The Best Games Like The Outer Worlds

Games like The Outer Worlds at a glance

How these alternatives were selected

The strongest alternatives share several of The Outer Worlds’ defining qualities:

• Dialogue choices that change quests or relationships
• Factions with competing interests rather than simple morality
• Companions who contribute to the story
• First-person exploration and combat
• Flexible character builds or multiple ways through missions
• Science-fiction, dystopian or politically divided settings
• Satire, dark humor or criticism of powerful institutions
• Availability on PC

The first seven are the closest role-playing matches. Later picks preserve specific strengths such as ideological storytelling, systemic levels, co-op shooting or hostile open-world exploration.

1. Fallout: New Vegas

Best overall game like The Outer Worlds

Fallout: New Vegas is the closest alternative because Obsidian Entertainment built both games around factions, dialogue skills and role-playing choices with visible consequences.

The Courier enters a conflict over Hoover Dam involving several powers with incompatible plans for the Mojave. Supporting one faction can close opportunities with another, while smaller communities react to local decisions.

Skills influence more than combat. Speech, science, medicine and other abilities can unlock information or solutions that a different character may never see.

Companions bring personal quests and their own views of the wasteland. The player can help characters confront parts of their history while deciding which allies fit the final campaign.

Gunplay and presentation reflect the game’s age, but its quest design remains the strongest match for players who enjoyed talking through problems or exploiting a faction’s internal contradictions.

Choose Fallout: New Vegas when player agency, satire and replayable quest outcomes matter most. It is also relatively light on storage compared with newer open-world RPGs.

2. The Outer Worlds 2

Best direct successor

The Outer Worlds 2 is the direct sequel and the clearest choice for players who want another Obsidian first-person science-fiction RPG.

The game follows a new protagonist in a different colony, creating another opportunity to define a character through skills, flaws and decisions rather than continuing the original crew’s exact story.

Dialogue, companions and competing political forces remain central. The sequel expands the scale of combat and exploration while preserving the tension between corporate messaging and the lives affected by it.

It remains a single-player experience. Players looking for cooperative space exploration should consider Borderlands 2 or No Man’s Sky instead.

Choose The Outer Worlds 2 when the original’s tone and role-playing structure are non-negotiable. Its higher listed memory and storage requirements make it substantially more demanding than the first game.

3. Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Best for a companion-driven space story

Mass Effect Legendary Edition collects the single-player campaigns and most additional content from Commander Shepard’s trilogy.

The story spans planets, species and political conflicts, but its strongest connection to The Outer Worlds is the squad. Companions accompany Shepard in combat, offer personal missions and react to decisions across the wider campaign.

Choices can continue between games. Relationships, alliances and the survival of important characters therefore shape later events rather than ending with one quest log.

Combat is third person, and the story is more cinematic and militarized than The Outer Worlds’ corporate frontier satire.

Choose Mass Effect when companions and consequential space opera matter more than first-person exploration. The complete trilogy also requires a much larger installation than the lighter alternatives.

4. Cyberpunk 2077

Best open-world corporate dystopia

Cyberpunk 2077 places V inside Night City, where corporations, gangs and individuals compete for power in a society shaped by technology and exploitation.

Character development supports firearms, hacking, stealth and close combat. Missions often provide several routes, allowing a build to influence how a problem is approached.

The strongest similarity is the corporate dystopia. Both games use advertising and institutional language to contrast promised prosperity with the people damaged by the system.

Cyberpunk 2077 offers a much larger and denser continuous city. It is less focused on isolated settlements, and its tone is more serious despite moments of dark humor.

Choose it when The Outer Worlds’ criticism of corporate power and flexible first-person builds were the main appeal. Its modern open world requires considerably stronger PC hardware.

5. Starfield

Best for large-scale space exploration

Starfield expands the first-person space-RPG structure across many systems, settlements and planets.

Players create a character, join factions, recruit crew, build ships and pursue quests at a self-directed pace. Combat, dialogue and exploration all contribute to progression.

Its scale is the main distinction. The Outer Worlds concentrates on a smaller colony where locations and factions are closely connected, while Starfield provides a much broader sandbox.

Companions and faction quest lines create authored stories inside that larger structure. Ship construction and space travel also provide systems not present in The Outer Worlds.

Choose Starfield when freedom to roam and build a personal spacefaring identity matters more than compact satire. Its listed installation and memory requirements are among the largest in this ranking.

6. GreedFall

Best for diplomacy and faction politics

GreedFall replaces space corporations with colonial powers, native communities and competing institutions on the island of Teer Fradee.

The protagonist acts as a diplomat whose decisions can improve or damage relationships between factions. Quests may support negotiation, deception, stealth or combat.

Companions are connected to those groups. Their personal quests reveal more about the setting and can affect loyalty or available outcomes.

Combat is third person and the world is fantasy rather than science fiction. The role-playing structure is the stronger link: both games ask the player to navigate organizations whose interests rarely align.

Choose GreedFall when faction politics and companions mattered more than shooting. Its smaller production scale also gives it a rougher but more focused identity than many large open-world RPGs.

7. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Best dark fantasy first-person RPG

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon reimagines Arthurian legend as a dark open-world RPG viewed primarily from first person.

Players explore a divided land, develop combat and utility skills, and make choices inside a branching story. Character customization supports several approaches to danger.

The setting is far darker than Halcyon, but both games build role-playing around exploration, dialogue and a protagonist entering conflicts without one predetermined identity.

Its fantasy world replaces firearms and corporate satire with magic, legends and decay. The open structure still rewards investigating beyond the obvious route.

Choose Tainted Grail when the first-person RPG framework matters more than science fiction. It is a useful bridge for players looking for another reactive world with a very different atmosphere.

8. Atomfall

Best compact survival mystery

Atomfall takes place in a quarantined part of Britain after a nuclear disaster.

The player explores villages, bunkers and wilderness while gathering information, bartering and deciding which leads to follow. Rather than presenting one fixed quest chain, the investigation can develop through discoveries and conversations.

Resources are more limited than in The Outer Worlds, making combat a risk rather than the answer to every encounter. Crafting and scavenging support survival between major discoveries.

The world contains groups with different explanations and priorities. Understanding those interests is part of uncovering what happened.

Choose Atomfall for a smaller first-person mystery with exploration and factions. It offers less companion development, but its compact structure is closer to The Outer Worlds than a vast procedural universe.

9. BioShock Infinite

Best directed science-fiction story

BioShock Infinite sends Booker DeWitt to the floating city of Columbia to find Elizabeth.

Columbia presents itself as a perfect society while its institutions reveal exploitation, exclusion and ideological control. That contrast between public messaging and lived reality resembles The Outer Worlds’ corporate settlements.

Combat combines firearms with supernatural Vigors, while skylines create rapid movement through larger encounters.

Elizabeth accompanies Booker and contributes to both the story and moment-to-moment survival. The relationship is authored rather than chosen through a companion system.

Choose BioShock Infinite when setting, ideology and a concentrated narrative matter more than branching quests. It is a shooter first, with less control over the final shape of the protagonist.

10. Dishonored 2

Best for systemic mission freedom

Dishonored 2 lets players enter detailed locations with supernatural powers, weapons and several possible routes.

A mission can be approached through stealth, direct combat, vertical movement or manipulation of guards and environmental systems. The game reacts to the overall level of violence across the campaign.

It does not provide The Outer Worlds’ dialogue-heavy faction structure. The similarity lies in making the player’s chosen approach mechanically meaningful.

Two playable protagonists offer different powers, encouraging another campaign built around a separate toolset and style.

Choose Dishonored 2 when freedom inside missions mattered more than companions or open-world exploration. Its levels are compact spaces designed for experimentation rather than one continuous map.

11. Borderlands 2

Best co-op action and dark humor

Borderlands 2 pushes first-person role-playing toward loot, character classes and cooperative combat.

Four core Vault Hunters provide different skill trees and action abilities. Equipment changes constantly, turning the search for more effective or unusual weapons into the main progression loop.

Pandora is filled with eccentric characters, exaggerated corporations and hostile environments. The humor is louder and less restrained than The Outer Worlds’ satire.

Borderlands 2 supports solo and cooperative play. It is the strongest multiplayer option among the main recommendations, but dialogue choices do not reshape its story to the same extent.

Choose it when gunplay, comedy and playing with friends matter more than faction consequences. Its listed requirements are also modest compared with current open-world shooters.

12. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Best atmospheric survival world

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl places the player inside the Zone, an open environment shaped by anomalies, mutants, scavengers and faction conflict.

Exploration is dangerous. Ammunition, equipment and knowledge of the environment matter because an unexpected threat can turn a routine journey into a survival problem.

The game combines first-person shooting with role-playing choices and an authored story. Its tone is far harsher than The Outer Worlds, with little of Halcyon’s colorful satire.

Factions and discoveries give the Zone a reactive identity, but the experience is driven more strongly by atmosphere and survival than companion conversation.

Choose S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 when exploration and a hostile living world were the strongest attractions. Its listed PC requirements and installation are demanding.

Which Outer Worlds alternative should you play first?

Match the recommendation to the feature you want to preserve:

• Closest overall alternative: Fallout: New Vegas
• Direct sequel: The Outer Worlds 2
• Companion-driven space story: Mass Effect Legendary Edition
• Corporate dystopian open world: Cyberpunk 2077
• Large-scale space exploration: Starfield
• Diplomacy and faction politics: GreedFall
• Dark fantasy first-person role-playing: Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
• Compact survival mystery: Atomfall
• Directed ideological story: BioShock Infinite
• Systemic mission freedom: Dishonored 2
• Co-op shooting and humor: Borderlands 2
• Atmospheric survival exploration: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Fallout: New Vegas is the safest first recommendation because it shares Obsidian’s approach to factions and dialogue. The Outer Worlds 2 is the direct continuation of the formula, while Mass Effect offers the strongest companion relationships.

Best games for dialogue and meaningful choices

Fallout: New Vegas provides the closest match for skill checks, faction outcomes and quests with several competing solutions.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition carries major decisions through a connected trilogy, while GreedFall ties diplomacy and companion loyalty to its faction conflicts.

Cyberpunk 2077 and Tainted Grail provide more action-focused alternatives where dialogue and character development still influence important outcomes.

Choose based on scale. New Vegas and GreedFall emphasize faction politics, while Mass Effect turns decisions into a galaxy-spanning story.

Best science-fiction worlds to explore

The Outer Worlds 2 stays closest to Halcyon’s colorful corporate frontier. Starfield offers the largest explorable setting, but its planets and systems create a more dispersed experience.

Mass Effect builds a connected galaxy through missions and conversations rather than one open map. Cyberpunk 2077 focuses tightly on one dense futuristic city.

BioShock Infinite is the most directed option. Columbia is not a sandbox, but nearly every location contributes to the city’s ideology and central mystery.

Best companion-focused alternatives

Mass Effect Legendary Edition is the clear first choice for players who became attached to the Unreliable’s crew. Squadmates develop across three games and react to major decisions.

GreedFall also connects companions to factions and personal quests. Starfield provides recruitable crew and relationship paths inside a broader exploration sandbox.

Fallout: New Vegas offers memorable companions whose histories illuminate the Mojave’s factions. Its presentation is older, but the personal quests remain relevant to the larger conflict.

Best multiplayer alternatives

The Outer Worlds is single-player, and most close role-playing alternatives follow the same structure.

Borderlands 2 is the strongest cooperative choice in the main ranking. It preserves first-person combat, character builds, humor and strange locations while replacing branching dialogue with loot-driven action.

No Man’s Sky is another option for multiplayer space exploration and base building. It is less focused on companions, factions and authored dialogue.

Choose Borderlands for shared combat or No Man’s Sky for an open-ended universe. Neither reproduces The Outer Worlds’ reactive conversation structure.

Other alternatives worth considering

Metro Exodus is a strong choice for players who want a darker first-person journey through large, non-linear regions. Half-Life 2 provides a compact classic science-fiction campaign with physics-driven encounters.

Drova - Forsaken Kin translates factions, exploration and choices into a 2D action RPG, while ELEX II offers a rougher open-world science-fantasy experience with factions and vertical movement.

These games sit outside the main ranking because each lacks at least one central part of The Outer Worlds’ combination of dialogue, companions, satire and first-person role-playing.

Final recommendations

Fallout: New Vegas is the best overall game like The Outer Worlds. The Outer Worlds 2 is the direct successor, Mass Effect Legendary Edition provides the strongest companion-driven space story, and Cyberpunk 2077 offers a larger corporate dystopia.

Choose GreedFall for diplomacy, Atomfall for a compact mystery, Dishonored 2 for systemic missions, or Borderlands 2 for cooperative first-person action.

The right alternative depends on what made Halcyon memorable: the conversations, the crew, the corporations or the freedom to become the one variable nobody saw coming.