There’s always a little bit of hesitation that goes into the anticipation of story DLC. This is even more true if the base product was so awesome that it’d be tough for anything to match that. Well, Obsidian has returned to The Outer Worlds with a new adventure to captivate fans titled Peril On Gorgon. Surprisingly, even as a one-off story, this DLC has enough packed in it to make it just memorable as the base game.
The Outer Worlds: Peril On Gorgon‘s story can only be compared to what science fiction fans would consider being a space opera. A strange recording has reached our crew that tells off a mystery that has taken place on Gorgon. After accepting a mission that has you investigating the area, you piece together just what exactly happened on the meteor and make choices from your findings on how you’d like to progress.
The brilliance of this DLC is the drama that is attached to it and how you end up in the middle of it. Events such as being chased by pirates or diving in headfirst to Spacer’s Choice conspiracies and cover-ups all emerge during each new area. There’s no part of this adventure that feels like it’s missing something. Instead, the developers seemed to fill every moment with things to do, such as explorable areas, side-missions, and secrets.
When it comes to the main story, I will say that you can kind of see where the whole event is leading, but that doesn’t make the choices any easier. It’s not so black and white like the ending of the base game, so expect to pour some thought into how exactly you’re going to approach this conclusion.
Throughout this adventure, you’ll visit a few new areas as well as some old ones, with a handful of new characters to meet. Each character tide to the main mission offers some insight into what exactly went on on Gorgon, but you’ll have to do some further investigating to truly understand what they were doing there.
The Outer Worlds: Peril On Gorgon isn’t only a main campaign though; there were a few side-quests that I ran into during my first playthrough and even more during my second. These missions seem to be tailored to areas that the developers want you to explore, but here, they give you more reason to. So while you might think you discovered a secret area with lots of loot, you’ll also be progressing these side-missions, which makes everything feel well developed.
Exploration is rewarded during every moment of gameplay in this DLC. However, I think they went a little too far with the amount of ammo being left around here. It seemed every area I looked into had crates of ammo just lying around, which didn’t really fit the narrative of this forgotten meteor. Furthermore, I couldn’t completely wrap my head around what the Marauders were doing on Gorgon in the first place, but other sections do clean this up by featuring crazed patients.
One of my takeaways from playing The Outer Worlds: Peril On Gorgon is how different my playthroughs were depending on my character. Playing as a sneaky rogue versus an evil ranger offered me two almost entirely different experiences. What’s more interesting is that there are still other things that I have to check out, but they require different character types.
I love when RPGs are tailored to my playstyle, and Obsidian continues to prove they are best capable of providing this feeling time and time again. My responses and the way I approach the situation depended on my character’s past choices as well as how I distributed my stat points. It was great to experience overall, and I’m glad this DLC was able to achieve that.
The Outer Worlds: Peril On Gorgon doesn’t hinder the experiences of the base game; instead, it enhances this small corner of the universe with more grand adventures. I appreciated the dedication that went into writing the main campaign and found the side-missions to be just as crucial to piecing together the full narrative. There was an abundance of items and weirdly placed enemy encounters that didn’t completely flow with the events, but that didn’t take away from this fantastic space opera experience.
