When work on The Outer Worlds was just getting started, the pair peppered new hires with music, TV shows, and movies to serve as reference material. On the PAX East Outer Worlds panel, senior narrative designer Megan Starks said she wondered what she was getting into when Boyarsky recommended she watch Brazil, the mindbending dystopian film by Terry Gilliam. She tells me after the panel, "I think that movie was something that Tim and Leonard really liked for the dark humor, and just the crazy experience of what this alternate society is like."
When I ask Cain about his reasoning for asking the team to watch Brazil, he admits that his own contribution mostly skews toward Futurama. But there's one element of Brazil that definitely jumps out at him. "One thing we like about it is that it's a dystopia that tries to put this veneer of everything being fine, and that you should just do your job." He refers to the scene where Ida Lowry, mother to protagonist Sam Lowry, goes on eating even after a bomb explodes in a restaurant. "All this terrible stuff was happening and she didn't care," Cain says.
