The Outer Worlds is an exciting prospect, but according to developer Obsidian the time constraints involved in creating the title have sometimes been a challenge. The reveal comes from some of the senior developers at the studio, while talking about the ambitious but tightly-focused project.
Obsidian has a deserved reputation for creating well-told and interesting video games, particularly when it comes to the realm of RPGs. Through the likes of South Park: The Stick of Truth, Fallout: New Vegas and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, the studio has handled other properties with care - particularly with Fallout, an IP that was well-known to Obsidian given its history with Black Isle Studios. Meanwhile, new stories like Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny have more than proven Obsidian’s quality at telling its own tales.
Its latest project, however, seems to have been something of a challenge to pull together within short timeframes. The Outer Worlds has an understandable level of buzz around it from its mysterious reveal at The Game Awards 2018, but as revealed in a recent interview with US Gamer it seems The Outer Worlds has been challenging. Lead designer Charles Staples explained, “it’s been a big challenge of just trying to make the type of game we’re trying to do in the amount of time we have.”
This is less to do with struggles with the basics, but more to do with the sheer amount of content that The Outer Worlds is set to include. “We want to do a lot. There’s a lot of big ideas, and it’s a lot of systems, and a lot of different types of gameplay.” However, according to Staples the game is still developing nicely, as shown off in its recent gameplay demo. “It’s a lot of work to put it all together, and it’s been challenging, but I think the gameplay is coming together and it’s fun. We have fun playing it.”
In part, this comes down to the fact that The Outer Worlds is a new property, with Obsidian building everything from the bottom up. Senior narrative designer Megan Starks explained how it was different from some of the previous major releases Obsidian has worked on. “With Fallout: New Vegas, you already has a really rich IP and a lot of previous games to build off of. Also that engine and tool set and a lot of those assets already existed, and we’re building everything from scratch.”
Some may be concerned about the tight timeframes involved. After all, Obsidian has sometimes been burned by publishers pushing for a quick launch, with both KOTOR 2 and Fallout: New Vegas containing some major bugs upon release and damaging the company’s reputation. However, the tighter focus of The Outer Worlds should allow Obsidian to create a much more cohesive and stable experience when it releases some time later in 2019.
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Source: US Gamer
