Games
We speak with creators of this epic new game on colonising brave new worlds, making your character dumb and why space is so terrifying.
There’s not many things we can all agree on. Sun’s hot, sure. Water’s wet, yup. And not much else. That said, while agreement is in short supply on most things, consensus should be pretty easy to reach when discussing the black void of space, right? It’s deeply, horribly frightening. Beautiful, mysterious and incomprehensible, sure, but also kinda horrifying.
Wrong. We caught up with Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, creative directors of The Outer Worlds, a new single-player sci-fi roleplaying game from Obsidian, the studio behind RPG classics such as Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity, to find that their attitude towards the universe’s great expanse wasn’t entirely aligned:
“I love space!” Cain enthuses. “I’ve been reading science fiction as long as I can remember, and I wanted to be an astronaut when I was little. I still play around with the Celestia space simulator to this day!”
Boyarsky however is more contemplative. “I also love space, but only in my books, movies and games,” he says. “Real space is too... real. Though I do think I would risk going to space if the other option was burning on an apocalyptic earth – which I also only appreciate in my books, movies and games.”
So, no agreement to be found on the horror of space. How about space travel?
“The idea that I can board a ship, go to sleep, and wake up at a new world, or whole set of worlds, would get me on that ship in a heartbeat. No convincing would be required,” Cain says.
“So, obviously, Tim is in the wrong here,” Boyarsky counters. “Signing up to be a colonist in stasis is a guaranteed death sentence, as our popular fiction has proven time and time again. But I'd rather be in stasis than awake, I'd be useless in a crisis. Even with a good roll of electrical tape.”
While we’ve been unable to find common ground on space, or indeed, space travel, The Outer Worlds devs were much more aligned when discussing their upcoming, open-world space epic. The first-person RPG from the developers behind hits like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II has understandably got a lot of people talking (well, practically salivating) over the opportunity to explore Halcyon, a newly-formed colony across two planets, made necessary after earth’s demise. The trouble, if that’s not enough, is that your ship was lost for around 70 years, giving your character plenty of time for a cryo-nap. When you awake in your strange new home, you can choose to be a saviour of the common people, a corporate stooge, or pretty much whatever you want as you explore these vast worlds.
So, what should you expect after waking on Halcyon following a 70-year slumber?
“I think when you first step foot on Terra 2 everything would be strange,” Cain says. “Huge multiple moons and a ring system are in the sky, strange plants are all around you, and most of the animals (which are also strange) are trying to eat you. After a while, you would calm down. The sky’s still blue, clouds are white, and rain falls... just like on earth. Just don't go outside of town without a weapon... EVER.”
Boyarsky adds, “The thorough and nearly complete corporatisation of everything would probably be a shock at first. Until it became hauntingly familiar after about ten minutes or so.”
Corporate gains
In The Outer Worlds, corporations rule. The gameplay showcased at PAX East clearly displayed a society where the divide between rich and poor is as pronounced as it is on earth, and that this divide would play a part in how the game is played. Boyarsky tells us more:
“There is a large divide between the rich and the poor, they don't generally come into contact with one another, as the rich live in an elite city and the poor are relegated to working in company towns. But everyone on Terra 2 believes this is just the natural order of things, including the poor. So, while it's easy to find many of the elite hateable, it may not be all that easy to instinctively pull for the underdog – both need to be shaken out of their complacent existences by the player. Or not – some players may decide they like the colony as is, and/or to just take everyone for everything they've got.”
Indeed, the struggle in The Outer Worlds is unlikely to be as clear cut as evil corporations versus the downtrodden masses. Boyarsky adds: “They [the upper class] can come off a little one note at the beginning of the game, but most of the NPCs the player meets who are representatives of the Board are trying to do their best for the colony.”
And, should you want to climb the corporate ladder, the rewards are plentiful. But what would be the first thing to buy if you became flush with cash and eager to live the high life on Halcyon?
“Well, if money is no object, then you would want the buy the finest ingredients for a perfect dinner,” Cain says. “The main course would be cacow ribs (rare and delicious, none of those pesky raptidon steaks for you) with a side of bred noodles, and a mock apple pie for dessert. And to wash it all down? A bottle of Spectrum Vodka Violet (or Ultra-Violet, which is coming soon!). Then you can retire to your smoking room for a Wentsworth High Society cigarette.”
The freedom of space
While all that sounds delicious, you may be wondering what your character’s motivation is, beyond eating delicious alien steak. This, according to Boyarsky, is very much left to the player’s discretion:
“It's up to you to decide how you – and your character – feel about what you're doing. Except we insist that you have a great time while doing it. Seriously, though, the whole point of The Outer Worlds is that you can play your character any way you want – trying to kill everyone is as viable a path as trying to save everyone.”
While a great number of modern RPGs rely on a simplistic moral code – beat up a villager, and your bar slides into red and other NPCs hiss at you in the street, for example – the guys at Obsidian are adamant that consequences in The Outer Worlds will be more complex than your character succumbing to overt do-goodery or moustache-twirling villainy.
“We like our games to live in the gray area between black and white moral choices, and we have tried to give the player a lot of scenarios where the 'good' choice isn't so cut and dried,” Boyarsky says.
“In many places it may seem like a no-brainer, but, if players take the time to dig a little, things become a bit murkier. A good example of that is the antagonists of the game, the Board – on the surface they can come off as one-note evil, but they have reasons for doing what they're doing, and they'll try to recruit the player to their side by convincing players that they're working for the good of the colony.”
This level of choice also means that you can make your character, well, an idiot. An idiot on Earth is an idiot in space, and so the ability to foul up even the simplest conversations is very much a possibility in The Outer Worlds. Cain explains that “you can pick really awful dialogue choices, and you can solve problems in the colony in really bad ways. Other colonists and your own companions will comment on your choices, to the point where they question how you ever were selected to be aboard The Hope.”
This, however, will have consequences for how NPCs react and interact with you. Let’s put it this way: would you keep your job at a burger joint if you kept dropping the burgers? No. And your ineptitude still matters on The Outer Worlds.
“Your bad choices will spread among the groups affected by them, and they will start to question you, charge you higher prices, and become reluctant to ask you to help them,” says Cain. “Eventually they may just attack you on sight.”
It does work both ways, however. Become a fully functioning, successful character and you’ll be treated with perks. While these can seem a little unimaginative in many RPGs (‘damage goes up by +5!’), Cain and Boyarsky are confident that their perks are a little more, well, perky. Cain explains:
“I can tell you what my favorite perk is in the game, and it's not a stat change. It's called ‘Don't Go Dyin' On Me!’. Normally when a companions are reduced to zero health in combat, they go unconscious until combat is over (except in SuperNova difficulty, where they simply die). With this perk, you can revive them so they can keep fighting. They don't come back with much health, but you can heal them normally once they are back on their feet.
“That perk has saved my leadership-based character several times.”
Fun with physics
Sci-fi, as a genre, is a pretty broad church. Looking for a talky, slow-burn character piece that happens to be set in space? Tarkovsky’s Solaris should do the trick. Want whizz-bang action full of colourful alien encounters? There’s Star Wars (or, if you’re feeling generous, The Fifth Element). After something both brain-warping and occasionally snooze-inducing? Let us introduce you to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
And while there’s sometimes a clamour for sci-fi to be steeped in realism – District 9’s gritty aesthetic and the new Battlestar Galactica’s intense politicking being prime examples – Obsidian have been happy to toss out the rule book in favour of, well, fun. And liberties were certainly taken with physics, according to Cain:
“As for physics, we broke some rules, especially because of our game pillar ‘Fun trumps realism’. So we have FTL travel, and gravity plates on ships, and some really weird science weapons... but for the most part we limited those decisions to things that were needed to make the game fun and enjoyable to play. We didn't just do it to be wacky.”
Boyarsky continues: “We definitely didn't do things just to be wacky, but we also didn't want to be constrained by pesky, fun-killing real world physics.”
So, does the game’s outlandishness extend to aliens? Cain says “we had discussions about alien life when we started the game, and as you play you will discover that some aspects of that life threaten Earth life in some expected – and unexpected – ways. Part of the fun of The Outer Worlds is learning about what’s really going on in the colony.”
So, can we expect 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Star Wars on the sci-fi spectrum? Boyarsky concludes:
“We’re going for a definite pulp sci-fi feel with this game, with all (or at least most) of what that implies.”
However long the hypersleep, we can’t wait to wake up in Halcyon.
The Outer Worlds is hitting PS4, Xbox One and PC in 2019.
