The Outer Worlds is aiming to be a space based RPG that will capture both the humor and feeling of classic RPGs in the Fallout style. The developer worked on Fallout: New Vegas, an entry many feel is underrated compared to its Bethesda developed siblings, so expectations are high for this one. Much as you’d expect, the game will feature a lot of choices, and not all of them will be easy.
In an interview with GamesIndustry, Obsidian Entertainment’s Senior Designer Brian Heins laid out how the game’s morally grey areas can lead to hard choices. While there is a main villain group in the form of The Board, he says they want to both put a human face on them as well as put you in situations where you can see their point of view even if you’re suppose to be opposed to them.
“We wanted to give a personal touch to the faceless corporations. If you can’t sympathise with the corporate board, you can sympathise with the person you are dealing with in the game,” Heins explained.
“Choices are interesting when they’re hard,” he added, “when both sides have equal weight to their argument and you have to decide which one to go with. That’s much more interesting than if one side is clearly right, the other is clearly wrong and you don’t have to think about the choice at all.”
Microsoft seemingly wants to expanded the game into full franchise, as they’ve recently acquired Obsidian. Hopefully, story beats like this will land and make the game that much more successful for the two companies. We’ll find out when The Outer Worlds launches for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on October 25th. A Switch version is also in the works, but as of now there’s been no release window.