Critter Catcher is a Marksman Rifle in the Long Guns category in The Outer Worlds 2 that can stun creatures and turn them into pets for your ship. It’s a unique weapon made by Auntie’s Choice that deals Corrosion damage, and you can get this rifle during Inez’s companion quest. The game doesn’t tell you this clearly, so you can have trouble if you don’t know where to find it. Here’s how to unlock Critter Catcher in The Outer Worlds 2, all its stats, effects, and mod details.
How to Get Critter Catcher in The Outer Worlds 2
If you haven’t done Inez’s first quest yet, you first need to complete “Better Than Nature.” Once that’s wrapped up, go with Inez to the Value-Added Esplanade in ACS Undisputed Claim. A courier will flag you down as soon as you step off the tram and hand over a recording. Bring it back to the Incognito, play it, and this unlocks her second quest: “A Most Extraordinary Specimen,” during which you get the weapon in the Menagerie.
Inez will take you to the Frozen Maw in the northeastern end of Cloister. Inside, she’ll tamper with the controls and open the path to the Algid Menagerie—a facility filled with containment rooms, cryo-frozen wildlife, and one very unhappy Ursopod.
Critter Catcher can be found inside a containment room locker before the large glass arena that houses the rabid Ursopod. The locker is metal, easy to spot, and of course locked. There are two ways to open the locker to obtain Critter Catcher:
- Use the Containment Room Keycard: Found inside the examination room, which is at the other end of the corridor. Get a keycard from a desk left behind by the researchers who bailed out of the facility.
- Lockpick the Container Instead: If you have Lockpick Level 17 skill and at least one Mag-Pick, crack open the locker with your mechanic skill.
The Outer Worlds 2 Critter Catcher Information
Critter Catcher is a Corrosion-based Marksman Rifle with a good stun effect. It fires heavy rounds and hits about as fast as a standard marksman rifle. Critter Catcher’s built-in mod, Low-Lethality Tranquilizers, affects how it performs:
- Shots deal minimal lethal damage.
- Stun living targets that are afflicted by Dissolved.
- Small fauna (sprats, similar critters) that are tranquilized are automatically captured and added as ship pets.
Not every creature can be captured—things like sprats and small fauna on Cloister work, and more volatile creatures (like Cystpigs) should be interacted with, not shot, unless you want a sad conversation with Inez later. If in doubt, save first.
Critter Catcher Weapon Stats
- Name: Critter Catcher
- Rarity: Unique
- Weapon Type: Marksman Rifle (Long Gun)
- Damage Type: Corrosion
- Ammo Type: Heavy Rounds
- Ammo per Shot: 1
- Magazine Size: 20
- Rate of Fire: 4.3 shots/sec
- DPS: 11
- Critical Damage: 200%
- Weak Spot Bonus: +50%
- Effective Range: 40 m
- Equip Time: 0.4 s
- Reload Time: 2.0 s
- Noise Range: 10 m
- Sell Price: ~813 Bits
Despite the tranquilizer effect, it still functions very well as a standard rifle with only a trade-off of high lethal damage for utility and stuns.
Critter Catcher Mods and Customization
The rifle already comes with Low-Lethality Tranquilizers installed, but it also has two extra mod slots:
- Add-On Slot – for general performance gains like reload, control, etc.
- Optic Slot – for a better scope or targeting assist
It’s better to keep the tranquilizer mod intact because removing it would abandon the weapon’s purpose, though the additional slots leave room to tune it to be either a stealthy gun or more responsive.
Critter Catcher is also Breakable
If you scrap the weapon at a Workbench (though there’s almost no reason to), it yields:
- 4x Black Powder
- 8x Scrap Metal ×8
- 3x Screws
- 4x Coagulare Mushroom
Useful materials, sure, but the Critter Catcher rifle is too unique to destroy in The Outer Worlds 2 unless you accidentally pick up a duplicate (which you can’t).
