Curious about the skills in The Outer Worlds 2? In this highly anticipated RPG, you can mold your character’s playstyle and refine your build by strategically investing points across 12 distinct skills. Each choice offers a significant impact, allowing you to fundamentally alter how you tackle challenges and navigate the universe.
While the skill system in The Outer Worlds 2 has been streamlined, the remaining options are far more potent. Forget painstakingly allocating points into individual weapon categories; now, each skill choice has a more profound effect. These skills are crucial for developing your ideal character build, working in tandem with your chosen traits to redefine your approach to exploration, dialogue, and intense combat encounters.
The Complete List of Outer Worlds 2 Skills
- Melee: This skill empowers your close-quarters combat. Investing here significantly boosts the damage you deal with all types of melee weapons, enhancing your proficiency with blades, bludgeons, and more. Each level grants a +10% increase to melee damage and a -2.5% reduction in damage taken when blocking, making you a formidable force up close.
- Lockpick: Essential for any keen explorer, this skill allows you to bypass security on locked chests and containers of increasing difficulty. Beyond just opening doors, each level also provides a +1 difficulty bonus to lockpicking challenges and a +1% increase to your evasion chance, making you harder to hit in sticky situations.
- Leadership: Rally your allies and turn the tide of battle with this vital skill. By enhancing your leadership, you directly boost your companions’ effectiveness. For every level, expect a considerable +15% increase to both their damage output and their overall health, transforming them into even more capable partners.
- Medical: A lifesaver in the harsh environments of the Halcyon colony, this skill expands your maximum toxicity tolerance, enabling more frequent use of your Pharmaceutical Inhaler. It also grants increased resistance to Zyranium poisoning. Further investment unlocks perks that improve your inhaler’s potency, allow you to temporarily pacify hostile creatures, and boost the effectiveness of corrosive weaponry. Each level offers a +7 increase to your toxicity crash threshold and a +10% damage bonus against creatures.
- Observation: Sharpen your senses with this skill, allowing you to spot hidden objects and perceive subtle cues during conversations. Improving Observation unlocks perks that lead to greater loot discoveries, improved enemy tracking, and a more potent understanding of enemy weak spots. Each level offers a +1 bonus to finding higher difficulty hidden objects and a significant +15% increase to weakspot damage.
- Science!: Harness the power of technology by boosting your maximum gadget energy, extending the duration of abilities like tactical time dilation. This skill allows you to select perks that enhance your gadgets and increase the effectiveness of shock weapons. With each level, you gain +7 to your gadget energy meter maximum and a +10% bonus to non-physical damage type side effects.
- Sneak: Become an unseen predator with this skill, significantly reducing your detection radius while crouched. Further investment unlocks perks that help you avoid traps and execute devastating sneak attacks. Every level grants a substantial +35% increase to sneak attack damage and a -2.5% reduction in how quickly NPCs detect you.
- Speech: Talk your way out of trouble or into new opportunities with the Speech skill. Each level provides a +1 bonus to overcome higher difficulty speech checks, making persuasion and intimidation easier. It also grants a +10% damage bonus against human adversaries, should diplomacy fail.
- Engineering: Master the mechanical world with Engineering, which enhances the effectiveness of all your armor, providing inherent damage reduction. This skill also proves invaluable in conversations and during exploration, allowing you to leverage your knowledge of mechanical systems. Perks unlocked through investment further boost your defenses and maximize the benefits from weapon, helmet, and armor modifications. Each level provides a +1 bonus to repair higher difficulty mechanical systems and a +1 increase to your damage resistance.
- Hack: (Details for this skill are currently unknown, but it is expected to involve bypassing electronic security systems and manipulating digital interfaces.)
- Guns: For those who prefer ranged combat, the Guns skill is paramount. It dramatically increases the damage you deal with all firearm types, including ballistic, shock, plasma, and bio guns. Further investment enables perks that refine your gunplay, boosting precision, reload speed, or critical hit chance. Each level provides a substantial +40% increase to ranged damage and a +4% boost to armor penetration.
- Explosives: (Specifics for this skill are not yet revealed, but it will likely focus on maximizing damage and area of effect with grenades, mines, and other explosive devices.)
With a clearer understanding of The Outer Worlds 2 skills, you’re better equipped to plan your perfect build. Stay tuned for more updates on the game’s official launch, details on all the companions you can recruit, and insights into the various factions vying for control of the Halcyon colony!