The Outer Worlds' new version is getting slammed on Steam—‘Spacer’s Choice Edition: now with 200% more performance issues!’
The new edition has “mostly negative” Steam reviews, with numerous players complaining of performance issues not present in the original.
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Update:An Obsidian representative has promised frustrated Spacer’s Choice Edition owners a patch ina post on Reddit. “The team at Private Division is working on getting a patch out as soon as possible,” said the rep, and when more info on it is available the studio will “be sure to let folks know”. In the meantime, players encountering issues are encouraged to “submit a support ticketto Private Division,” which is now the “dedicated support for The Outer Worlds”.
Original story:Private Division’s pledge that the prettied-up Spacer’s Choice Edition of The Outer Worlds would run at a smooth 4K 60fps may have been premature. The next-gen version of the satirical 2019 RPG released yesterday and it’s already accrued a “Mostly Negative” rating on Steam, with numerous players complaining of performance issues in the newly-remastered game.
“It runs far worse than the original version of the game,” reads a review fromTyler McVicker(formerly Valve News Network), who says that “The ‘improved’ look of the game is not worth massive perf drops and stutters that weren’t there before”. Another review, fromDangerz Close OG, is slightly less measured: “As someone who was playing the OG version right up to this version downloading I can safely say they made a right pig’s ear of this remake”.
But the review that perhaps sums up the reaction best is this one fromAkerwood: “You’ve tried the best, now choose the rest. Spacer’s Choice Edition. Now with 200% more performance issues!”
Those kinds of reviews are echoed elsewhere. Over on Reddit, a user namedJBamby01complained of persistent stuttering on their RTX 3070, venting that they “truly just don’t understand how all these companies can keep getting away with shit like this”. Meanwhile, other players whose machines can chew through Cyberpunk arebegging for a fix. Some players say they can attain a playable framerate by dialling down the settings to the point that the game resembles the original version, but at that point, there’s not much reason to play the new one besides its higher level cap.
Perplexingly, these issues are even afflicting next-gen consoles, where I would generally expect devs making a ‘next-gen’ version of a game to focus their attention. BothPS5andXboxplayers report the same dreadful stuttering in their own comments on the game.
These problems are all the more egregious since pretty much everyone experiencing them will have paid for the upgrade. In a move that betrayed either a complete misunderstanding or total comprehension of the game’s anti-corporate satire,The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition wasn’t offered for freeto any players of the original version. The best you could hope for was a (to be fair, quite hefty) discount if you owned the base game and all its DLC, but even then you’d still be forking over ten bucks for what is, apparently, a worse version of the game.
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It’s not quite the same thing as therecent spate of shoddy PC portswe’ve complained about before, but dodgy remasters like this are still a worrying trend. The recent “Definitive editions” of GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas wereinfamous dumpster fires, and remain inferior to those games' original versions even today. The Witcher 3’s recent next-gen patch managed to introducea raft of issuesfor some players when it first released (and also, stupefyingly, managed toaccidentally add vaginasto some of the game’s female monsters). And now here we are again with The Outer Worlds. It’d be nice if remasters started offering players the best choice, not spacer’s choice.
One of Josh’s first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he’s been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He’ll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin’s Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you’re all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.
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