The Outer Worlds - Interview about Companions, Exploration and more

Hayes: And how do you design around being able to kill any NPC in the game? How do you stop players from pushing themselves into a corner by killing everyone?

Brian Hines: So we try to find, like look at, okay who is actually critical and what information do players actually have to know? So if this person gets killed, how else can we convey that information to keep the quest moving forward?

Whether that's like in a terminal, or on a note on their body that would give you that information, and then if there's just no elegant way to do it that's when the quest fails, and that's kind of the consequence of choosing to slaughter everyone.

Hayes: I did notice in the save that I loaded into, in the journal, there was a failed quest section. How does failing quests affect your progress in the story? Are there any ramifications that will come later down the line?

Brian Hines: It can. So for example, in some areas you need to do a certain amount of quests in order to achieve maximum reputation with the group who's running the area, in order to really get the most beneficial max reward, or the final quest for the faction line.

If you fail some of those quests, then you're not going to be able to achieve that best result with that faction or that group.

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World and Quests

- Monarch is just one planet you visit in the game. Terraforming went wrong there so it's filled with strange rock formations and geology.
- Monarch appears to have four major towns; Cascadia - Fallbrook, Amber Heights, and Stellar Bay.
- The two cities I visited, Fallbrook and Stellar Bay, both had a rustic feel to them. They were definitely sci-fi, but still managed to have that kind of retro 50s feel as well.
- Loading screens have a wealth of in-game lore, from pictures of the anatomy of alien creatures to posters for fictional in-universe movies.
- There are plenty of terminals to look at, providing little clues and context for locations and characters, similarly to the Fallout games.
- Companions will often comment on locations/objects, like talking about Fallbrook's reputation when you enter the city - Companions will interject in conversation if they know a character.
- You can talk to your companions at any time, and sometimes this will open up a new quest specifically for them. For example, at one point I talked to Nyoka and received a quest where I had to track down the grave of an old ally of hers, to dig up a precious item. The quest let me learn a bit more about Nyoka, but ultimately I wasn't able to finish it as the next step required me to go to a different planet, something I didn't have time for.

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TheSnarkyShaman said:

cater to those people who constantly scream for devs at public demos to kill all the NPCs.

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Heins says the fictional firms in The Outer Worlds "don't necessarily reflect on games industry corporations specifically", and reflects on his own experiences with such organisations.

"I've worked for EA, I've worked for Take-Two, Rockstar, now I work for Microsoft," he says. "I've worked for the 'big faceless evil corporations' and on the inside they're not faceless or evil. There's always reasons for why decisions are made. Not always ones that individual people agree with or understand because a lot of the times when a company makes a decision, they don't always communicate 'Here's all the reasons behind how we got to this point.'"

In The Outer Worlds, this is all personified by the Board, the group that oversees the corporations running each colony. Rather than setting this entity up as an obvious villain, Obsidian ensures players see events from the Board's perspective as well and in a relatable way.

"We wanted to put a human face on it, so you're actually working with specific people," Heins explains. "Each person has their own personality, their own human moments that help you relate to them. We wanted to give a personal touch to the faceless corporations. If you can't sympathise with the corporate board, you can sympathise with the person you are dealing with in the game."

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