Since pretty much the day it was announced, Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds has drawn comparisons with Fallout on a constant basis. Which makes a lot of sense- the game’s being headed up by the two people who created Fallout, it’s being developed by the team that developed Fallout: New Vegas, it has a similar choice-driven approach, and it’s an RPG/FPS hybrid in terms of its combat.
Obsidian’s Senior Narrative Designer Carrie Patel recently spoke about these similarities in an interview with DualShockers. As per Patel, The Outer Worlds very much has the Fallout DNA – which is something that Obsidian themselves have spoken of before as well – and it’s something that players will be able to pinpoint quite easily- but she also clarifies that there’s more to the game beyond those similarities, and that after all is said and sone, with The Outer Worlds, Obsidian are creating something that is completely new and distinct.
“People will definitely see the DNA of a game like New Vegas in this,” she said. “We have a lot of developers on our team who worked on New Vegas previously. Obviously, Tim and Leonard worked on the original Fallout games. The semi-open worlds, the open approach to completing and achieving quests, the flexible and player-driven storyline, that’s all stuff that you can see in our DNA that also exists in games like New Vegas. But in terms of the IP, we’re definitely creating something new and I think players will recognize The Outer Worlds as something pretty distinct.”
But what exactly is it that separates it from Fallout? As per Patel, The Outer Worlds’ structure, its extensive role playing mechanics, and its build variety are all things that Obsidian have always done, and don’t necessarily harken back to Fallout.
“The general approach to having multiple paths and multiple solutions through content–to accommodating various playstyles, whether it’s accommodating players who build very strong dialogue characters or very stealthy characters, someone who’s very strong in combat–some of that is maybe the inevitable result of having a game with those sort of playstyles enabled,” she said. “In our case, this isn’t an open world in the same style as Fallout, but a semi-open world, first-person RPG with strong FPS elements.
“It’s easy to see those similarities but the things we’ve wanted to apply, which are things we’ve practiced at the studio on a number of our games, are accommodating a variety of player builds, giving the player a sort of blank slate for role-playing so that they can really create the character that they want to experience the world with, and putting them in a position to drive the story and to play the game they’d like to.”
The Outer Worlds is out on October 25th for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. A Nintendo Switch version of the game was also recently announced.