The Outer Worlds – New Details Revealed About Story, Choices, Exploration, and More

Obsidian Entertainment unveiled their new sci-fi RPG, The Outer Worlds, at The Game Awards last week, a game that has looked incredible in all that we have seen of it so far, and now, as per newer details, continues to sound even more promising. A Steam listing has gone up for the upcoming first person RPG, and it reveals some interesting new info about everything from the story to the choices to exploration and more.

The most interesting tidbit to come out of the listing, perhaps, relates to “flaws”. Essentially, The Outer Worlds allows your character to be flawed at things, and accordingly use specific buffs and debuffs to counter those flaws. If there is a particular kind of enemy that you keep dying to, for instance, you can use a “flaw” particular to that kind of enemy that “gives you a debuff when confronting the vicious creatures, but rewards you with an additional character perk immediately”. This is, of course, an optional mechanic, but one that “helps you build the character you want”.

Of course, player choice is also going to be important in The Outer Worlds’ narrative, as you would expect from an Obsidian-developed game. Your choices, according to the Steam page, will affect everything from your character build, to your companion stories, to end-game scenarios. The companions you meet throughout the game will have their own stories and motivations as well, and will have quests specific to them. It’ll be up to you to “help them achieve their goals, or turn them to your own ends.” 

Player choice and companions are two things that the games’ narrative designer Kathryn Megan Starks recently spoke of as well. 

“We want [The Outer World’s] companions to really emphasize that they have stakes that are important to them,” she said while speaking with RPG Site. “They’ll ask you to help out on their quests and they’ll speak out against you if they don’t support what you’re doing, we want their motivations and goals to always be at the center of their character.”

With regard to player choice, Starks mentioned as an example that The Outer Worlds will pretty much allow players to kill whoever they want, and there won’t be many characters in the game that you’re simply not allowed to kill. “As a designer, I’m always tempted to just have it made so that you can’t kill this person or that person,” she said. “But we have a philosophy where we feel like it makes for a better gameplay experience to allow the player to do these sorts of things. You can even kill the scientist if you want.”

Beyond that, information on how exploration will be handled in the game is also detailed to some extent on the game’s Steam listing. The game’s setting is called Halycon, “a colony at the edge of the galaxy owned and operated by a corporate board”, where “alien monsters” are terraforming two of the colony’s planets, following which players are put in charge of a ship, and set out for exploring the colony, building their crew, and exploring “the settlements, space stations, and other intriguing locations throughout Halcyon”. 

How open will exploration be, exactly? According to Starks, it’s going to strike a balance with focus on the narrative, but will still provide ample opportunities for players to explore large environments. “I think it’s a bit of a mix,” she said. “We wanted to provide a focused single-player story experience while leaving options open to explore the different environments. Once you get your ship, you’ll have a lot of options to explore specific locations, with more opening up as you finish quests or purchase new passes in-game.”

Finally, we also have confirmation from Obsidian that there will be no microtransactions in The Outer Worlds, which is something that the studio explicitly stated as early as a year ago. Speaking with Gamestar, Tim Cain – one of the two project leads on the game (and also one of the original creators of Fallout) – said on the matter of microtransactions: “There are no microtransactions in the game. You buy it once and then enjoy it forever.”

The Outer Worlds launches some time in 2019 for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage on the game.