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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 inthe 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 bybig 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 atSettle problems in
The Outer Worlds
New RPG from Fallout creators and Obsidian is out there
THERE’S A
GREAT SENSE OF
DARK HUMOUR IN
ITS DESIGN.This is no brown
wasteland. The vibrant
alien environments make
us want to see it all!team talk
“With messages that
The Outer Worlds
is from the original
Fallout creators and
the developers of
Fallout: New Vegas,
Obsidian’s not being
subtle. Essentially this
is a (*cough*) new
New Vegas. As that
was one of the best
RPGs of the last gen,
I couldn’t be happier
to see this.”
Oscar Taylor-Kent
Games editor