Outward 2 Sets July Early Access Date and Reveals Hilarious ‘Potato PC’ Showcase

Nine Dots Studio has announced that Outward 2, the highly anticipated sequel to their unforgiving fantasy RPG, will launch into Early Access on July 7. The game will be available for PC players across Steam, the Epic Games Store, and GOG. For those eager to test their survival instincts early, a Closed Beta is scheduled to kick off next week on May 26.

To celebrate the announcement, the Canadian developer released a gameplay trailer that takes a refreshing approach to PC performance marketing. While showcasing the beautiful world of Aurai at maximum settings, Nine Dots also poked fun at hardware anxiety by introducing a mock “Potato PC” performance expert named Mr. Potato. The trailer humorously demonstrates how the game runs on absolute minimum settings using fictional budget hardware like a “Fryzen 5” CPU and “8 GB of YAM”.

Behind the humor lies a much deeper, refined sequel. In Outward 2, you step into the shoes of an ordinary citizen rather than a chosen hero. True to the original cult hit, survival requires meticulous preparation: you must manage highly limited backpack space, manually lay traps, and physically drop your heavy pack before engaging in combat to move freely.

According to CEO Guillaume Boucher-Vidal, the sequel heavily improves upon four core pillars based on player feedback: character progression, storytelling, a more reactive world, and fluid combat. The game introduces a seasonal weather cycle across four distinct regions, an “Exercise system” that grows passive skills based on your actual playstyle, and ritual-based spellcasting. Additionally, the grueling journey through Aurai can be braved entirely in two-player split-screen or online co-op.

Outward 2 launches in Early Access on July 7, 2026.