the dlc's for this game follow a trend I always notice with these kinds of games, AAA and AAA adjacent games, in that they're never given the budgets they maybe need but they're always so much more interesting, memorable and experimental than anything their basegame ever allowed for, both of these are very much that, with some of the games most interesting area's, story ideas,dungeons, choices and themes that make it stand out to me much more than most of the actual basegame ever did. if you're playing the outer worlds these packs are a must play and i dare even say the latter of these, murder on eridanos, is worth playing the game for alone.

though before i talk about the best part of the game, i do have to talk about the first DLC pack, peril on gorgon. peril on gorgon is one i wasn't super looking foreward to, not because it looked bad, it had a super pretty world to explore and the idea of a noir themed expansion sounded great, but because i was worried about it repeating the basegames worst mistakes because of its setup. the gist of this is that you're sent on a detective noire style investigation by a rich girl to the meteor of gorgon, a really great looking moon style level with some deep purple skies and there you have to investigate an, and this is where it begun to lose me before i even started, the remnants of abandoned corporate test facility whos experiments had gone wrong, something the basegame had already did, multiple times, it's the majority of that games dungeons and the idea of more of it just did not appeal to me, though the game did begin to win me over slightly once i actually played it, sure it is more of the same, but it's the best of the same, they're all more interesting in tone and style than anything in the basegame, one that's a super regal and fancy office block being the highlight as well as a cool test site/meatpacking plant hybrid that brings more of a horror atmosphere to the table, they're more varied and cool and i didn't even mind that thematically they were just more of the same thing that i was tired of in the basegame, because they were at least varied and unique, a quality the basegame did not have in its dungeons. it's more or less the whole goal of this dlc, to give you that half of the basegames loop but in the best quality it can and it works super well, this gives you the games explorative side condensed into a single planet with tons of variety and some great dungeons and locations, where murder on eridanos does the same but for the RPG side of things, with in depth investigation and conversations replacing much of the combat loop.

the main story has you mostly just trying to unlock and explore the various labs around gorgon to try and find journals and information about what went down and each gives you a cute little dungeon with its own enemies and themes to it, one is even kind of horror'y with rabid test subjects jumping you and a lot of gore near the end when the truth of the place is revealed, each one is super unique and fun to explore and the journey to them too is fun as well, its a very vertical planet with two layers full of stuff to find and there's a decent amount to look through even beyond the main quest, like some caves and a big bandit camp, a few unique enemies like a mantisaur style enemy with ice attacks and new types of human enemies with the test subjects and tossball themed mercs, you even have a few real bosses here with the mega ice mantis thingy and marauder king: Charles from accounting. that's kind of all there really is too it though outside of a few small trips outside gorgon to a small new part of groundbreaker and a really cool dungeon set in the atmosphere of the planet Olympus that has the games coolest moment, when you scale the structure and go up a huge elevator to turn on a storm generator thing hundreds of ft in the air, it's so pretty and cool and i loved that dungeon, but there just isn't as many conversations to have here so i think its harder to roleplay or for a charisma focused character to do much, there's characters to meet and i think the main cast here is interesting and the darker tone is something i really liked, but this is a wholley combat focused experience, though that story is good, some of the best in the game barring the next expansion and the much more disturbing subject matters here work really well.

the themes here are one of its major strongpoints, while the basegame could be seen as being mild-ish in some of its criticisms, this dlc feels like it was allowed to go all in, it's dark and it's bitter and it feels angry about it all. while the basegame treated a lot of the worlds evils and injustices as an incompetent joke to be mocked, here you see the real human cost to it all, the people it hurt in the pursuit of profit and the people it continues to hurt long after the fact. you'll help a widow find a keepsake of her husband, a man who has long since lost his mind and hurt others because of what the corporation did to him and the people around him, you'll find a factory where they made innocent people go crazy and eventually slaughtered them like cattle when they didn't get the results they wanted, you'll watch your own party members become scarred and traumatised by the things you have to see in this, Parvati in my playthrough came away from one dungeon with actual trauma and was visibly shaken and upset and you'll ultimately be given the choice weather to try and make it right or weather to finish what was started in the pursuit of that profit, the latter of which will try and lure you into its evils with the promise that, much like the economics, the benefits of that research will trickle down and that it'll mean that all that suffering wasn't for nothing, like a cycle that will keep repeating and only benefitting the people too rich and powerful to ever be effected by it.

there were some other new things added, an increased level cap for one, up to 33 in the ps4 version (though ps5 has an unlimited level cap which felt very needed) some new and pretty useful perks, new weapons like a cool burst fire grenade launcher, a handgun that gains power the lower your health is, a new assault rifle called medal of honor that became one of my mains because of how ridiculous its damage output can be, a cool pistol that increases your crit chance for every miss, an AR that increases in accuracy as you fire, some poison and corrosion variants of basic guns, more powerful variants of the energy carbine and shock canon and a cool sword that gives you armour as you hit things. there isn't much in the way of real new weapon types here though because al of these are just variants on things from the basegame. that's the main issue with peril in a sentence, there's nothing really new here, the weapons and enemy types are still basically just modified basegame stuff, gorgon, while pretty and full of cool places (and having deeper lore thanks to the introduction of audio diaries that only this dlc has for some reason), is just another abandoned research facility with a nicer skybox and cooler themes, it's all just more of the same, it's better of the same, but it's still more of it, you could slot this into the base campaign as a sidequest chain and i don't think anyone would notice it doesn't belong. that all said i do still recommend it, it's flawed experience for sure but as a vertical slice of what the entire game was like, it's probably the best vertical slice you can get, it's everything with better quality and slightly more risks and i do respect the attempt, though i do think that as far as dlc's go, the next one is much better, while peril is the best of the same, eridanos is something entirely different and unique.

murder on eridanos is the better dlc overall, it takes the noir details that were kind of background set dressing for peril and makes it the focus, it's a murder investigation! you're sent to the resort on eridanos to investigate the star of many of the aetherwave serials you saw mentioned in the basegame and you do this by wandering around with a new investigation gun to help you find clues in the environment and talk to people, it's excellent and by far the best part of the game, it's so good that i desperately want to see a full game like this from obsidian, this is fantastic. it really gave my character, a former beurocrat who specialised in speech and tech skills, a chance to shine with tons of dialogue options that helped open up tons of clues and areas, it felt like it was made for my specced character and i loved it, there was so much for her here, there is some combat for sure in the vineyard and in the games final mission, but most of the content here is just exploring and talking with combat barely being a factor, with the right pathing you could even avoid it wholesale up until the end for the most part, which is neat.

the story here is also the game at its best, there's some really fun writing and it feels particularly angry and spiteful at the rich, it works like a knives out style "murder mystery with a bunch of the worst human scum you will ever meet, the 1%" with some of the most contemptable pieces of shit in the whole game, like an actor that abuses hotel staff, fratboy sports stars and even more unethical corporate shills, the only seemingly redeemable person here is the corpse you're investigating. there's some fun twists, very richous anger at the actions of more or less everyone involved which the basegame very much felt like it lacked and it has the game at least trying to make good on its themes of class oppression in an interesting way and it even has a solid twist in there that you can guess very easily if you find the right clues, it's good and it manages to keep the noire style well throughout with all the fun dialogue options and mysteries it sets up, you even have a choice at the end that really shows you just how contemptable and morally bankrupt this world has become with the *SPOILERS* option to outright enslave all of humanity into corporate slavery via parasitic drugging, similar to the choice in peril on gorgon where you could choose weather or not to trap humanity in and endless cycle of work where sleep no longer would be a reprieve because the drug would give them infinite energy. it's a real nightmare vision into the kinds of things that could happen in a place like this, and it's becoming less and less scifi by the day. the mystery is great too, with all the clues leading you very well to the true ending and i like a lot of the factions you end up interacting with, especially the not-scientology wellness/profit cult, though i think the stuff with SLUG is just a little boring, that section of the game felt like it dragged. one thing i would have added though were more of the actual aetherwave serials themselves, you see a brief clip of one and it was fun! maybe throwing in a few hidden ones to find and watch would have been super nice.

the world of eridanos is great too, it's a resort for the rich set on a few floating islands, full of byzantines, beurocrats actors and sports stars, the worst kinds of people the universe has to offer all taking leisure time away from the common people on other planets, some lounging around, some filming things and some looking to sabotage each other, it's like the byzanthium area from the basegame but with a lot more to do and a ton more variety, it feels to me like what that area should have been. there's a big hotel to explore with rooms to steal from, you get an extra temporary base that your team hangs around in in a really fancy suite, there's vineyard full of brainwashed Rizzo's workers infested with parasites, a scummy port town ran by a corporate mob boss, a huge reserve for the rich to safely hunt alien species and even a willy Wonka style factory all to explore, plus tons of other stuff even within that, like the hedgemaze you can solve for a reward or a full on cult compound with a big cavern system attached. there's a lot of variety and it's all super fun and worth exploring which is something the basegame very much had an issue with not having. you will even want to explore it thanks to the main new mechanic introduced here with the clue gun thingy.

this clue gun is your big new thing here, it's a stungun that works like an evidence finder if you zoom in on the scope. equip it and it'll tell you any time a clue is nearby for you to find and you can then look for it, it's your main way of finding evidence for who the killer is and it's really fun, it gives the expansion this collectathon'y element to it and it is all usually really useful info for finding out the answer, i had it figured out by the end and it was more or less all down to that system, i like it. it admittedly helps that I've been watching a *ton* of detective conan and so i'd been wanting a good detective game to play, so this all clicked super well for me and i was always excited to hit a new zone and explore for clues, talking to the locals and actually getting good use out of my characters charisma and speech focused skillset. it isn't even the only new weapon type too, shocking! i know, if you do the right things you can end up with a cool needlegun that has different ammo types and focuses on debuffs, or a new type of melee weapon that attracts enemies too each other, magnetizing them and there's even a cool weapon super similar to the laser musket from fallout 4! though there are also a lot of "basegame, but different!" weapons here and not all of them are even interesting enough to talk about, though there are some standouts, like a weapon that floors other enemies when you kill a target, or an ice shotgun or a heavy weapon that recharges your bullet time ability, but for the most part these are just a little lame, slight variances you won't even notice the difference with. sadly the enemy types are much the same, some variances like different kind of parasite creatures (that are just reskins of ones from the basegame) and human enemies infected with the parasites, but that's really it, though!! you do have, a boss, a real boss, a rare sight and its one that's designed and original for this expansion! and it might be one of the best parts of it! a real boss! this was also a place i noticed while checking some resources that the game actually has exclusive options for very dumb characters and there's an amazing one at the end of this, i didn't know the game had it at all and i loved that this was an option, even if i couldn't use it, it makes me want to go back and see which ones i missed!

the music here is still pretty boring in both DLC's, though i do think the main overworld themes in gorgon are the best the game has, it's probably the best song in the game, though it's still not super memorable. the dlc's are also both pretty easy, though i did die once on both, you'll be so overpowered by this point that there's very little beyond the mega enemies and the one boss that nothing can really kill you, they're also a decent length each, maybe 8 hours a piece which is nice and a little more if you take your time, though while i think the base story of gorgon is longer, i think eridanos has little more to see and do on the side, so they both even out. they're available downloaded into the base version of the game for about 15 a piece or you can buy them as part of the base version of the "spacers choice edition", i do think as standalone they are a little overpriced, especially for peril, but eridanos is good and unique enough to be genuinely worth it i think, sadly there is no physical copy with everything onboard, which really sucks. i do 100% recommend both though, murder on eridanos is fantastic and the best part of the game and peril on gorgon isn't far off, i'd even argue the game itself is worth playing just *for* them. they add a lot and really flesh out the game to cover its weaknesses, and with them both added the game no longer feels too brief either, they really are the best kinds of dlc.