Outbound, a cozy-survival game aboard a camper - Review

Outbound is one of those experiences you think you've already lived, one of those titles that just makes you exclaim (just like that, at first glance): what's so extraordinary about building your own base, gathering resources, and traveling far and wide? Ostensibly nothing, that's true, but it's precisely that journey in an unspoiled world that delights the player and relaxes them while they try to roast coffee beans to enjoy a good espresso.

Essentially, we find ourselves before something that doesn't do anything revolutionary, but it does it well, apart from a certain repetitiveness in "crafting" and searching for various resources. Outbound is defined by industry insiders as a "cozyvival", a genre that combines survival mechanics (like managing "hunger" and remaining energy) with the enveloping and relaxing atmosphere of camper life. 

The aspect we want to highlight right away is the absence of frustration, of overly elaborate mechanics to progress in this full immersion in nature. Translated into other terms: even if you're not particularly fond of the genre, you might find Outbound an engaging experience, all aboard a house on 4 wheels that can, defying the laws of physics, support the weight of the "four domestic walls."

A Camper for All Seasons

Before turning the key on Outbound's dashboard, you'll need to carefully choose the type of vehicle you want to drive for the over 30 hours of this journey, across four immense areas all waiting to be discovered. At our disposal, we'll have a "classic camper," meaning a vehicle with decent maneuverability and construction space, or we can opt for something colossal, spacious but which, on the other hand, lacks speed (further slowing down the already leisurely pace of the experience).

After choosing the license plate, color, and a few other small details, we can move on to customizing our avatar's appearance: from body type, hair style, and facial features, there will be no shortage of options. In short, once preparations are complete, we'll be automatically launched behind the wheel of the "beast", without any preamble and into a world to discover as we cover the miles. 

Conceptually, Outbound embraces the philosophy of traveling as relaxation, that of van life, a lifestyle where you fully enjoy every moment full-time aboard a "van-turned-camper." Life proceeds slowly and always in contact with nature, although you need to know how to manage spaces and live by the concept of minimalism. And indeed, that's what you feel in the game in this "strange" formula that managed to impress us despite some limitations, especially technical ones on PS5.

After reaching the first corner of paradise, driving until the grayness of the city has vanished from the mirrors, we will be called to reckon with nature, with all the possibilities that will unfold in our lives. In this future based on ecological equipment, where the emission of harmful substances has been completely reduced, first of all we will have to pay attention to our health and always keep the electric vehicle's battery well charged.

This translates into resource gathering, starting with everything edible we can grab: wheat, bananas, coconuts, berries, and even carrots to munch on. Each macro-area will be full of delicacies that we can transform, by building futuristic kitchen appliances at the right time, into delicatessen that would make even the most demanding chefs drool. The game's objective is based on progression, exploration, and the construction of new equipment that we will need for our new mobile home.

The interesting aspect is that the title, as we mentioned, defies the laws of physics (but probably in this future everything is possible thanks to evolving technology). Unlike other similar titles, where you have to build a base and travel around the game world in search of raw materials, here we can build the dwelling on top of the "truck," reinforcing it with necessary updates. In other words, as we progress through the adventure, we can furnish the apartment with lamps, furniture, and decorative objects like plants or vases, as well as useful and reusable items over time.

Even if our avatar in Outbound is a perfect handyman, they will still need some blueprints to carry out various works. For this, they can go to specific antennas positioned at strategic points and download available blueprints: and these are truly varied, from a food transformer to prepare more refined dishes and flavors, to solar panels to recharge the caravan's battery.

In short, everything seems to have been thought out with criteria, sequentially and as creatively as possible. Nothing different from what we have already experienced in similar titles, but here it seemed to us that the experience is a little more permissive and perhaps a little less frustrating. Of course, you will have to craft and sometimes you will hit your head looking for a mineral, or you will not always be able to figure out how to create that bolt to make a reinforced board. We believe this is due, but trust us when we tell you that the experience is more relaxing and permissive than expected.

Don't think you're cybernetic organisms, though; you'll also need to sleep (besides eating). In fact, as evening falls, our protagonist will run out of energy and movements will be slowed. At this point, you can opt for an easy solution, which is to go to sleep: alternatively, you can also dedicate yourself to furnishing our base, but forget about going too far afield… some small danger might manifest.

Each area of Outbound, from wooded zones to enchanting beaches, will be characterized by various points of interest that will feature a terminal to unlock (via a diskette, a code, and a USB stick) which will grant even more interesting and fundamental crafting items to continue the journey. The player will therefore be required to explore the map to the fullest, in order to also upgrade some tools like the pickaxe and the sickle to clear previously inaccessible passages. 

The development team's goal is thus clear: to provide a full-fledged growth experience in a completely unspoiled world, pushing players to explore as much as possible and complete all secondary objectives. While it is satisfying, after several hours, the formula begins to feel heavy and no longer offers anything so innovative. Also, to obtain a blueprint, you will always have to repeat the same operations: collect trash, put it in the recycler, get tickets that you will then spend at the terminal near the various stations. And this repeats for almost all operations and activities we will perform during the journey. 

It's also true that in Outbound you can invite three other players from your friends list and make everything more fun, perhaps even dividing some of the tasks. But even here, we didn't find any option to create a lobby that would allow us to play with other random adventurers in the world, and that's a great pity.

One Compromise Too Many on PlayStation 5

Our journey took place on a standard PS5, a console that, let's face it, already has a few years under its belt but still holds its own quite well. For this reason, developers tend, in most cases, to opt for two types of modes: performance (which focuses on frame rate at the expense of greater visual rendering) and graphics (where the frame rate suffers to favor "aesthetic appeal"). Well, Outbound doesn't make us choose; it simply opts for a fixed fluidity, mostly at 60 FPS.

This choice, however, makes the game world poorly defined, especially concerning the various scenarios that we found appealing. Textures suffer from what we could call aliasing with the addition of an annoying pop-in effect: in other words, when you approach a wheat field or bushes, you will only see colored silhouettes with unclear outlines. Unfortunately, as much as we appreciate the development team's willingness, identifying only the furniture of a house without walls from afar did not please us at all. 

For the rest, the graphic style is quite convincing and with music inspired by the most famous cozy games. The hours spent with Outbound were not bad at all, and all in all, it introduces an interesting idea into the universe of "crafting games."