Critics Are Calling Murder on Eridanos a Dazzling, Talkative Send-Off For The Outer Worlds - CBR - Comic Book Resources

The final story DLC for The Outer Worlds, Murder On The Eridanos, has finally released to eager fans. The DLC marks the last addition to the satirical sci-fi RPG until a potential sequel.

Is Murder On The Edrianos a good way to cap off the game, or will it leave a bad taste in players' mouths? Here's what critics are saying about the DLC.

Michael Leri, Game Revolution: "Murder on Eridanos excels because of how it coats its dialogue with the aforementioned noir backdrop. The player can go into a full parody of a trench coat-wearing detective that cartoonishly chomps on a cigar and tastes every clue from the poison to the dirt. There are even options that let users pin the crime on a hapless bellhop or, even better, take credit for the murder itself. Such flexibility and silly execution within such a serious genre lets the game play with norms while also following them when appropriate."

James Billcliffe, VG247: "The Grand Colonial Hotel is a steam train short of smooshing just about every Poirot setting into one, where the hovering islands make it quite literally Death in the Clouds. ...it’s a very chatty DLC though, and best suited to players who enjoy hiking through a dialogue forest more than just a dialogue tree."

Christopher J. Teuton, Screen Rant: "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."

Elise Favis, The Washington Post: "Walking through Eridanos can often feel like you’re touring the Wonka factory. I was constantly dazzled by the striking design, including a distillery housing glass pipes flowing with colorful, bubbling beverages and a purple-colored meadow on the outskirts. It’s glamour with a hint of unease, as something terrible brews behind the scenes. ...Even the plant life looks like something straight out of a Dr. Seuss children’s book."

Matthew Keith, MMORPG.COM: "On the one hand, I enjoyed having to scan areas, analyze mysterious substances and search for other clues. It actually felt a lot like playing Batman in an Arkham game. Instead of Oracle chirping in my ear though I had the equivalent of Robot from Lost In Space. His responses to scans and inquiries were always a treat. ...On the other hand, however, the Discrepancy Amplifier also took away from the whole sleuthing experience. It worked a little too well, oftentimes letting you know that you were passing by a clue and even leaving a blue hazy trail for you to follow to the clue."

Steven Wong, PC Invasion: "You get outfitted with a device called the Discrepancy Amplifier. Technically, it’s a computerized magnifying glass that is said to pierce through time and the veil of reality to reveal things that are out of place — like a set of footprints. The device alerts you when clues are nearby, and the right companions might help make sense of the different clues you uncover. For instance, Parvati can offer some engineering insights. Nyoka is knowledgeable in just about all things alcohol-related. However, the downside is that this feature isn’t apparent if you don’t bring the right people. So, you can end up inexplicably staring at a corpse or open grate with no way to interact with it."

Dan Stapleton, IGN: "The crime boss, the jilted lover, the weird self-help guru, the arrogant co-star, and more are on the list of people of interest, and most of them are in fact interesting people to talk to. It’s a bona fide murder mystery, and there’s a lot of dialogue here since so much of the sleuthing is climbing every branch of their conversation trees, and between that and reading emails on terminals, going through every detail for evidence it can take a while. Depending on how thorough you are, that can be over 10 hours – which is not bad at all for an expansion to a 25-hour RPG."

Alessio Palumbo, WCCFTECH: "Combat, on the other hand, is very much the same affair of The Outer Worlds. Adequate, even enjoyable, for all the very few seconds that it lasts. That's right, even on the Hard difficulty, there is no challenge at all to the combat; this, in turns, renders moves like blocks or dodges almost superfluous. The climactic fight of Murder on Eridanos does include a proper boss to slay, addressing a common complaint with previous content. However, even this boss fight was over in a little over thirty seconds, hardly feeling as epic as it should have."

Azario Lopez, Noisey Pixel: "Throughout the narrative, players can make their way across a handful of floating islands as they investigate the crime scene and interrogate witnesses. There isn’t much to go off of at first, but your list slowly grows. ...The writers have pulled out all the stops here and have given players who take their time exploring and reading dialogue the most insight to cracking the case, and I loved it."

Chris Mc, GameSpew: "Ultimately, Murder on Eridanos serves as a magnificent send-off to The Outer Worlds. It’ll keep you hooked from beginning to end; it’s a shining example of how to do downloadable content and has me eagerly awaiting the Fallout: New Vegas sequel that only exists in my head."

Keep Reading: Magic: Legends Aims to Be the MMO for M:TG Fans

Why Do Shonen Translate Perfectly Into Video Games?

Related Topics

About The Author

Robert Curran (272 Articles Published)

Robert Curran lives in Deep South Texas. He is a life long fan of comic books, video games, and pro wrestling. He spent five years in the trenches of his local comic book shop. His work has appeared in WWE Magazine (when WWE had a magazine), Comics Should Be Good, and Inside Pulse.