Obsidian continues to reveal tidbits on their highly awaited roleplaying game The Outer Worlds, set to debut at some point in 2019, via the monthly Game Informer coverage.
The latest article is entirely focused on the companion system, which is at the same time optional and deep.
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Senior Narrative Designer Carrie Patel:
With a game like ours, there’s a balance you have to strike because you don’t have to recruit the companions. You can have a full, complete experience of our game minus the companion content if you never recruit them. But at the same time, we do want them to feel very involved for players who choose to bring them along. While we have to be careful not to make them mandatory, we also look for ways to bring them in.
Narrative Designer Nitai Poddar:
We knew we needed companions with sort of that Firefly flavor. We wanted them to be a band of, not quite misfits, but different personalities coming together on the same ship. And we knew we wanted a fairly confined number of them so that each would be individual.
Not only companions are optional, they can also leave your main character should they disagree with how things are handled, though it won’t be because of an arbitrary point based morale system. Rather, Obsidian decided to focus on how the companions react to major choices.
Senior Narrative Designer Megan Starks:
We do have ways that a companion can choose to leave you.
Narrative Designer Nitai Poddar:
Even if you lose a points-based morale system, I think you gain something by hand-crafting specific moments where a companion is like, “Why would you do this? You’re completely out of your mind!’ And that also gives the player an interesting opportunity to say, ‘You might be thinking that but here are my reasons why…’ and sometimes we can attach that to a persuade or leadership check, and that helps the player feel more rewarded.
Stay tuned on Wccftech for more updates on The Outer Worlds as they are shared by Obsidian.
