By definition, a softlock in a game is when you can still play the game, but you cannot actually progress. Due to a bit of silliness on my part, I discovered a pretty bad softlock in The Outer Worlds 2 that anyone can possibly trigger, so I just want to alert other players.
When you start ‘The Saboteur of Paradise’ quest, you will likely come across Minister Milverstreet and Acquisitions Officer Kaur in Fairfield. Each wants you to do a quest for them in order to get their help with the Vox Relay Station.
Taking Acquisitions Officer Kaur up on her offer starts the ‘Above and Beyond Repair’ quest, where you have to infiltrate the Automech Repair Center. It is under the control of the Protectorate, so you’ll need to use a bit of trickery to get in. However, Kaur also suggests that a full frontal assault is a bad idea.
I took this as a challenge and instead of going off elsewhere to find the required credentials, I mounted an assault on the Automech Repair Center. It wasn’t even all that hard, honestly. There were some tricky enemies, but I went relatively unscathed for the most part.
It turns out Kaur wasn’t just advising against attacking the ARC just because, though. I ran all over the now corpse-strewn ARC, checking every nook and cranny while still in the objective zone for gaining entry (to somewhere I was already in), and I couldn’t find anything.
By killing everyone, I do believe I locked myself out of some important item or interaction, and I am no longer able to progress. Sadly, I hadn’t saved before fully going Rambo on these people, and all the autosaves had already placed/locked me inside.
So, now I have no choice but to fully restart The Outer Worlds 2. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but I do wish the game had informed me that killing whoever had completely messed me up.
Don’t be like me, and actually follow the quest (if this is the one you choose to undertake) instead of trying to be cheeky about it!