Been following this game for a while now, and it finally released today.
If you've never heard of it, here's the gist: It's a third-person survival RPG with heavy "Adventure" elements. I.E., more about the journey than the destination, you have to prepare for travels and eat, sleep, drink, all that good stuff. Combat is challenging, your character carries a physical backpack with them, you can get cold, sick, overheated, and you can do it all with 2 players. Yay!
Much like Kenshi, the core premise here is that you aren't anybody special. Not a big fancy hero. You are just an adventurer like any other, and you will get your butt kicked quite a lot, most likely.
The magic system is ritual based, so some spells require components and specific hand gestures to cast. It's not just "Equip fireball, shoot fireball."
There are factions with their own questlines, a main story, and plenty of side quests to mess around with as well.
Another cool feature is the death system; when you die, you aren't really dead. It's not a fail state. Instead, something happens - a traveler finds you, takes payment and saves you, or you're dragged to a bandit camp, or imprisoned in a labor fort, or left for dead in a hyena cave, or any number of other things.. Lots of possibilities. You live with your mistakes, much like Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
I've been playing Outward for a while now, and enjoying it. Of course, it was made by a 10-person team, so it has a lot of limitations - the world feels a bit lifeless, for example, and there aren't many "sandbox" elements (can't rob houses, pickpocket, kill everyone you see, etc.)
But if you're prepared for that it's hard to go wrong for $40. As I said before, you can play it cooperatively (solo is just fine too) online or split-screen, which makes it much much more fun.
Oh, and don't freak out - this isn't like Rust or DayZ, that's not what I mean by "survival." You do need to eat and sleep and such, but it's not nearly as hard to manage or punishing as it is in those games.
