Microsoft and Obsidian Entertainment have received the feedback from the community loud and clear, and our dropping the price of The Outer Worlds 2 in preparation for its upcoming October release! The previous price of $79.99 sparked a fair deal of controversy, especially due to the ironic nature of the announcement of the higher-than-average price thanks to the RPG series’ focus on capitalist greed and corporate corruption.
The original set price of admission to the upcoming space adventure was revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase and The Outer Worlds 2 Direct events, and the steep price tag came as a shock to many longtime fans of the studio. Xbox as a company has been pushing for their first-party Xbox Game Studios games to begin releasing at a substantial mark up in an effort to capitalize on their newly implemented cross-platform approach to what were once ‘exclusives’.
With the first entry in The Outer Worlds series releasing back in 2019 for $59.99, the twenty-dollar jump was a surprising and poorly received attempt at following through with Xbox’s attempt to normalize the new pricing model. A spokesperson from Xbox said that the company intends to keep its full-priced late-year releases, “including The Outer Worlds 2 at $69.99… in line with current market conditions,” which implies that the previously attempted price hike won’t come at least until next year.
The increasing price of games and hardware has become one of 2025’s most talked about subjects in the gaming community, with Nintendo‘s prices going from $59.99 to $69.99 for first-party releases, and even $79.99 for popular franchises like the newly released Mario Kart World for the Switch 2. While Nintendo is still able to draw fans from nostalgia-driven adults to kids that just like pretty colors and cartoony aesthetics to justify their pricing and turn a tidy profit, it doesn’t seem that many of the upcoming Xbox Game Studios titles are getting the same love, nor draw the same hype from their fan base.
The Outer Worlds 2 will be released Oct. 29th on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Windows PC.
