As the final DLC for more substantial than Peril on Gorgon, but it still suffers from some of the same problems of both. Players who have already completed both the base game - or at least as much of it as needed to unlock extra content - and the first round of additional DLC will find little challenge in Murder on Eridanos' combat, but the real fun of any Obsidian Entertainment game is the dialog and story variety on offer, and this delivers more of exactly what fans of The Outer Worlds have come to expect.
The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos leans heavily into the satire and camp which already permeates all throughout the base game's content, and takes it even further by framing the entire adventure in a film noir-inspired murder mystery. Once they reach level 30 and have unlocked landing permissions at Stellar Bay, players are tasked with finally visiting Eridanos (a location previously locked off on The Outer Worlds' map) to solve the recent murder of the Rizzo Corporation's most famous spokesperson. As the only person in the galaxy who can possibly assist with this issue (once again) players must interview characters, dodge dangerous insects, utilize a back-talking magnifying glass, and figure out who killed Halcyon Helen.
The best parts of The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos are where it provides new, unique experiences not found in either The Outer Worlds base game or Peril on Gorgon, and thankfully these moments are scattered throughout the entire DLC. An increased amount of cutscenes, companion interactions, and exciting gameplay elements - all of them taking place in the most unique and beautiful background environments in the game so far - help to push players through Murder on Eridanos' story, even if the eventual answer to the inciting mystery is fairly obvious for even tangential noir fans.
Despite its somewhat-predictable plot beats, the story of The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos is still an enjoyable experience, one filled with numerous memorable characters and iconic locations. The environmental design of Eridanos itself is quite impressive, featuring a unique landscape of floating asteroids and suspension bridges covered in lush purpleberry trees and fields of flowering plants. It's quite easily one of the most unique settings in the universe of The Outer Worlds, even if it is filled with frenzied enemies who feel unfortunately similar to all the other random encounters in the game.
The Outer Worlds already featured a massive amount of different weapon and armor variations, and more are included here. Some of the new science weapons, such as The Needler (not to be confused with Halo's iconic handgun) are enjoyable, but the best new addition in Murder on Eridanos is the Discrepancy Amplifier. This device is given to the player at the start of the Halcyon Helen murder investigation, and it has multiple important uses. The Discrepancy Amplifier can and must be used as a scanner - The Outer Worlds' version of Batman: Arkham's Detective Vision - in order to find clues related to Halcyon Helen's murder, but it can also be used as a quick knockback weapon in combat. Unfortunately, it does so little damage that this is something which will likely come up more often as an accidental trigger press before a save reload than anything else.
The Discrepancy Amplifer also speaks in a voice which will likely be familiar to anyone who has played Old World Blues for Fallout: New Vegas, another DLC offering by Obsidian Entertainment, and the device's literal-but-sarcastic personality provides an appropriate bit of levity to contrast The Outer Worlds' satirical dryness - something which is on full display here. If the base game and Peril on Gorgon didn't give players enough evidence that corporations in the universe of The Outer Worlds may be somewhat corrupt, Murder on Eridanos carves that message on the face of a sledgehammer and repeatedly hits the player in the face with it. It's effective, but somehow even less subtle than before.
Murder on Eridanos is an enjoyable adventure slotted neatly into the preexisting story of The Outer Worlds which, while not changing much about the status quo, still provides hours of enjoyment. The different amount of companion interactions (bring Felix along at least once) and interjections during pivotal plot moments - something which must have taken an impressive amount of work from the game's developers considering the amount of questline choices and story variations there are - give Murder on Eridanos a lot of replay value for those players who are looking for getting the most of out their money, and, as the final DLC for The Outer Worlds, it would have been fairly hard for Murder on Eridanos to send the game off with any more style.
The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos is available March 17, 2021 on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC. A Steam code was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.
