The Outer Worlds - No Essential NPCs

Alt Char reports that The Outer Worlds will not have plot essential NPCs, meaning that you can kill anyone.

For example, killing the scientist that is shown to free the player in The Outer Worlds announcement trailer will likely lead players down another path where they can side with a different faction and proceed to complete the game. Killing their characters would mean players need to progress the story somewhere else, creating the need for a large number of different endings.

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More information.

Good for immersion, I suppose. Presumably there will be dire consequences depending on who you slay.

Originally Posted by rjshae
Good for immersion, I suppose. Presumably there will be dire consequences depending on who you slay.

Probably as they already said killing the doctor is a quest to join the corporation.

Sounds great, although it certainly makes things more complicated and increases the risk of "breaking" the game. So far every little thing I hear about this game is a positive, it will soon be really hard to prevent my hyping.

When I first heard about this I didn't think it had the right vibe for me (not my taste in humour)… but I think I will have to give it a try. Obsidian at least try to add new twists to an old formula.

Whilst this is nice, it must require a LOT of testing, and effort to write alternate paths. This would surely better be spent improving other areas of the game (eg. offering a 3rd person mode alongside 1st person, say). I know there's a crowd that likes to kill every NPC, but really, aren't there better uses of dev time?

Originally Posted by Philistine
When I first heard about this I didn't think it had the right vibe for me (not my taste in humour)… but I think I will have to give it a try. Obsidian at least try to add new twists to an old formula.

Yeah, I second that about the humour. What I've seen of the game so far looks great in most aspects, but I really hope they don't go overboard with the jokes.

Originally Posted by Irien
Whilst this is nice, it must require a LOT of testing, and effort to write alternate paths. This would surely better be spent improving other areas of the game (eg. offering a 3rd person mode alongside 1st person, say). I know there's a crowd that likes to kill every NPC, but really, aren't there better uses of dev time?

It's not just about that, there will probably be quests to kill each character if you choose to go another path, so no one character is safe. There will also probably be branching paths that happen when one character is killed to get you in good with another faction and so on. So it's not just about mindlessly killing everyone but making sure that you can do it for reasons related to the story, giving you choices. Just my 2.

The complication factor in the release of this game will be rather high. I'm curious about the game, but knowing the murderous tendencies of most players, I'll let others do all the testing for me in advance!

Originally Posted by Irien
Whilst this is nice, it must require a LOT of testing, and effort to write alternate paths.

Look on the bright side: in two or three years the fan mods are certain to correct at least 90% of the day one bugs.

Originally Posted by screeg
Look on the bright side: in two or three years the fan mods are certain to correct at least 90% of the day one bugs.

Depends as they are using Unreal 4 and that engine is a pain to mod. Just look at the Mass Effect games for one example as what a pain it is to install texture mods.

Well, I love sci-fi and the world itself looks very interesting. Sadly, the writing reminds me very much of Alpha Protocol - which had some of the worst humor I've ever experienced in any medium.

I understand the desire to do something different, but awkward humor is not going to work for me - and especially not in this setting.

I had a similar problem with some of the writing in Fallout 3 - but Bethsoft compensated with some excellent exploration, so maybe Obsidian can make it work regardless.

I'll be checking it out no matter what, though. I tend to enjoy Obsidian games despite their flaws - and I think they're among the best non-indies when it comes to game mechanics and stuff like dialogue options.

https://twitter.com/MikeyDowling/sta…31274919911426

inb4 epicshitexclusive

Originally Posted by porcozaur
https://twitter.com/MikeyDowling/sta…31274919911426

inb4 epicshitexclusive

Probably a new gameplay video. At least I hope so.

sounds like something epic

Please when linked to text, do quote something from it.

Never cared who's killable or not. My playthrough is always either practical (kill if gain something overpowered) or if the shoe fits (kill if it's a part of the role).
When a CEO exterminator roleplaying game appears without CEOs being big no-no to kill, I'll preorder.

I never got the immersion thing of killing everything … seems on par with those who like to make killing, torturing, and molesting children available in games (usually with mods) claiming it's for immersion.

Games have so many non-immersive elements to them I think its a foolish argument. But I never had that psychopathic desire to go around killing everything (well unless driving in slow traffic then I get the urge).

Sure it can be annoying sometimes but I would rather they put energy towards other things. I also tend to prefer more of a compromise - be as lenient as possible so you can kill as many NPC's as makes sense but don't lock yourself out by saying it has to be all of them.

This is one of those weird features that is intended to indicate great freedom that I genuinely don't get. What's the point? It will just massively increase the complexity, as the developers need to take all sorts of weird scenarios into considerations. Either that, or they have to make the game shallow enough for such differences to be irrelevant.

Either way, it's not something I understand. If you want to make a compelling story, surely you have to know a thing or two about what characters are involved in it.

Well, I don't think it's a particularly compelling feature - but I can easily see the appeal in terms of adding to the immersion.

It's not the fact that you can be a psychotic murderer - but that the world will realistically respond to what you're doing.

Like, say, if you launch a huge fireball inside a small building - there will be consequences.

Personally, I don't think I've ever murdered a child in a game - and on the occasions when I experiment with murdering innocent NPCs, I tend to reload the game after I see what happens.

So, it's more about the backdrop and giving players the sensation that "anything" could happen. To me, any immersive game that's claiming to simulate a real world would need to look into this kind of feature and support it in one way or the other, if it wants to be wholesome or complete.

However, on the very, very long list of necessary features for complete immersion in a simulated reality - I don't think it's near the top.

It's definitely true that creating a compelling character-driven narrative, it's an extremely complicated feature to implement - and it's hard to see how it could be done without some major sacrifices to the emotional impact of the story.

But, speaking as a major fan of Bethsoft games - I think there are other ways to tell a story.

In fact, I think that's one of the key misconceptions from people who think dialogue C&C represents more choice than, say, Skyrim or Fallout 3.

In those "simulated reality" games - the story is much more personal, and it's much more centered around the freeform character creation (as in, you can literally be anyone you want to be) and how the world/simulation reacts to your choices - and much less about picking dialogue options restricted by the story designers.

I don't mean to say one is better than the other, and I do tend to prefer the more traditional narratives of games like Witcher 3, Last of Us or Bioshock Infinite - but I have to say those games never felt like it was truly MY story. In fact, they all feel like I'm just a participant with a limited measure of impact on the outcome.

No, you can't kill certain NPCs in Bethsoft games either - but they allow you to "knock them out" and they tend to have many more killable NPCs.

The children thing is obviously a censorship limitation more than anything.

Originally Posted by Maylander
This is one of those weird features that is intended to indicate great freedom that I genuinely don't get. What's the point? It will just massively increase the complexity, as the developers need to take all sorts of weird scenarios into considerations. Either that, or they have to make the game shallow enough for such differences to be irrelevant.

Either way, it's not something I understand. If you want to make a compelling story, surely you have to know a thing or two about what characters are involved in it.

It only increase the complexity if the devs decide that you cannot fail a quest ever. The article might also be overblowing what Obsidian is doing. You can kill the dude that wake you up at the start of the game, but it was already spoiled that there is a faction that's going to contract you to kill him if you join them. It's a quest.