The Outer Worlds 2 Prepares to Launch Players Into Another Corporate Satire Sci-Fi RPG
- The Outer Worlds 2 releases Oct. 29 on all major platforms, sending players to the planet Arcadia in a new corporate-satire sci-fi story.
- Obsidian promises permanent, meaningful choices, dynamic factions, and customizable builds with perks and companions.
- Obsidian also made Fallout: New Vegas, and fans hoped a recent Bethesda Fallout Day Broadcast would reveal a remaster, but instead it focused on merch.
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Blast Off
Developed by Obsidian and published by Xbox Game Studios, The Outer Worlds 2 once again sends players into a sector of space overseen by a combination of shady corporate and government agencies. It launches on Oct. 29 across all major platforms.
Although it’s a sequel to 2019’s The Outer Worlds, it’s not a direct continuation of that game’s events, but rather set in (literally) the same universe. As an agent of the Earth Directorate, players arrive on the planet of Arcadia with the primary goal being to stop devastating rifts from opening up. However, the planet is ruled by different factions, with player actions affecting the flow of the story.
“Cut off from Earth, you arrive as an Earth Directorate agent with a mission,” Obsidian said in a news post. “How you carry it out – who you help, hinder, or exploit – is up to you. Build your character with dynamic traits, flaws, and backgrounds that shape every decision and unlock new ways to fight, sneak, persuade, or just blow things up.”
“Factions clash in real-time. Towns change hands. Radio stations shift tone. Your choices ripple across Arcadia – and thanks to its ever-present radio system, you won’t just hear the news. You are the news. Folk hero or public enemy? Depends on who’s spinning it (and selling you a health tonic).”
Corporate Culture Shock
Obsidian’s marketing promises another sly dig at outer space consumerism and government control, although whether there’s, ahem, space for yet another AAA game with this kind of tone remains to be seen. Early reviews have started to come in that suggest the game is a marked improvement on the first, at least, with the overall tone being a little more serious than promotional material implies.
One of the ways The Outer Worlds 2 promises to offer players a better time than the original is in an expanded RPG system. Games could make choices in the first game and respec their character build pretty much whenever they wanted, but Obsidian has said that it wants choices to truly matter in the sequel.
“Lots of people love respec,” said Brandon Adler, Game Director, in an interview with RPGsite in June this year. “And that is definitely one way you can go about things. I personally want the player to understand their choices are permanent – they matter – and then they think more about their choices.”
“We want to respect people’s time and for me in a role-playing game this is respecting somebody’s time. Saying your choices matter, so take that seriously – and we’re going to respect that by making sure that we give you cool reactivity for those choices that you’re making.”
Along the way, players can choose to side with or actively work against the very agency they’re supposed to represent, or throw their lot in with Auntie’s Choice (a consumer-focused faction) or The Order of the Ascendant (scientists who worship mathematical patterns). Or they can try and ignore everybody and see what happens.
Perks up the Wazoo
The main part of building a character in any RPG is the perks, and fans of Obsidian’s previous games will recognize some of the available traits in The Outer Worlds 2. Whether a player wants to funnel all their points into becoming a sci-fi cowboy with sharpshooting skills and a silver tongue, or a kleptomaniac brawler with ninja agility, Obsidian likely has a perk to suit a variety of playstyles.
Companions are once again available, so players can augment their preferred style with a complementary AI helper. They each come with their own quirks and allegiances though, whether that’s worshiping the rifts players are supposed to stop or working for the Earth Directorate themselves.
Fallout by Any Other Name
A lot of this news should be familiar to anyone who’s played Obsidian’s previous games, including Pillars of Eternity and even the recent Avowed. The studio has made a name for itself by crafting quirky RPGs with plenty of player choice built-in, although it’s arguably Fallout: New Vegas that put the company on the map for a lot of modern gamers.
Published by Bethesda, the studio behind the majority of other Fallout titles, New Vegas built on Fallout 3 to offer a slightly different spin on the wasteland RPG, most notably by introducing the city of New Vegas and potential villain Mr. House. These latter two additions proved so popular with fans, in fact, that they’re set to be major parts of the next season of the Fallout TV show.
Bethesda itself ran a studio showcase yesterday (Oct. 23) but didn’t reveal Fallout 5, as many gamers hoped. Instead, it ended up being something that, as some YouTube commentators noted, “could have been an email.”
Rather than expected remaster news for Fallout 3 or New Vegas, gamers found out 2015’s Fallout 4 is coming to Switch 2 and the TV series’ Ghoul (played by Walter Goggins) is set to appear in Fallout 76’s Burning Springs update, coming in December. The rest of the showcase was dedicated to, fittingly, a celebration of sci-fi corporate consumer culture by focusing on merchandise.
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