The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition - Obsidian's first-person sci-fi RPG set in a corporate space colony

[Junmarko]

Looks like a really self-indulgent art game, I'm happy for him.

 

[MajorMace]

A little bit more effort Roguey and you might convince some people that Sawyer is actually responsible for Cain & Boyarsky's game ending up even less interesting than poe. Also, your attunement shall be complete, needless to add.

 

[Quillon]

https://blog.eu.playstation.com/201...-its-new-sci-fi-rpg-the-outer-worlds-to-life/

How Obsidian brought its new sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds to life
The game's directors offer insight into the studio's unique take on the genre

By Justin Massongill

SIEA Social Media Specialist

Blasting off into The Outer Worlds truly feels like visiting a new, quirky universe. The developers at Obsidian tapped into deep narrative roots to actualise a future where corporations rule the stars with cheesy slogans and shoddy products. Lead game directors, Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, offer insights about bringing this immersive, humourous experience to life.

PlayStation Blog: Why did Obsidian decide to frame society in Halcyon around all-encapsulating capitalism?

Leonard Boyarsky: That came about as a reaction to Tim’s wanting to explore the inherent silliness of corporations and their desire to brand everything. Those initial sillier discussions led to us brainstorming what would happen if those same corporations were in complete control of a society. Which was decidedly not silly.

From there, how did they decide on the types of schmuck companies? Did you start with Saltuna and work back from there or start from the concept of Spacer’s Choice and then decide the products?

Tim Cain: The first company was Spacer’s Choice, which was a riff on Trucker’s Choice Pep Pills from The Simpsons. I imagined it as a company that made almost every type of product, but none of them were good. But they were cheap. After that, I created a rival company, which was Auntie Cleo’s, and they tried to differentiate themselves as better than everyone else.

Other companies quickly followed based on the needs for certain products in the game, like C&P for food, Hammersmith for weapons (oddly enough, they sold no hammers), Brook & Olson for armour, and Rizzo’s for candy and soda. Every time I invented a company, I tried to imagine some rival companies, so Hammersmith had Aramid Ballistics, Joch, and T&L. Each company had something it was known for, like higher condition maximum or more mod slots. Something to make the player get an impression of what each brand was best at.

What was the process like writing all the marketing slogans?

Tim Cain: I wrote most of the slogans over a short period of time. I usually riffed on existing slogans (like “it’s near this complete breakfast” or “boarst pockets!”). Sometimes I liked to imagine how a nice-sounding slogan would end badly, such as “Tastes fresh because…” I thought of endings like “it’s full of preservatives” or “we inject it with ozone,” but I finally settled on the simple “it was.” I found that the simple slogans really made people laugh.

How did you flesh out the religions of Scientism and Philosophism? Were there real world inspirations?

Leonard Boyarsky: Scientism started with its name, yet another Simpsons’ reference (their official name, ‘The Order of Scientific Inquiry,’ came later). After settling on that, I began exploring what type of religion could be worthy of that name, and what type of purely materialistic religion the corporations might espouse as a way to remove everything spiritual from their workers’ lives.

I’ve always been fascinated by Laplace’s demon, the idea that somehow the entirety of the universe could be divined if only we had enough information, so I worked that in as well in the guise of their ‘Universal Equation,’ their version of their ‘divine right’ to rule.

The name Philosophism came from Theosophy, a turn of the century mystical philosophy/religion, which, except for their shared belief in a personal experience of God, is about where the similarities end. It was designed as a specific answer to Scientism’s ordered, deterministic ideology.

We took aspects of various eastern religions and mashed them together to come up with something that was vague enough to be misinterpreted by many people in the colony and was also easy for the Board to turn into something to scare their workers with. It was also designed in such a way that there’d be an interesting gap between it and Scientism that could be filled in by Vicar Max’s spiritual quest.

Describe how the team went about creating the game’s various companions.

Leonard Boyarsky: With the exception of Ellie and Felix, we started with basic archetypes – the big game hunter, the disgruntled truth seeker, the naïve innocent, etc., and then we put our own spin on them. For Ellie and Felix, we just needed two temp companions who could talk to each other as they followed the player around for our vertical slice, but we liked them so much we decided to keep them.


What’s the process for writing various companion interaction dialogues? Is there, say, a matrix of the different pairings and how they’ll interact or what topics will come up between them?

Leonard Boyarsky: When we were establishing the companions’ personalities it became pretty obvious which NPCs they’d have issues with and which they’d agree with, including the other companions. Some of their interjections (like Nyoka’s Information Broker interactions) were planned out from the beginning, but many of them were second pass, with the writers running through conversations in-game and picking spots where their companions would naturally interject.

What are your favourite companion combinations?

Leonard Boyarsky: It’s hard to pick, I like them all for different reasons. Having been the main writer on Max, I’m partial to his pairings with the other companions. I love how they all shut him down whenever they get the chance.

Which companion / NPC confrontations are your favourite?

Leonard Boyarsky: Again, it’s hard to pick just one. In general, I really like the ones where the companions’ personalities and beliefs are revealed in a quick back and forth, like Felix with Anton, or Max with Graham. Or Ellie and her parents. Or Nyoka and everyone in Monarch. Or…

Parvati is asexual. Tell us about writing romance for her character and why she was written in that direction.

Leonard Boyarsky: That aspect of Parvati came from her original writer, Chris L’Etoile. After he left the project, she was taken over by Kate Dollarhyde, who continued to expand on those themes. There was no specific directive they were fulfilling; it all came from the characterization they wanted to explore for her.


Who writes the emails and all the documents found throughout the world?

Leonard Boyarsky: All the writers contributed to those.

Was there a reason for keeping the Board faceless and mysterious for as long as possible?

Leonard Boyarsky: It was partially by design, partially due to time constraints. The original idea was to limit exposure to them to make them feel more monolithic and impersonal, but a lot of the advertisements and news stories featuring the Chairman we did have planned throughout the game ended up getting cut. So they became even more faceless and mysterious.

Which joke are you most proud of?

Leonard Boyarsky: There are so many I love it’s hard to pick one. What I’m most proud of, however, is the positive reactions we’ve gotten for our humour overall. It’s impossible to guess how humour is (or isn’t) going to land, but it does feel like a lot of players are enjoying it.

What is one hard-to-find, narrative-rich side quest that you really hope players find?

Leonard Boyarsky: We’re not telling.

Max vs Graham was pretty good, yeah.

 

[Mess]

Quite simply: Before buying a new Obsidian game in the future, i'll check the writing crew first. If the trio of Carrie patel, Kate Dolarhyde and Megha starks is at the helm, i'll pass. I think Megan Starks has potential but if you add Carrie patel, Kate Dolarhyde, then it's a no go. They made me cringe way too much while playing The Outer Worlds....that and the overall dumbed down feel of the game. But yay, no bugs. That's an improvement I guess...

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Most of the parts of the story that weren't awful involved Max.

 

[DalekFlay]

Just finished my anti-Board playthrough. The story and such are so much better that way, game obviously wasn't well designed for both sides. The last level makes ten times more sense, as well. After uninstall my final thoughts are: entertaining, but far from great. Good one minute, very meh the next, but definitely worth playing. P.S. I played on "normal" the second half of my second playthrough because I didn't care anymore, and holy shit it's so easy. Even "hard" was easy, but "normal" is literally brain-dead story mode. Can't imagine how easy the lower difficulties are.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Can't imagine how easy the lower difficulties are.

Game journalist mode

 

[Junmarko]

Just finished my anti-Board playthrough. The story and such are so much better that way, game obviously wasn't well designed for both sides.

That's the biggest problem. Going pro-board means experiencing Byzantium before Monarch, and it just doesn't measure up as a fleshed out hub.

Urban landscape could've been great for some espionage factional warfare.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Most of the parts of the story that weren't awful involved Max.

are there parts that aren't awful?

 

[Riddler]

They never changed the story, all they did was change a dialogue option to make the character say "I don't love you, I just want a kid", and nothing else. The protagonist still acts like he/she is in love all the time other than that one specific dialogue.

Really? That's great news. I thought they had caved in and reworked the actual game content. It's still committee-mandated censorship though

How is that great news? The reason they don't change it was because they are lazy and arrogant, and refuse to put any effort into doing it (it's not like they put any effort in the first place, the story was complete shit).

For a game that suppose to "let you create your own odyssey", you should have the choices, they should patch it in instead of forcing their shit fanfic on everyone.

It's the lack of choices that are bad, just like you can't be mean to Pravati in TOW, it doesn't make it better simply because the choices you are force to take is a middle finger to the LGBT people.

If Kassandra never has a child then the entire timeline of the series falls apart.
In any game with C&C there will be certain parts that are so important to the overall story that they're immutable because changing it would cause the entire story to fall apart.

Should you play as the guy or the girl in Odyssey?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

They never changed the story, all they did was change a dialogue option to make the character say "I don't love you, I just want a kid", and nothing else. The protagonist still acts like he/she is in love all the time other than that one specific dialogue.

Really? That's great news. I thought they had caved in and reworked the actual game content. It's still committee-mandated censorship though

How is that great news? The reason they don't change it was because they are lazy and arrogant, and refuse to put any effort into doing it (it's not like they put any effort in the first place, the story was complete shit).

For a game that suppose to "let you create your own odyssey", you should have the choices, they should patch it in instead of forcing their shit fanfic on everyone.

It's the lack of choices that are bad, just like you can't be mean to Pravati in TOW, it doesn't make it better simply because the choices you are force to take is a middle finger to the LGBT people.

If Kassandra never has a child then the entire timeline of the series falls apart.
In any game with C&C there will be certain parts that are so important to the overall story that they're immutable because changing it would cause the entire story to fall apart.

Should you play as the guy or the girl in Odyssey?

Girl.
The story was written for her and her VA is much better.

 

[DalekFlay]

That's the biggest problem. Going pro-board means experiencing Byzantium before Monarch, and it just doesn't measure up as a fleshed out hub.

Urban landscape could've been great for some espionage factional warfare.

Lacking that kind of depth is a major problem with the whole game. Monarch gets closest to feeling fleshed out with lots of RPG options, but even it is very lacking compared to New Vegas or whatever. I always wanted to see an "indie Morrowind or Deus Ex" and now that we've basically got one but the limitations are very obvious.

 

[Duraframe300]

That's the biggest problem. Going pro-board means experiencing Byzantium before Monarch, and it just doesn't measure up as a fleshed out hub.

Urban landscape could've been great for some espionage factional warfare.

Lacking that kind of depth is a major problem with the whole game. Monarch gets closest to feeling fleshed out with lots of RPG options, but even it is very lacking compared to New Vegas or whatever. I always wanted to see an "indie Morrowind or Deus Ex" and now that we've basically got one but the limitations are very obvious.

To be fair, Outer Worlds isn't exactly representative here, because its insanly incosistent in its quality and that's more to put down to parts of the games development team dragging the whole thing down than it is to the idea itself.

 

[Junmarko]

I always wanted to see an "indie Morrowind or Deus Ex" and now that we've basically got one but the limitations are very obvious.

Yeah, they need to pick one though, not try and attempt both like they did here. Game ends up being jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. To the game's credit, it does attempt the "0451 game" (as Grunker terms it) the best, and is the real strength. Really felt they wanted to go strongly in that direction with what little missions are in Byzantium but fell short. Disguise system as an example, was dumbed down, but they added a timer which gave a little bit of challenge to stealth through player urgency - problem here being, the game barely has any of these encounters.

EDIT: Lab infiltration mission (forget the name) was really good, and felt like they ripped it straight from Deus Ex in the best way. So many approaches thrown into one pot.

The RPG Codex's Top 101 PC RPGs

#8 Deus Ex
Grunker: Modern stealth games and Deus Ex-likes - oft-times called "0451 games" - make one core mistake in their design. This mistake is the most apparent in Arkane Studio's Dishonored, but it can, in one way or another, be found in almost every 0451-game released since 2004. They ask you to focus on either stealth, combat or some other aspect of their "toolbox" design, and the character development and reward structures push you down "corridors" of character customization, offering you the "choice" of how to play the game from beginning to end, rather than asking you to utilize the full extend of the varied skills at your disposal.

 

[luj1]

I always wanted to see an "indie Morrowind / Deus Ex"

It exists. It's called Brigand: Oaxaca.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Polygon writer wants more 20 hour RPGs like Outer Worlds because they keep forgetting the story of longer RPGs
https://archive.is/ALHGQ

 

[Junmarko]

Polygon writer wants more 20 hour RPGs like Outer Worlds because they keep forgetting the story of longer RPGs

More Deus Ex / VtmB level execution is all that's needed for the shorter cRPGs, more like that would be great. Polygon game-urinalists thinking the bar set by Outer Worlds in any way reaches those is laughable.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Leonard Boyarsky: Having been the main writer on Max, I’m partial to his pairings with the other companions.

So based Leon wrote Max? Well doesn't that explain a lot.

 

[Junmarko]

So based Leon wrote Max?

He designed all of Roseway and used it as a vertical slice for the rookie team to follow as well. Noticed a big difference in quality there too, was one of the more interesting locations imo.

 

[RNGsus]

(screen from The Outer Worlds)

 

[Infinitron]

The Outer Worlds post-release plans: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...dian-post-acquisition-to-see-what-has-changed

The Outer Worlds is included in that. A post-release plan hasn't been announced yet but there's still a team in The Outer Worlds corner working on something. Obsidian isn't leaving it behind in a rush to work on Microsoft projects.

"Actually it's the opposite," Urquhart said. "What's always been interesting about the independent developer before was: who was going to pay for support? If I'm not being paid for support by the publisher then [...] we have this weird thing of how do we do it?

"In the Microsoft world, we get to run a studio based on what makes sense for the franchises and I'm not having to make these day-to-day decisions so much. People are obviously loving Outer Worlds and we made it because we love it, so now we get to keep on doing things to help support [it]."

It makes sense - not least because Obsidian, and presumably now Microsoft, owns The Outer Worlds IP. Tim Cain mentioned this in an interview with Game Informer a while back, saying, "we get to retain ownership of the IP". Supporting it works out well for everybody, and who knows? One day The Outer Worlds 2 might be an important next-Xbox game.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

Leonard Boyarsky: Having been the main writer on Max, I’m partial to his pairings with the other companions.

So based Leon wrote Max? Well doesn't that explain a lot.

Max is way one of the best companions! Even tho Parvati is the breakout star my personal favs are Max, Nyoka and Ellie!

 

[Roguey]

With the exception of Ellie and Felix, we started with basic archetypes – the big game hunter, the disgruntled truth seeker, the naïve innocent, etc., and then we put our own spin on them. For Ellie and Felix, we just needed two temp companions who could talk to each other as they followed the player around for our vertical slice, but we liked them so much we decided to keep them.

Suppose this explains why they're a couple of nothing-companions no one ever talks about (other than to comment about how there's nothing to them)

That aspect of Parvati came from her original writer, Chris L’Etoile. After he left the project, she was taken over by Kate Dollarhyde, who continued to expand on those themes. There was no specific directive they were fulfilling; it all came from the characterization they wanted to explore for her.

A Bioware writer brings the decline and Boyarsky rubberstamps it because he's too much of a coward, go figure.

Anyway, I amended the writer list from earlier in the thread.

 

[Duraframe300]

Outer Worlds is 2nd best selling game in october.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/14/...of-duty-and-outer-worlds-deliver-solid-month/

 

[Duraframe300]

Ah yeah, I forgot



Edit: Doubly important because Outer Worlds won against NBA 2k20. The same series New Vegas lost against in 2010.