The Outer Worlds has been revealed only a couple months ago at The Game Awards 2018, but it has already gained a spot among the most anticipated titles to be released this year.
In a new interview that's part of Game Informer's monthly coverage focused on the game, Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain, directors on The Outer Worlds at Obsidian Entertainment, revealed additional details on the corporate-centered universe of the game.
Boyarsky: This is an alternate history. There was a point where the timeline split off. It was at a certain point, around the time of Einstein. There was a first World War, but it was for different reasons. And maybe there wasn’t a second World War.
What if the trusts hadn’t been broken up? You have these robber barons at the turn of the 20th century. A couple of hundred years later, what if we still have that culture. The corporations have pretty much taken over everything. But they want to go that last little bit and make it the perfect society for corporations. When Earth was colonizing the furthest reaches of the galaxy, they bought one of the furthest colonies and set up what they thought would be a corporate utopia, where they can control every aspect of people’s lives.
It adds something interesting, with the juxtaposition of this grand space adventure, even as we are going from corporate town to corporate town. There’s hopefully enough space adventure and heroics in there to satisfy people, and we don’t want people to think this a trip through bureaucracy, but there is that aspect to it. What’s good for the corporation is good for the workers, and even good for humanity. There’s no greater good than serving the corporation.
Cain: If you go into Obsidian’s kitchen there’s this thing listing employee rights. In our fictional world, you go into the kitchen and there’s a list of employer rights.
Boyarsky: We like to subvert people’s expectations. We’re drawn to deeper social commentary, even though we’re not pretending we’re profound or anything. We like to play around in that arena.
Cain: We’re not making colony simulator. We’re just trying to make this a really fun environment. And if we can do some social commentary along the way, so be it.
There's no launch date yet. We might get one at E3 in early June, but until then we'll let you know of any significant news regarding The Outer Worlds.
