, I had one thing on my mind: how would I approach my second playthrough? This wasn’t just because I wanted to spend more time with the companions or try out some different outcomes, but because of one flaw in particular that I had to turn down that excited me so much. 

After you’ve picked up a few flaws, the aptly named ‘Flawed’ flaw appears as an option, and gives you an extra real perk every 5 levels. With a max level of 30 in the game, this changes your potential total perks from 15 to 21, which is not an inconsiderable leap. The downside of all this is that you no longer get to pick if you want to get a new flaw when it shows up; you can only accept it.

The game even warns you that this isn’t recommended for a first playthrough, because there are some nasty Outer Worlds 2 flaws out there. ‘Kleptomania’ will occasionally steal objects automatically when you’re looking at them, and ‘Foot-In-Mouth Syndrome’ forces you to make choices in dialogues quickly, or the game will make those decisions for you randomly. This is utterly terrible for a first playthrough, but utterly amazing as a game choice.

The Outer Worlds 2 says it’s fun to be a loser

You can definitely game The Outer Worlds 2 to make this kind of flawed run more bearable. I gave my new protagonist the Dumb trait, removing the ability to invest in five skills, which means ‘Easily Distracted’ can boost my skills to a higher baseline. I also picked up the Witty trait, which means my faction reputation can never go into the negatives, so people will only be at worst disappointed by my constant stealing compulsion.

As well as just being fun to incorporate into your Outer Worlds 2 builds, they’re also hilarious reflections of the way you play. It feels like the game is calling you out on your playstyle when Outer Worlds 2 sends you a new flaw. In-game, this can be as simple as the ‘Bad Knees’ perk from your overreliance on crouching.

In an industry full of bland power fantasies, The Outer Worlds 2 shows us that what we can’t do can be just as intriguing as what we can. The flaws system is a novel source of replayability and engagement, which has kept me invested long after my first sight of the credits. 

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