One of the more intriguing announcements at The Game Awards last Thursday was that of The Outer Worlds, Obsidian Entertainment’s next big singleplayer RPG, and their first non-isometric title since the ever-adored Fallout: New Vegas back in 2010. Now jostling with Bioware’s Anthem for the totally-official title of Most Anticipated Mass-Effect-Like, Obsidian expanded on their initial reveal with a 15-minute gameplay video uploaded over at Game Informer. As a result, we now have enough to do a little prognosticating on the topic of this space-colonist-turned-cyber-western-pistol-demon simulator. Below you’ll find everything we know so far about The Outer Worlds; release date, combat, exploration, story details, player choice elements, and more.
What is The Outer Worlds release date?
Currently the best we’ve been given on the release date for The Outer Worlds is sometime in 2019. It’ll be released on Windows, PS4 and Xbox One. That’s all we know so far, so until further details are shipped over to us from the other side of the galaxy, you’ll have to content yourself with staring at the words and pictures on the game’s Steam page, or checking out the gameplay video from Game Informer below if you haven’t already.
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What’s the setting of The Outer Worlds?
It’s a fair question, because there are presumably a number of worlds that are more “outer” than “inner” in the Milky Way galaxy. The idea is that you were one of many cryo-sleepy colonists shipped off to the – ahem – outer worlds of known space, where a corpocratic dual-planet colony called Halcyon was supposedly waiting to receive you. But then Some Bad Things happened and your ship was lost in transit, with the result that you remained a human popsicle for a lot longer than is strictly healthy. Unfrozen at last, you set off on your journey across Halcyon and its two associated celestial bodies.
According to Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, the game’s directors, one of the two planets is far cuddlier than the other. The reason is that the latter has not yet been terraformed, which means there is likely to be a whole host of hungry beasties and other dangers on that world. We’re treated to a few glimpses of the untamed planet, and it all looks very No Man’s Sky with its very un-Earth-like terrain and plantlife. There is predictably a far greater semblance of society and civilization on the former, because people tend to prefer to cosy up someplace where they don’t wake up to find big Zerg-y caterpillars gnawing on their ankles. To travel between the two planets you’ll need to find and regain control of your ship, which is where The Outer Worlds starts sounding very familiar to Mass Effect fans, with the ship serving as your home base and rest area where you can get to know your crew and companions, and take stock of your objectives.
There are companions in The Outer Worlds? And conversations?
You betcha! Living breathing companions with unique motives, quests, and attitudes towards life, Halcyon, and you. And you can have in-depth role-playing conversations with them to figure all this stuff out using a dialogue system that is probably most akin to Obsidian’s isometric titles such as Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny. The protagonist appears to be unvoiced (at least for now), but can choose between a variety of options for not just what you say but how you say it. One of the things that the team is really trying to make clear is that role-playing is a very important aspect of The Outer Worlds. And they’ve had some fun with it, too. You’ve got the tried-and-tested dialogue flavours such as “Intimidate”, “Lie”, “Persuade”, and so on; but you’ve also got “Dumb” options a la certain previous Obsidian RPGs, which should lead to some predictable hilarity during NPC interactions.
The companions themselves, we are promised, will also have things to say about the actions you take during your journey across Halcyon. If you cross their line, they’ll abandon you and head back to the ship. If you make a fool of yourself, they’ll make it known. If you deviate from their goals, they will be critical. It’s again walking a path well-trodden by many previous RPGs, but we’ll have to see what new quirks and memorable moments Obsidian bring to the table with this new far-flung roster.
What’s combat like in The Outer Worlds?
The aforementioned gameplay demo gave us a fair estimation of what combat will entail in The Outer Worlds, and it looks like it will appeal particularly to those of us who had a jolly time killing things in BioShock. This is a straight-up real-time first-person combat system, no die rolls behind closed doors that you have to worry about. Weapon and character stats will determine the damage you deal to an enemy, but the only thing that determines if you hit an enemy is your own accuracy. One of the new features the Obsidian folks were keen to show off was the “time dilation” mechanic, which slows everything to a bassy crawl giving you time to line up that perfect headshot. We’re promised a diverse array of weapons with which to dispense your own personal brand of justice, including a selection of fabulously lightsaber-esque melee energy weapons for when gunplay just doesn’t get you close enough to the action (that scythe looks like a great big glowing evil Kevin from Pixar’s Up, and I’m loving it). There are apparently even a class of aptly named “science weapons” which include wonderful options such as shrink rays, so we should all be excited to learn more about that.
Drugy-Drug-Drugs will seemingly be a big thing too, both the driving force behind certain missions across Halcyon and also a viable option during combat to help you survive longer or dish out more damage. The leveling and stats system will help with that too, comprising six different skills such as strength and intelligence, and unlockable perks which activate as you pour more points into these skills.
Another big feature that Obsidian have implemented for this RPG – again tying in with their overall role-playing vision for The Outer Worlds – is what they call the “Flaws” system. Flaws are neat little optional traits which are brought about by the game monitoring your experiences throughout Halcyon and noting if you have trouble with a particular enemy or thing. If this happens enough, you may be offered the option to give yourself a flaw based on this antagonist, which gives you a debuff during future similar experiences. Why would you ever pick this, you ask? Because the game also rewards you with the ability to choose an extra character perk immediately. So if there’s a certain type of beast over on Danger-Planet that you keep dying to, you are given the option to ingrain this shortcoming into your character’s narrative in a way that the game understands, providing a fresh new element to the role-playing genre that we haven’t really seen before anywhere else. According to Cain, he’s been wanting to put this system into a game for years, so evidently he thinks it’ll suit The Outer Worlds particularly well.
How much player choice will there be in The Outer Worlds?
Player choice is always a heavily emphasised notion in most Obsidian games, and The Outer Worlds doesn’t look to be the exception to that rule. The multiple branching paths of each quest make themselves known almost immediately after you start your journey; you are unfrozen by a man who asks you to procure certain chemicals which will enable him to help your fellow colonists. Which you can do, if you choose. Or, you can take the objectively more fun alternative, and turn the poor fellow in to the bureaucops over on the Halcyon corporate board, for what Cain promises will be a “lot of money”. So there will evidently be a fair amount of scope for larger branching paths during quests, in addition to the large number of branching dialogue options and the general open-world-ness of the game which will enable you to choose which location or quest you’d like to seek out next.
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Will there be romance options in The Outer Worlds?
See what we did there, making you scroll down all this way for you to find the really important details? Talk about burying the lede. Alas, though Cain and Boyarsky said they considered the prospect of Bioware-esque love- and lust-fuelled chapters of your colonist’s journey, they ultimately decided against it. So for those of you hoping to woo that outlaw, you know, the one with the eyes, or that corporate clone with that distinctive waddle – you’re outta luck. I guess you’ll have to kill them instead. If you can’t have them…
For now, that’s all we’ve got. But as more news arrives we’ll be updating this page to reflect all the juicy details of Obsidian’s new offering. So make sure you keep checking back here as we soar ever nearer to The Outer Worlds and all that awaits us there.