THE OUTER WORLDS
New RPG from Fallout creators and Obsidian is out there
THERE’S A GREAT SENSE OF DARK HUMOUR IN ITS DESIGN.
02
This new sci-fi RPG from Obsidian wears its Fallout influence on its sleeve. Members of the development team served key roles in making that selfsame post-apocalyptic RPG series, so it’s fair enough. In a way they knitted that sleeve, and the whole jumper, themselves.
This project is co-directed by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, who created Fallout in 1997. The Outer Worlds’ developer, Obsidian, made Fallout: New Vegas, as well as some other great RPGs, including Alpha Protocol and Pillars Of Eternity.
There’s a reason so many people still hold up New Vegas as the best in the Fallout series – it captured so much of what people loved about the games: a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting, plenty of dashes of dark humour, and the ability to approach situations your own way. You could properly roleplay a character if you wanted to. It’s easy to see, then, why creating The Outer Worlds is such a natural step for the devs. While what we’ve seen to date has more of a B-movie science fiction aesthetic, these outer planets have a similar ‘early settler’ vibe to Fallout’s post-nuclear America, and there’s a great sense of humour in this first-person RPG adventure. In it, settlers on the newly colonised planets find their lives controlled by big mega-corporations, and your character, revived from a cryo-sleep gone wrong, is thrown into the midst of things as an outsider.
FALLING OUT
Essentially your role is to visit alien planets alongside your crew, helping people out along the way. These worlds are harsh, but humour in the way you can interact with people in dialogue trees (theorising that a distress call might be a “wrong number”, for example), in the quests (such as a toothpaste experiment gone wrong), and the world design (a sign reads “Auntie Biotics”) all helps to lighten things. It’s not taking itself too seriously, and that’s great when so many other games do. Given Obsidian’s track record, could we expect anything less?
For the most part your exploration involves pointing guns at
things and shooting them. You can use a Tactical Time Dilation power-up both to slow down time and to increase damage, which decreases faster when taking action, allowing for some thought.
Stats and numbers are, of course, present, and factor into the numerous and branching dialogue trees we’ve seen so far. Your crew members will even affect some of your stats and buffs, meaning you should be able to fall back on your pals’ skills if you suck in a particular area. These companions have their own missions and stories.
If you’ve got an itch to play a fun and colourful sci-fi RPG, a new take on the likes of Fallout and Mass Effect, then Obsidian is gearing up to give it a good scratch. Stay tuned for more, and take a look at the reveal yourself here: bit.ly/towtrailer.