The Outer Worlds Aptitudes Guide

Backstories add extra flavor to our created characters, allowing us to better tailor them to fit our desires. The Outer Worlds aptitudes add these humorous little story touches to your digital avatar, and even confer a skill point or stat increase as a bonus! So, what exactly are these aptitudes?

Aptitudes are selected during character creation, and reward a stat point.

The Outer Worlds has 15 aptitudes to choose from, each offering a cheeky little slice of backstory to your character. I don’t want to spoil any here in this guide (the first one in the image above aside, because it’s the most straight-forward of the bunch), but suffice to say they act as a nice primer for the brand of humor you’ll encounter within the game (honestly, read the aptitudes when creating your character; at least one should make you chuckle).

Below is the list of each aptitude and the skill point, or stat increase associated with it.

• “No Discernible Aptitude”: Determination +1
• Beverage Service Technician: Drink Effect Duration +3%
• Bureaucrat, Rank 0: Block +1
• Cashier, Sub-Grad, Non-Supervisory: Persuade +1
• Construction, Electrician Class, Wire Spooler: Shock Damage Received -3%
• Elevator Operations Specialist: Engineering +1
• Factory Worker, Conveyor Operator: Dodge +1
• Farmer, Dirt: N-ray Damage Received -3%
• Food Additive Tester: Food Effect Duration +3%
• Janitor, Sanitation Class: Corrosion Damage Received -3%
• Tossball Team Mascot: Inspiration +1
• Medical Technician, Junior Grade: Medical +1
• Safety Inspector: Plasma Damage Received -3%
• Scientist Assitant, Level 0, Class A: Science +1
• Sub Sous Chef: 1-Handed Melee +1

As you can see, the bonuses are not exactly build-defining. They’re nice, and I’m sure min-maxers will nitpick over which of The Outer Worlds aptitudes works best for their build. For everyone else, they’ll provide a little humor and backstory to our characters, helping ease us into Obsidian’s latest world. Either way, I recommend reading the flavor text: it’s all properly absurd and sells the whole “corporations run the future and we are all grateful employees, or else” vibe the game is leaning into.

For more The Outer Worlds guides be sure to check out our guides page!