Game News Backspace: Obsidian's unproduced "Sci-Fi Skyrim"

[Infinitron]

Tags: Backspace; Bethesda Softworks; Obsidian Entertainment

The folks at Kotaku have uncovered the details of yet another Obsidian title that never came to be. It's called Backspace, and it may not be entirely dead. Here's the introduction:

Imagine, if you will, a massive role-playing game featuring guns, time travel, and a nasty alien invasion, all built on Skyrim's engine, with Skyrim's "Radiant AI" system.​

That's Backspace, a project that was once under development at the studio Obsidian, I've learned from sources. A small team was designing and prototyping the game in early 2011, and although progress never got very far, concept art and design documents reveal an ambitious project that could interest a lot of people, if it's ever made.​

Obsidian, of course, is the Irvine-based game studio responsible for Fallout: New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, and the upcoming RPGs Project Eternity and South Park: The Stick of Truth.​

I reached out to the studio yesterday to ask for comment, and Obsidian boss Feargus Urquhart told me that Backspace is still on the shelf somewhere.​

"Backspace was a project concept that we neither cancelled nor greenlit," Urquhart told me. "We had some great people work on the idea for Backspace for a bit of time and then moved them off to other projects as opportunities came up. We've been around for ten years now and have had a bunch of great ideas that we still have sitting around that we may be able to return to in the future."​

Hopefully this is one they revisit, because it sounds fantastic.​

So what is Backspace? Here's how an Obsidian design document described it:​

BackSpace is a single-player action-RPG set in a scifi space environment with simple elements of time travel. The combat is paced similarly to Skyrim, but slightly faster since there is no concept of blocking. The easiest way to look at it is a mix of Mass Effect, Borderlands, and System Shock 2 for gameplay and setting.​

It was to be developed in some sort of partnership with Bethesda, I've heard, and it'd use the same engine as their ridiculously-successful role-playing game Skyrim. Although Backspace wasn't an open-world game, players would be able to travel between a number of planets as well as one large space station.​

The rest of the article has more excerpts from the design document, and lots of concept art. What do you think, Codex?

 

[TripJack]

good, 1 less shitty game in the world

 

[Infinitron]

good, 1 less shitty game in the world

Like I said, it's not necessarily dead. Obsidian are always in talks with their buddies at Bethesda.

 

[Gondolin]

Do NOT want!

 

[I_am_Ian]

Backspace: the button I pressed upon entering this thread.

 

[Stabwound]

The words "Sci-Fi Skyrim" evoke worse feelings than just "Skyrim" and that's saying something.

 

[AN4RCHID]

good, 1 less shitty game in the world

Right, instead of New Vegas in a sci-fi setting with a better engine, we're getting Fart Jokes: Stick of Truth.

 

[boltrek]

They should make a sci-fi RPG about the Gamebryo engine. The player character gradually discovered that he is inside a virtual reality due to all the glitches and bugs in the system. Kinda like the matrix.

 

[Wizfall]

Not interested.
Convinced me even more that we will probably never see a TB cRPG from Obsidian, even as a kickstarter project.

 

[evdk]

Sci-Fi

Skyrim

 

[Crispy]

I think Caps Lock would have been a better name.

 

[Infinitron]

I think Caps Lock would have been a better name.

In EdgyDex's case, Alt-F4 would be the most appropriate name.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

all built on Skyrim's engine, with Skyrim's "Radiant AI" system.

No thanks.

 

[Ramireza]

Fallout New Vegas was ok for me. So why not?

 

[Scruffy]

no soil erosion mentioned anywhere? it gotta be bad then.

 

[evdk]

no soil erosion mentioned anywhere? it gotta be bad then.

Soil erosion on a space station sounds like a recipe for disaster.

 

[skuphundaku]

You people are fucking hopeless. For most of you, the state-of-the-art of computer games designs should have been frozen in time sometimes circa 2001. You already stopped making a difference between decline and evolving the state-of-the-art and you're stuck in this sad and pathetic reactionary mindset if anything post-2001 is implemented.

 

[boltrek]

You people are fucking hopeless. For most of you, the state-of-the-art of computer games designs should have been frozen in time sometimes circa 2001. You already stopped making a difference between decline and evolving the state-of-the-art and you're stuck in this sad and pathetic reactionary mindset if anything post-2001 is implemented.

That sounds about right. Didn't Xbox come out about then?

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

i don't inherently have any issues with Skyrim-likes...what bothers me about games like that is beyond pretty graphics the gameplay is subpar and the story, npc's and quests are too shallow.

I mean, are there even any romances in Skyrim?

 

[tuluse]

Sci-Fi

Skyrim

 

[Wizfall]

You people are fucking hopeless. For most of you, the state-of-the-art of computer games designs should have been frozen in time sometimes circa 2001. You already stopped making a difference between decline and evolving the state-of-the-art and you're stuck in this sad and pathetic reactionary mindset if anything post-2001 is implemented.

Evolving the state-of- the-art
So why do we have almost exclusively shitty games since 2002 ?
Funny guy or clever troll.

 

[Scruffy]

no soil erosion mentioned anywhere? it gotta be bad then.

Soil erosion on a space station sounds like a recipe for disaster.

caused-by-meteor soil erosion?

 

[Diablo169]

Science fiction hiking simulator might be fun.

 

[Galdred]

You people are fucking hopeless. For most of you, the state-of-the-art of computer games designs should have been frozen in time sometimes circa 2001. You already stopped making a difference between decline and evolving the state-of-the-art and you're stuck in this sad and pathetic reactionary mindset if anything post-2001 is implemented.

If evolution = going from going from Turn based, or RTwP RPG to action RPG, I'll stuck with my reactionary mindest, thank you.

 

[Infinitron]

skuphundaku overreacted, but seriously, if you're going to whine about every AAA RPG Obsidian tries to make, you have a lot of whining ahead of you