THE OUTER WORLDS
This pulpy space oddity will spoil you with choice
FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2019 / PUB PRIVATE DIVISION / DEV OBSIDIAN ENTERTAINMENT
We’ve all been there: red-faced, having to explain an embarrassing bum-dial. Maybe you call your editor at an inopportune moment but style it out into a pitch for an upcoming issue. Or maybe you accidentally send off a garbled distress signal from a planet that’s home to some super-secret research you’d really rather the rest of the galaxy didn’t catch wind of. Happens to the best of us!
The distress signal in question reaches your Captain, a person of occasionally questionable judgement who doesn’t always manage to fit the puzzle pieces together. Your companion, Ellie, tells you the sender is likely long dead judging by the message’s abrupt ending. The Captain, through a truly inspired dialogue option, can suggest the message is simply an intergalactic bum-dial.
Ellie isn’t convinced by this: “You’re saying they walked into a communications tower, turned on the transmitter, held down the talk button and sent half a message by accident?”
On being asked not to judge she scoffs, “Oh, I’m judging all right.”
At an intellectual stalemate, there’s nowt left to do but venture down and investigate the source of the signal.
CRITTER-CRUSH
On the ground, the scientist Anton Crane claims the message was accidental after all. The Captain is satisfied and is about to call it a day when the ever-sceptical Ellie digs a little deeper. Turns out all of those corpses outside, the ones the Captain merrily stepped over thinking nothing untoward of, are the result of Crane’s test subjects breaking loose. A scaly alien species, raptidons may look cute with their pink and bioluminescent green colouring but, trust us, they’ve got bite. Anton’s secret lab has been overrun not only by them but also by marauders who want to separate him from his secret (and definitely not entirely legal) research. He tasks you with retrieving his decidedly dodgy work and also clearing out his self-induced pest problem.
On the way to the lab, those raptidons soak far more laser rounds than is welcome. It’s a scarring experience, and your Captain may develop a case of raptiphobia. Allowing this fear to take root will make you less effective against the scale babies but grants you a perk point to spend as you choose. This is the Flaw system, a risk-versus-reward addition that allows your custom character to be shaped by their adventure.
TIMELY SHOT
Outside the secret lab there are fewer raptidons, though far more marauders. Time Dilation allows you to line up that perfect headshot to get the jump on them, but when you’re out of ammo you’ve still got options, such as a rather fetching cyber-scythe with a molten edge that makes melee combat just as compelling as the gunplay. Another of your companions, Felix, has a giant hammer that we can’t wait to get better acquainted with either.
Speaking of Felix, as much as you may be taken with his ruddy great hammer, you won’t be able to romance any companions you encounter in your travels. You will still have to put the effort into keeping them on-side with specific missions, especially because if you let ill will fester between they can up and leave you.
Within the facility, you have to go on the charm offensive, starting with the outlaws’ leader, Cassandra O’Malley. Yes, she has Crane’s research. No, she isn’t inclined to give it back. But she is cornered, so perhaps you can come to an agreement…
If you do decide to help her out, you’ll have to deal with the facility’s security forces, who have seen everything and are none too happy with your fraternising with the enemy. You could sweet-talk your way out or you can straight up attack ’em and see where that gets you. Decisions, eh? Who doesn’t love them? As Ellie says, “You just keep being you.”