DaRmaZat Sometimes a game its underlying ideas are executed so poorly, that lowering the bar timely during the development phase would have been so much better for the final product. But with some games, it’s just the opposite which breaks them. In that case too many terrible, restrictive ideas were allowed to be implemented at the same time, resulting in a frustrating experience, virtually destroying nearly any virtue that gaming normally offers.
Let’s take Outward as an exquisite example of that second category. It had everything to shine brightly. An original narrative, a successful level design, floaty soundtrack, a solid UI, … briefly everything a modern RPG needs.
But then somebody of the dev team must have decided that the game – which has no difficulty setting – was still too easy. The real hardcore RPG players, a significant section of potential buyers, wouldn’t be challenged enough, with as possible consequence the game being ignored by them. So that person(s) introduced the survival aspect into Outward. The player would regularly have to look for food (fresh as it decays also!), water and rest, with the risk of being beaten up to his ass by bandits or by wild beasts during his sleep.
I don’t like being beaten up to my ass while being in a vulnerable position. And I also don’t like the idea to have to go looking for food, water and sleep every now and then, when I already have to do that in my real life. I just want to enjoy my action-RPG, fulfilling all the quests my faction tells me to do and to slaughter some scary ugly and massive beasts by a legendary weapon which I found in a dragon’s nest after a 24-hour-long epic run through a maze of caverns.
Unfortunately, their out of hand fantasy did not take a halt with this ‘minor’ inconvenience. The dev team also decided to disable the possibilities to quick save, to fast travel, to sit in-game, to store anything heavier than a banana in your pouch and even to see yourself on the map. It feels like they were thinking “What do you think about that! In ya face, gamers!”.
So that’s why I tried to make something worthy of my Outward experience. After all, I paid for this game, so I deserve to enjoy it. To bend Outward, without destroying it, to make it better suiting to my needs. Here comes the action plan I carried out to get to that satisfying result.
- Disable auto-updates for your game
- Make sure you are on the mono branch of Outward. On the Epic Game Launcher, this is the default branch for this game, but when on Steam and GOG, you need to configure this.
- Create a blank .TXT-file, called “DEBUG.txt“, in the Outward_Data subfolder in your Outward installation path (location for me: C:\Program Files\Epic Games\Outward\Outward_Data and when on Definitive Edition, the path is ending on Outward_Defed\Outward Definitive Edition_Data)
This will enable debug mode, which you can use for quick saving (using key combination Ctrl + Alt + S) and for fast travel (using the menu triggered by the F2-button). The quick save games to reload can be listed from the main menu clicking ‘Continue’ and then click on your character name. - Disable survival mode by unchecking the checkbox “Update Needs” in the F2 debug mode menu and save the game afterwards. This will eliminate the need for food, water and sleep.
- Install BepInEx v5.2 in your Outward installation folder. Never install it together with the other mod tool called “Partiality Launcher”, as it will break your mods their functionality. To fix the BepInEx mods in that case, you need to remove Partiality Launcher using the uninstall button on its UI. Note: a lot of these mods can be installed with Nexus Mod Manager or with the newer ThunderStore Mod Manager. In case of the latter, you also need r2modman. See the instructions here. If some urls on this page might be expired someday, just search the mod on the ThunderStore website.
- Install SideLoader following the instructions
- Install Shared Mod Config tool or Outward Config Manager following the instructions
- Download and install now following the instructions from Nexus Mods:
- If you want to keep playing in survival mode, you can disable the decaying of food by installing the mod Stop Food Decay
- To increase your inventory storage: More Carry Weight
- To see yourself and lost backpacks on the map: More Map Details
After all these steps, Outwarding finally feels like rewarding your effort. As a final gesture from my side, all possibilities of Outward’s debug mode can be found here. However, even then I did not like the game too much… After 10 hours of playing, I lost all interest.
On a 4K resolution, I also experienced serious FPS drops which I was unable to fix . I guess optimization was not the biggest concern for the dev team, after all the weird decisions they had already made.
