Vicar Max's quest line resolution has killed my remaining interest in the game. It's terribly written Woke garbage where the main path appears to be stripping Max of his sense of order, purpose, and understanding of the universe in order to embrace an empty chaos of pure nihilism, via an incoherent psychedelic drug trip where he "resolves" his mother and father issues and murders his own persona. The writers seemingly frame this as an unequivocal good thing.
Sophomoric intersectional Marxism seeps through at every turn with little nuance. Nearly every woman is a highly competent engineer-warrior or doctor-warrior or leader-warrior, and nearly every man is a complete buffoon.
I didn't bother resolving Pavarti's impossibly naive and plodding lesbian dating arc.
The Obsidian that wrote KotOR 2, Mask of the Betrayer, and New Vegas no longer exists. RIP.
I haven't completed Vicar's quest line, so i'll withhold judgement on that.
As for the rest, i was actually surprised that there weren't more discussions regarding the method in which the writers have depicted the individuals of interest in The Outer Worlds. I thought that it was obvious from the first few hours into the game, allthough i wanted to progress further in so i wouldn't mistake my initial impressions for something that may not be true for the overall entire playthrough. I haven't experienced a differentiation in the bias, and i can strongly agree that it's there. Why that is, i can probably make a guess. Does it bother me? No, honestly i don't give it much importance.
I was never expecting anything comparable to Black Isle/Troika/old-Obsidian because from Pillars of Eternity and onward it was very clear that whatever organizational structure they had that permitted the development of KotOR 2, Mask of the Betrayer and Fallout: New Vegas did
not exist anymore.
Anyway, pertaining to The Outer Worlds and the overall writing quality; I wouldn't call it bad writing by any stretch of the imagination, because if we're going to make a spectrum and put "
truly abysmal writing" at the far-end, and "
genuinely brilliant writing" at the very-top, there are going to be many other categories in-between these two extremes. For example, and to pick something recent and relevant, the writing, quest design is far better than in Andromeda and Fallout 4. I'd place these two games at a category near the far-end.
Remarkably bad writing would be one category below. I'd put both here.
Badly written would be the third next near the far-end. I'd put Fallout 3 here - Actually, i'd put everything Bethesda have made in this category (besides Morrowind, but that's because i can't remember much of it, it's been more than a decade since i last played Morrowind).
The writing in The Outer Worlds isn't remarkably bad, or abysmal .. it's poorly written on more than one low point, and there are numerous low points. But i wouldn't call it
overall poorly written, for example, i definitely liked the quest design and the writing in the quest surrounding the conflict between Reed and Adelaide. I really liked that. But it's also definitely not
genuinely brilliant writing by any stretch of the imagination. And it's definitely not
remarkably great writing either (that'd the the category below 'brilliant' in my personal spectrum that i mentioned).
With that said.. Eh, I'm currently going through "The Distress Signal" quest on Roseway. I haven't yet experienced something as good as Reed/Adelaide, to be perfectly honest. The writing is sterile, for now. But i am enjoying The Outer Worlds quite a lot. There are many, many side quests to play around with and i've found some very entertaining ways in which the quests are designed. Technically speaking, it's polished and fun to interact with, and play. I'll agree with what others have said about the exploration and the rewards that incentivize them - it's not good mostly. I wouldn't exaggerate how easy it as as some other people are currently doing, because as far as i can tell, the game wasn't designed for hardcore video gamers.
I still a long way from finishing it, so i'll refrain from saying anything else.