Outbound is an excellent idea but fails to pin down what people love about co-op crafting

I am absolutely in love with Outbound as a concept. Driving around in a cosy little camper van, decking it out with all kinds of decor and doo-dads as I scrounge around for resources, blueprints, and collectibles in order to build my own sustainable, portable empire.

In execution, though? Eh. It's a real bummer, because I really wanted to love Outbound. On paper, it is one of the most Mollie games to exist. But it forgets that absolute fundamental thing that I think is imperative to a solid co-op crafting experience: freedom.

I can stomach a tutorial and a bit of hand-holding here and there. Using quests as a tool to help direct the player doesn't have to be a bad thing! But when it comes to crafting games, I only enjoy a tutorial if it serves to get me quickly set up before unleashing me upon the world to do whatever I want.

Outbound, on the other hand, feels scared to let you run off and get on with things. For a game about hitting the open road, it feels awfully claustrophobic. Drive here, grab this resource, craft this item, drive to this other place, grab this other thing, and so on and so forth. It's a frustratingly linear start, one which doesn't seem to ease up as I play further in.

I always think of the first time I played Minecraft when it comes to these tutorials. Sure it makes you gather and craft something as a way to show you the fundamentals, but just as quickly as that happens, it drops you right into things to let you get on with it.

There's also the fact that, unfortunately, I simply did not enjoy vanning around Outbound's world that much. I can deal with a starting map having a slightly smaller scale than I expect, but I wished that it had been a little more resplendent with flora and fauna, more interesting landscaping to break up what ended up feeling rather monotonous.

It's a shame, because I love Outbound's attempt at a small twist on the traditional crafting game experience. I was initially baffled by the fact that I wasn't allowed to cut down any trees for their wood, until I realised that I was only able to rely on logs that had already fallen. That commitment to a more eco-friendly direction does feel somewhat cut by the inclusion of stacking cairns as a collectible experience though, considering ongoing debates around whether or not they have a negative ecological impact.

Something I also hadn't considered before diving into Outbound was just how irritating it would become constantly hopping in and out of my van to grab stuff. It's a huge pace-breaker—driving for a few seconds, jumping out and slowly manoeuvring around to grab stuff before I inevitably become overencumbered and have to trudge back (even slower now) to deposit materials, close up any doors I've opened, and drive a few seconds more again.

Feeling like such an on-rails experience with very little to do means Outbound commits the biggest crime a cosy game can—being a little bit boring. I always find that it's an incredibly fine line to toe for cosy games, the one that delicately teeters between a warm, leisurely experience, and sheer dullness.

Right now, Outbound's wheels have cruised over into the latter. It's a game in desperate need of more work under the hood. Its survival-esque meters feel underutilised, moreso tacked on as a "necessity" of the genre. I wish its world felt more alive as a way to drive me to explore further and further out. But right now, after just a couple of hours looping around the same few tasks, I'm all outta fuel.