The Outer Worlds

At a time when most open-world RPGs were leveraging scale to entice players, The Outer Worlds did something pretty neat and went in the other direction. By comparison to some of the heavy hitters on this list, The Outer Worlds is tiny, but to me it’s just right. This satirical sci-fi RPG, which appears on its face like Obsidian trying its hand at making its own Fallout, can be completed in less than 20 hours if you just beeline it to the end. Now, that’d rob you of a lot of the side quests and exploration that games like this tend to excel at, but it’s a game that’s meant to be economical in its design, so I can’t blame anybody for treating it as such. Even when maximizing your time with this game, which has multiple story expansions, the total amount of hours spent in The Outer Worlds will likely be dwarfed by those you sink into almost any other open-world RPG like it. If you’re looking for a big game that’ll also be respectful of your time, you can’t go wrong here, and luckily it’s pretty affordable too. The Outer Worlds is available on Game Pass, but you can get the Board-Approved Bundle, which features the game and the expansion pass, for $25.