Ever since the cozy exploration game was revealed back in 2024, Outbound has been on the wishlist of many gamers. The game lets you build your own moveable base atop a camper van while exploring a beautifully rendered wilderness. Its proposed combination of cozy and survival mechanics caught many people’s eyes, mine included. On May 11th, Outbound will finally be available for PC and Xbox, with its PS5 and Nintendo Switch launch to follow shortly afterwards on May 14th. I had the opportunity to check out the game’s PC version early for review, and it’s left me with mixed feelings.
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Outbound was initially slated to release last month, but the game was pushed back following a mixed reception to its updated demo. I played the open-world survival game before and after that delay, and I came away with the sense that Outbound doesn’t quite know what kind of game it wants to be. The bare bones offer something interesting, and the visuals are stunning. But ultimately, the core gameplay loop struggles to balance cozy and survival, ultimately falling short of what both genres could deliver.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Stunning visuals bring the worrld to life | Resource grind is poorly balanced and often frustrating |
| Good variety of collectibles and quests for completionists | Sometimes takes intentionally slow gameplay past its limits |
| Solid customization for van life basebuilding | Lack of story & character interactions detracts from immersion |
Outbound Strives to Be a Cozy Survival Game, And Falls Short of Both
One of the reasons Outbound looks so appealing is that its slow van-life survival premise could capture the best of two popular genres. With a sustainable base-building premise and survival elements, there’s so much potential here. But ultimately, it feels like Outbound doesn’t quite manage to stick the landing as a cozy game or a survival one.
Like many cozy games, the pacing in Outbound is intentionally slow. There’s no fast travel, and you have to drive your van between points. In theory, an upgrade or two powers up your engine, but the van still moves frustratingly slow. This is exacerbated by the fact that the game encourages, at times forces, you to loop back to previously explored areas. And that’s not just to secure the game’s many collectibles, like hidden Gnomes and Cairns. It’s also necessary to get the resources and recipes you need to keep moving forward.
I’m all for a game that wants you to enjoy the journey, but it’s hard to do that when you have to turn your slow van around to loop back for a new radio tower signal in an area you’ve already explored, with little else fresh to experience along the way. Similarly, you don’t move well on foot, and your backpack hits its carry limit pretty quickly. There doesn’t look to be an upgrade path available to expand your stamina or your carry limit, leaving you stuck slowly waddling back to the van if you don’t want to ditch valuable, tricky-to-find resources. Slow pacing can encourage cozy gameplay when done right, but in this case, Outbound doesn’t quite hit the right balance.
As for its survival elements, those currently feel a bit like an afterthought. Yes, we’re gathering resources and building up a base. But the health and hunger bars decay so slowly, you can ignore them for quite some time before being reminded they exist. Of course, not every gamer wants intense survival struggles, but I do think the option of a bit more challenge would’ve served the game well here. These are balance problems that could be fixed over time, and I could see the potential for a solid cozy survival game here. But in its current form, Outbound isn’t quite there.
The Slow Life Becomes a Punishing Grind, But At Least the Views are Nice
Along with the slow overall pace of gameplay, Outbound lacks a real narrative or true interactions with NPCs to flesh out its world. Though your character makes the occasional remark about your journey, and you do find notes from other people during your adventure, it really is just you and your van. The world feels eerily empty, with signs of human life all around you and never another person in sight. This leaves you mostly with the grind for resources and collectibles. And that grind can be frustratingly difficult at times.
One of the biggest issues that held me back from loving Outbound like I wanted to is the grind. Resources aren’t very balanced in the game right now. Some items, like bottlecaps used for a gacha vending machine, are far too abundant. Whereas certain key resources, such as specific types of wood, are often nearly impossible to find. In one area, you need Redwood to light the campfires, one of the collectible quests. But that area is full of Everwood, basically useless by that point, and Redwood is very scarce. So you’re left driving past campfires you can’t light and obstacles you can’t overcome, circling back endlessly trying to get enough of what you need.
That said, the game really does deliver on a beautiful, cozy environment. I found myself pausing at vistas to take screenshots like I might snap a photo while camping in real life. If only that world offered a bit more engagement and a better overall balance of grind and reward, Outbound could deliver on its promise. The good news is, the game itself runs well on PC, and many of the biggest issues here feel fixable in time. As it stands, however, the game left me feeling more frustrated than immersed, and I wanted a bit more from this one.
ComicBook was provided with a PC copy of Outbound for the purpose of this review.
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Image courtesy of Netflix -
Image Courtesy of Netflix
