In an ever-growing sea of cosy games it takes a lot to stand out and cut through the relaxing, lo-fi noise that permeates the genre. Outbound tries to do this by introducing trendy vanlife into the mix, and while it’s an original take and one that I greatly appreciate, the reality doesn’t feel quite as special.
At its heart, Outbound is a gentle survival game and base builder that centres on your van, which acts as your mobile home. You’re plonked rather unceremoniously into a valley, told to visit some landmarks and sent on your way. As you explore the world you’ll find radio towers that dole out blueprints to create more tools and workstations, which in turn allows you to customise your van further. It’s a decent loop, and there’s a surprising amount of variety to the crafting. You start off building basic stations such as a recycler but as you progress you’ll unlock blueprints for machines that allow for greater levels of woodwork or even let you upgrade your van itself.
Setting up your base is a simple process of unfurling the canopy on the side of your van, and you’re able to build not only in the van but you can build platforms on the roof to create some sort of weird, mobile tree house that magically compacts into a few boxes when you pack up camp in the morning. If you’re the type of gamer that likes to organise your space and create multi-floor bases with sections for each type of job then this will absolutely speak to you. Unfortunately, and this isn’t the fault of the game, I’m not particularly creative when it comes to base building so some of this was lost on me. And while it’s certainly cool that you can build unrealistically huge structures on top of your van, the appeal to vanlife (at least from what I’ve seen on Tiktok) seems to come from living minimally and maximising the small footprint of the van, so Outbound‘s approach seems at odds with that.
When you’re out on foot you’ll need to be aware of your hunger and health meters, as well as the energy of your van. Foraging for materials is one way of topping them up, but as you unlock workstations for creating food or energy sources for your van then you can start to be more forward-thinking in your approach to resource management. There’ll always be some sort of landmark, either on the map or in your eyeline, that you’ll be moving towards and you’ll often need to hop out of the driver’s seat to explore or gather resources.
There’s honestly not too much more to say about the game mechanically. If you’ve played any cosy survival game from the last 5 years then Outbound is more of the same but with a van. Despite having no driving license, the thought of vanlife has always appealed to me, but after spending time in the Outbound van I’m quite happy with my static home. The game is painfully, tediously slow at times and that’s largely down to the van itself which feels like it’s moving slower than your in-game running speed. At top speed the speedometer hovers somewhere around 40mph and while I don’t want the game to feel like a cutesy Need for Speed, I do want to feel like I’m moving at a decent pace.
It doesn’t help that you’re often moving slowly through a pretty but lifeless valley. You’ll find snippets of times gone by in environmental cues and notes and there’s critters running around, but I constantly felt alone in the world which didn’t help the warm and cosy vibe the game is trying to cultivate. The game can be played in 4-player co-op, which I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to try, and I can only assume it adds some much needed vitality to the game which doesn’t exist when you’re playing solo. This lack of life is reflected in the audio too, which has some genuinely lovely music but it’s used so sparingly that most of the time you’re driving alone with nothing but your thoughts. The visuals are a high point for the game though, with style that is both calming and vibrant at the same time, and I found it really popped when playing on a portable screen.
This general feeling of “been there, done that” is my main issue with Outbound. Despite being built around the van, what you’re really getting is a largely by-the-numbers cutesy survival crafting game. Cosy games are the mainstream now and there are dozens of them releasing every month, to the point where even I, the LLC cozy game guy, is starting to get sick of them. I’m turning towards other genres, like the recently released Bus Bound, to make me feel warm and fuzzy without seeing the same cosy tropes over and over again. Outbound unfortunately feels like it’s released about three years too late, among a sea of similar games where a van isn’t enough to differentiate it.
That said, Outbound isn’t a bad game by any measure. It’s got an engaging loop with plenty of objectives so you never feel stuck for things to do, and there’s endless ways for you to customise your van. Unfortunately it doesn’t do enough to stand out as a cosy/survival game, and while you may find your mileage varies playing with three friends, this might not be a trip you’ll want to take solo.
