Review: Outbound
- Guilherme Ribeiro
- 14 hours ago
- 4 min read
Traveling and enjoying nature is very relaxing.
THE GAME
Outbound is an exploration and base-building game developed and published by Square Glade Games. Aboard your electric van, embark on a journey through nature, enjoying the scenery and building a retractable base on the vehicle's roof. The Outbound festival awaits you at the end of this trip, but enjoying the journey along the way will make it a lot of fun.
MY IMPRESSIONS
Before saying anything else about Outbound, I must point out that this game is a calm and relaxing experience. Don't expect grand objectives. Outbound focuses on creating a road trip atmosphere, with resource gathering to keep your vehicle running and generating parts to strengthen your van. The game can be considered slow-paced, as the idea is to explore little by little. With that in mind, we can talk about the game in parts. Your van, which is also your base, runs on electricity, generated by wood, which you collect from fallen logs or stumps found in the environment. Cutting down trees is not an option, as Outbound values sustainability and environmental preservation. There are other ways to get energy for your van, with wind and solar power, captured by generators that you build along your journey. The base mounted on the retractable roof of your vehicle can be created however you want. You can add colors, walls, and furniture, many of which are unlocked by activating the towers found on the maps. These towers also unlock upgrades for your van and your tools, allowing you to acquire new types of materials.
The game is in Brazilian Portuguese, although the text is simple, but it's always interesting to have as many languages as possible in games. You'll have two ways to explore the maps. The first, with the van, to cover long distances, always remembering to keep your engine running. The second, on foot, for shorter distances and places the van can't reach. Your character, although with few options, is customizable. They also have a health bar, a hunger bar, and a stamina bar. The health bar, despite there being no enemies in the game, exists so you don't go jumping off cliffs to cut corners. The hunger bar is what's consumed when you use tools like the axe and pickaxe, taking a little with each use, and to recover, you just need to eat, obviously. Finally, the stamina bar is used for running, since your character walks slowly and running consumes this bar, but if you start walking normally again, it recharges. The relationship between the van and the character is almost symbiotic, since you won't explore the entire map on foot and you also need to store your items in the van, as exceeding the weight limit makes you increasingly slower. The day and night cycle dictates the pace, with exploration happening during the day and night serving to end that cycle, as your character cannot run at night, therefore, no nighttime exploration unless walking doesn't bother you. Furthermore, inclement weather can occur, such as wind and rain, which can even be helpful at times, either by generating wind energy or replenishing your water supply and irrigating your crops.
Outbound has its own pace, allowing you to enjoy the journey without rushing. Game progression is based on your tools and van upgrades, as the van needs to be improved to climb steeper ramps. To do this, you'll need to acquire materials that you can only obtain with the right tools at the right levels. Often, you'll have to travel extensively across the same map to gather the resources you need, so it's crucial to collect plenty of resources at all times. And if all that isn't enough and you still want a bit of a challenge, there are collectibles scattered throughout the maps, such as gnomes, monuments, and paintings. And there are quite a few. You can also adopt a dog to help you on your adventure. Who doesn't love dogs in games, right? And you can even invite friends to play with you.
I believe Outbound isn't a game for everyone, but it delivers what it promises. A relaxing experience that will please you with its simplicity, without the need to rush through the maps or feel rushed to your destination.
ACHIEVEMENTS
If the game itself doesn't offer enough challenges for you, the achievements will do the job. A large portion of them you can unlock just by playing the game normally. Another good portion are achievements for specific objectives, such as cooking all the food in the game, creating the best equipment and vehicle upgrades, or painting your vehicle ten times. They are laborious, but nothing beats the achievements related to collectibles. The paintings are easy, but the gnomes and the molds are a different story. They are scattered throughout the maps, some more hidden, others more obvious, but even so, it's quite tiring work going from one place to another searching in every corner. It will be a long journey to get 100% of the achievements.
CONCLUSION
Outbound goes against the grain of frantic, action-packed games. As mentioned before, it's not a game for everyone, and I'm sure many people will play it with a completely wrong idea of what it is. And that's not the developers' fault, since it's very clear what Outbound is and what it promotes: sustainability and environmental preservation. I started playing without any expectations, and before I knew it, I was excited to visit every corner of the maps. The game clearly outlines how it wants the player to progress to enjoy each aspect of the game, even if one thing or another doesn't work so well, it's a very relaxed game, perfect for slowing down and playing without worries. I mean, I'm still frantically searching for collectibles, but that's beside the point. If you buy into the idea, understand what the game is about, and know how to have fun with what it offers, I'm sure you'll love it.
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