Developer Obsidian Entertainment has made no secret about the fact that The Outer Worlds 2 will feature a lot more RPG-styled choices for players to make with regards to their characters. In an interview with GamesRadar, creative director Brandon Adler has revealed that the choices available to players will allow them a wide variety of gameplay style, from stealth to all-out action. Adler said has that “you’re going to have crazy complex systems.”
He did note, however, that while complex RPG systems will be present in The Outer Worlds 2, those looking for more casual gameplay “don’t even have to interact” with these systems, at least not early on. In fact, Adler has said that the systems “are complex if the player wants to dig into those and get deeper – we give that depth to the player.”
“If you love stealth, you can really dig into that,” Adler explained, while going on to point out that “if you’re a combat person, you just want to blow stuff up, you never have to worry about stealth.”
“We like to give players lots of different ways to tackle content, but to do that I think you need to make sure that it’s simple early and gets complex,” he said.
Just last month, Adler had also spoken about how The Outer Worlds 2 won’t allow players to respec their builds in order to make them feel like their decisions with their characters’ builds matters. While he noted that there are games that allow for full respecs, and that there’s no right or wrong answer there, it would be the wrong choice for The Outer Worlds 2.
“There’s a lot of times where you’ll see games where they allow infinite respec, and at that point, I’m not really role-playing a character, because I’m jumping between – well, my guy is a really great assassin that snipes from long range, and then oh, y’know, now I’m going to be a speech person, then respec again, and it’s like… for me, it’s not wrong that people like to play like that,” said Adler.
“Look, if we’re going to do The Outer Worlds 2, I want to make sure that the role-playing is really strong,” he continued. “I want to make sure that you’re building your character and really doubling down – making sure that role-playing comes through the whole experience.”
Adler noted that this decision might end up being an unpopular one. However, when it comes to the game that Adler wants to make, the decision to disallow respecs is an important one. “It’s probably not a popular thing for me to say,” he said. “But, like, that’s just not as important. That doesn’t come into the calculus of the cool, fun game I want to make.”
The Outer Worlds 2 is in development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and will be coming out on October 29. The RPG is also slated to be the first one published by Microsoft to be priced at $80. For more details about the title, check out which games it was inspired by.
