I love the first Outlanders. I have been playing it since it was released and play it often. It’s pretty much the only reason I continue to pay for Apple Arcade. There have been many updates and additions that haven’t all been as appealing to me but I definitely prefer it over Outlanders 2. I was very excited when I saw this one was released. I thought maybe they had perfected some of the issues of Outlanders 1 and upgraded it so it would be newer and better. It definitely took some getting use to, I finished all the levels before the new update and I still don’t feel fully comfortable with it. I am going to try the new levels and see how I feel so I haven’t given up on it but I still feel more comfortable playing the first one regularly. I think some of the mechanics and extra buildings are a bit much. I don’t like how you need separate buildings for storage. I think the goal was to make it easier to keep certain foods and items where they were needed most but I feel like it’s just made it more complicated. Maybe I just like the simplicity of outlanders 1 and miss how it was before all the additions. I will still keep trying to see if I can get more use to it and hopefully like it better. There are many things about Outlanders 2 I do like, the graphics are nice. The added weather, hunting and some of the newer buildings are great. I just feel like it’s a bit overwhelming and takes some time to learn and get comfortable with it. I had a hard time beating some of the levels and took many times to do so on a few but I finally got through them. Hopefully the newly released ones will be fun though and I look forward to trying them.

I absolutely adore this game. I’ve already blown through all the campaign challenges and am working my way through the weekly challenges and never get bored. Sandbox mode is also a ton of fun and easy to restart and find a map you really like. A couple suggestions; through some trial and error (and a few discord threads) I learned there are memory limits when it comes to resources and hoarding resources or using larger maps in sandbox mode with the resources set on max. Sandbox mode specifically. This limits you to about 170 days of playtime before it crashes out completely and becomes unplayable. There are workarounds for longer playtime by choosing smaller maps and limiting your starting resources and then limiting your resources and population overall during gameplay. Things like a backup of 300 food can be dangerous. I feel this mode should come with a warning and limits before more people invest tons of time into builds that eventually crash and become unplayable. Now that I’ve learned the limits I still am enjoying it immensely. I do however wish you were able to use all the building options throughout all of the maps. I would love to have a vineyard on a tropical island, as well as the cheesery and fondue restaurant. Alternatively I’d love to build ice pop stands on an evergreen map or also build a winery on a wintergreen map. You could do this with a greenhouse/orchard combo option. Lastly, please add more decorations!! 3/4 is not enough!!

I like most things about this game. The art style is different, the need to juggle people between jobs rather than spawning as many workers as possible was at first annoying but I got into it. The interface is passable. There are some QoL issues that would have been disqualifying on a PC but this is a phone game, so, fine. The one thing that absolutely breaks the experience for me in the mid game is the day limit. Most levels can be beaten in 20 minutes but some can take an hour and there is no way to save and revert to an earlier state in the level. So, say, you misunderstood the instructions or did not calculate the output of a building correctly; easy enough to do since there are very few stats and metrics to rely on; and barely lost. You now know exactly what you should have done to win. Probably should have had two orchards for instance. Are you going to replay an hour level just to do that one thing differently? Screw that, I have a pc if I want to spend that much time on a game. So far, I’ve replayed one level and now I’m daunted by having to replay another one a few levels later. There’s no way to skip them so I guess I’m probably done with this game. It’s too bad because the limit brings very little to the experience and I do want to see what lies ahead. I just can’t justify spending a boring hour just to unlock more levels, which have a high chance of bringing the same problem.

I loved the original Outlanders so of course I downloaded the sequel. At first, I really didn’t like Outlanders 2. The levels all felt near impossible to beat and that was only worsened when I realized I couldn’t use decrees to reach my goals. I preferred the story telling of the first game and the diversity of the characters there as well. All these things can be taken as constructive criticism or ignored, because at the end of the day, I ended up enjoying Outlanders 2. The learning curve took a lot longer for me but that was because I was still playing it like the original game. The lack of decrees, in my opinion, gives the player less leeway to be creative when going about achieving all the tasks; on the one hand that can feel negatively restrictive, on the other hand, it creates another sense of challenge. Now I look forward to what they’ll bring next. I only really suggest that they create more environmental obstacles and bring back the diversity they had in the first game. All in all, great game and can’t wait for more updates.TLDR: After I realized that this game needed a different approach than the original, I was able to more thoroughly enjoy the game play.