Lightspeed Briefs

Gwynbleidd, The Obsidian Star, Zireael

Obsidian's The Outer Worlds blends Firefly and Fallout into a bold, open-ended sci-fi RPG

The creators of the original Fallout have spent two years on a new first-person RPG, and it looks great.

www.pcgamer.com

• Your protagonist isn’t voiced
• There’s a special class of “science weapons” that will have special, ridiculous effects, like a shrink ray
• There’s a full character creator even though it’s first-person only (you’ll see your character in the inventory, and if you leave the game idling long)
• Your companions don’t have separate inventories. Taking companions with you just gives you more inventory space to work with yourself
• If companions really dislike the decisions you make, they’ll leave and go back to the ship. You can persuade them to see things your way
• No romancing companions. They considered it, but decided against it.
• Companions each have a special attack (one named Felix does a double drop kick) but you can also equip them with whatever weapons you want
• Hacking and lockpicking don’t have minigames, and are simply based on your attributes
• There are six skills (strength, intelligence etc.) and for every 20 points you put into one (up until 100) you’ll gain a new perk
• As in the creators’ past games, you can play as a “dumb” character with stupid dialogue options. Your companions react appropriately.
• They’re still not sure if it will be possible to play through the game completely pacifist (but you’ll almost definitely have to at least kill some robots)
• Robots aren’t sentient, but your ship’s AI seems to have a strange degree of personality
• Tim Cain wants you to know there are a lot of drugs, but he’s not going to pressure you to take them