Brandon Adler, game director for The Outer Worlds 2, has spoken about how the upcoming RPG is not targeting as wide of a player base as possible. In an interview with RPG Site, Adler said that developer Obsidian Entertainment is more interested in “picking a lane” rather than trying to appease everyone with its games.
Speaking about the fact that players in The Outer Worlds 2 will not be able to respec their builds – even if they end up with a bad one – Adler said that an emphasis on role-playing means that the game will force players to stick to their choices. Once players start spending their skill points on new abilities or getting new stats, they are essentially locking that decision in with no chance to change their minds later. While he noted that there is nothing wrong with a game allowing players to respec their builds, he said that it was 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.”
He also elaborated on the fact that The Outer Worlds 2 might end up being a game that doesn’t appeal to everyone because of its lack of respec options. “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.”
Further in the interview, Adler also spoke about how the fact that The Outer Worlds 2 will provide consequences for choices also means that the game ends up respecting the player’s time. He noted that the studio trusts players to take the decisions that they make seriously, and in turn, the studio will reward them with reactivity for their choices.
“We want to respect people’s time, and for me, in a role-playing game, this is respecting somebody’s time,” Adler explained. “Saying your choices matter, so take that seriously – and we’re going to respect that by making sure that we give you cool reactivity for those choices that you’re making. That’s respecting your time.”
“So you know your question was, was, how do you cater to that? And I would say you’ve got to be clear with people early on what the experience they’re getting is. If that’s not for them, that’s understandable. We hope that we can convince you that it is – but I’m also not going to make a game for literally everybody because then I feel it waters down the experience a lot.”
Ultimately, Adler admitted that Obsidian wants to “make a game that people want to continue playing for a long time.” However, he also noted that not every game ultimately will satisfy every player. “Sometimes you have to pick a lane.”
The Outer Worlds 2 is coming to PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5 on October 29th. Check out more details about the game’s price and how its developers took advice from the developers of Halo and Destiny.
