Outward: The Three Brothers Review (Schmexiest)
Literally the one game and DLC to inspire me to write a proper review. The Three Brothers is a clunky, albeit ambitious addition to what was already a sizable main game. But if there's anything I've learned about Nine Dots through my almost 200 hours and counting of Outward, it's that their ambition vastly overshadows their scope. After what was what I consider to be a very solid experience with their first DLC, The Soroboreans, I came in with high expectations. However, I'm left somewhat disappointed.
Despite a creative and expansive world and enemy design added within the new map of Caldera, the experience is heavily bogged down by resource management in the form of New Sirrocco (It's Sheer-ah-koh, guys, not Seer-ih-koh). In any other well budgeted and well manned open world RPG, I'd call this a genius move. After all, it asks you to use your now abundant income and knowledge by this point in the game to build a central hub the way *you* want it with the promise of powerful rewards. Unfortunately it becomes rapidly apparent that it's held back by poor design decisions that at this point I suppose isn't unexpected from this studio.
Over-reliance on RNG for rare resources that can take hours and precious in-game time to find in the first place and a clunky town grid that, while huge, is surprisingly restrictive in where you can place your facilities. Surely that second part would be fine if they just let you remove or relocate a building right? I feel this should have been a very obvious inclusion, but alas, we are forced with permanent choices on building placements.
As a personal gripe, I feel the drip feed of armor and weapon upgrades can mean most encounters are a daunting task, resulting in the good old "find loot, sell loot" loop to feel rather bothersome and very much a chore. This only makes the time limit more pressing, as dying could mean losing several days of time better spent gathering resources.
All of this led to me dropping the entire thing. If this DLC was not tied to the Definitive Edition upgrade, I would truthfully say it isn't worth your time. Enjoy the base game and the first DLC, but don't feel guilty over skipping this one.