{"id":137122,"date":"2026-05-08T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-200618"},"modified":"2026-05-08T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:00:00","slug":"review-outbound-switch-2-a-cosy-crafty-open-world-driving-sim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2026\/05\/08\/review-outbound-switch-2-a-cosy-crafty-open-world-driving-sim\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Outbound (Switch 2) \u2013 A Cosy, Crafty, Open-World Driving Sim"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
\"Outbound<\/a>
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Camping is great in theory, but not so much in reality. The itchy grass and leaves, vulnerability to the elements, and a dirt bedroom\u2026and bathroom. I would much rather play video games about camping. Luckily, Outbound<\/a> lets you traverse the great outdoors without digging a hole for the bathroom \u2013 just one thing that makes it such a joy ride.<\/p>\n

Square Glade Games takes you on a campervan road trip through wilderness forests, grasslands, rocky canyons, sandy beaches. Here driving sim, walking sim, and open-world intersect for a trip that\u2019s every bit as compelling as it is relaxing, although it’s not without bumps.<\/p>\n

On your journey you collect materials like wood and scrap metal to upgrade your van or repair bridges and roads leading to uncharted territory. Later on you get a dog, too, a good boi or girl who\u2019s useful for the journey (but, more importantly, cute<\/em>!). You find campfires to light, cabins to explore, and satellite towers to download crafting instructions. An hour in and you\u2019re already loaded up on materials and missions.<\/p>\n

\"Outbound<\/a>
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And once you think you\u2019re nearing the end of things, you unlock new areas and new maps to discover. As the road gets even more open before you, you realise this world is much bigger than you thought \u2013 and that makes it even more fun.<\/p>\n

There may be lengthy stretches of road, but Outbound packs a lot in and it\u2019s hard to tire of the many activities. In fact, I was often at a crossroads (literally and proverbially) choosing between doing one task or another, left to a building or right to a satellite tower, this light puzzle or that bridge repair. Almost everything is interesting to scour and satisfying to tick off. Oh, and there\u2019s a bunch of collectibles scattered about. It will all feel like well-trodden ground for Spiritfarer<\/a> or Disney Dreamlight Valley<\/a> fans.<\/p>\n

Crafting is done in two different ways. Van and tool upgrades are done via a minigame where you tap \u2018A\u2019 every time a cursor hits a green bar. Meanwhile, you make materials and food with machines in a set-and-forget mechanic similar to Spiritfarer: pop raw items in and leave them for a time. When you come back to the machine, your wood planks\/metal\/bread are ready. As the game progresses you get more of these machines, and you\u2019ll be crafting things in one then taking them to input in another.<\/p>\n

\"Outbound<\/a>
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can play co-op, too, except it\u2019s online only. I didn\u2019t get to test it, but if it\u2019s anything like the demo, you can have up to four people riding around in a single van, sharing machines and a common goal as you craft, cook and adventure together. Cue arguments about who gets to take the wheel.<\/p>\n

With Outbound\u2019s setting, it naturally comes with a strong environmental message – the wind farms, picking up dead wood (not chopping trees), collecting trash to recycle, natural resources for fuel. Among all the horrors in the world, this game\u2019s utopian vision for the future is a gentle shred of optimism.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got three health bars: fuel for the car, hunger, and health. The car runs on basic plant-based items which are easy to come by (if only). You keep yourself fuelled by eating forageable food, as your avatar seems to be satiated by berries and mushrooms alone. If you don\u2019t eat, your hunger gauge runs out and begins chipping away at your health gauge. Your health is also affected by walking too close to campfires or jumping off high cliffs. If it runs out, you faint and wake up the next day. It\u2019s as close as you get to \u2018dying\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"Outbound<\/a>
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are features closer to reality, though. You can\u2019t run if your backpack is too full or it\u2019s too late at night. Likewise, the car slows down when there are too many items in the trunk. This is kind of freeing, in a sense. Rather than limiting your inventory, Outbound says, “Carry as much as you want, but it\u2019ll slow you down.” Your dog can help you here, too, as they have their own backpack and can obediently stay by the car or follow you.<\/p>\n

As much as you\u2019re on an outdoor adventure, your campervan was not made for off-road driving. Any time I drove off the beaten path, I struggled to right the van. There\u2019s an \u2018unstuck\u2019 option which puts you and your car back on the straight and narrow, thankfully \u2013 I ended up using it a lot<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help comparing Outbound to Firewatch<\/a> based on its art style (which I\u2019ll park for a tick). For that reason, I noticed it lacked the same compelling and emotional story. There are vague signs of other life in this world: cabins, notes, half-eaten food, and drying laundry. While these look like environmental storytelling, whatever story they\u2019re telling feels like it stalled.<\/p>\n

\"Outbound<\/a>
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Customisation is decent, though not executed in the best way. Your van is a blank canvas (van-vas?) you\u2019ll paint with items for appearances and application. I found the first-person view a little fidgety for this and sometimes it took a few taps of the analogue stick to lock onto the object I wanted. The Switch 2\u2019s mouse function might have been useful here but alas, it\u2019s not available. Although these little nuts and bolts weren\u2019t dealbreakers for me, they didn\u2019t make for a perfectly smooth ride.<\/p>\n

Outbound runs nicely enough on Switch 2; I didn\u2019t come across any stuttery frame rates or laggy load times. However, the visuals aren\u2019t always crystal clear, and background objects like trees and rocks don’t appear until you get closer to them.<\/p>\n

That brings us back to the aforementioned art style. The colour palette is lovely: midday skies of crisp blue melt to warm yellows and soft pinks as the day passes. Grasses mix different shades of green with husky yellows, red and browns. The hues can get oversaturated at night or during bad weather, though, and the details are hard to make out \u2013 especially in handheld mode.<\/p>\n

\"Outbound<\/a>
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Same goes with the audio. As with nature itself, the game is pretty quiet, accessorised with birds chirping, leaves rustling, and weather-appropriate sounds of rain, thunder, and wind. There are some nice-enough lilting piano tunes, but they are inconsistent and the silences in the empty woods turn from serene to eerie, giving Outbound the ambience of a different game. Sound effects for rewards are also sparse, reserved more for non-essential collectibles than structural repairs (which is when I really craved them).<\/p>\n

While I would have loved to give Outbound a higher score, the lack of story and the fiddly customisation made me pump the brakes. I will say this, though: I don\u2019t often play review games after I finish the article, but by the time you read this, I’ll probably be back in my campervan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked) Camping is great in theory, but not so much in reality. The itchy grass and leaves, vulnerability to the elements, and a dirt bedroom\u2026and bathroom. I would much rather play video games about camping. Luckily, Outbound lets you traverse the great outdoors without digging a hole for the bathroom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}