The Outer Worlds - Obsidian's Fallout New Vegas in Space

Gamespot has a nice interview with Cain and Boyarsky.

To me, and open world is the fact that I can explore the realm the way I want to, in whatever order I want to. Open worlds do not have to have a continuous path from point A to point B where you can run or drive to them. What I want to know is if the adventure is set such that I must complete are A to go to Area B, and complete area B to go to area C. Under no circumstance can I got to area C without passing through Area B first.

Do you know, by my definition of open world, if this game is an open world game or not? Is it played on a rail, much like recent tomb-raider games?

What you’re talking about is linear vs non-linear, and if previous Obsidian games are any indication (Alpha protocol, pillars of eternity) this will be non-linear like AP or at worst , have non-linearity within each individual chapter, like Baldur’s Gate (2) or Pillars.

I doubt anyone here can know what you are asking, but my guess from the gameplay clip I saw is it’s more like Mass Effect than Fallout, in that you probably “space warp jump” from planet to planet as the missions take you there, but likely you’ll often have several optional places you can also explore and investigate if you don’t want to immediately follow the central story. Plus, each planet may have several areas within it you can explore in whatever order you want. That’s just my guess though, I also don’t really know.

TBH that all looked very pedestrian to me. I think the world’s moved on. One thing it did have its favour for me was nothing looked procedural. Maybe those planets will be cool places to explore, in the way Andromeda’s weren’t really. It’s a good sign there are only a couple of them.

Nice interview.

I like this bit. It’s a nice counterpoint to doing a voiced protagonist.

Also the costs! Without a voiced PC they can edit, change, overhaul the dialogue whenever they want without dragging in a voice actor to re-do the lines.

In the video I posted, it is also pretty clear Tim Cain is firmly against making video games be like movies.

I’m not a fan of full voice-overs for RPGs. Not the NPCs and definitely not the protagonist. Some voice overs, sure. Give me a feel for what the NPC sounds like. But full voice overs? That will just slow me down. I don’t need or want it.

Iggy Pop, ftw. (use of “ftw”, for the loss.)

I think full voice can add a lot to a game. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the Mass Effect series as much without Jennifer Hale, and the voice for Kassandra really added to Odyssey.

Still, this won’t deter me at all from getting this game day one.

I am a fan of voiced protags, and well written protags with defined character stick longest in memory (Geralt, Arthur Morgan, Wei Shen etc).

But in a game like Fallout where I create a character and define who he is, unvoiced protag is the best way to go, if only because it allows for so many options of what to say and do.

What I really loathe and hate with a passion of thousand burning suns are unvoiced and silent protagonists of the Gordon Freeman style (I love Half Life, but silent Freeman ain’t the reason for it).

I think Silent Freeman of Half Life 1 has to be viewed in light of its time, and the desire not to pull people out of the action with cutscenes or cheesy acting (note that the cheese-tastic cutscenes of Jedi Knight were only a year in the past at that time). Granted, they could have included voiceover for Gordon without leaving his POV (“Hey Barney, help me out!”) but that might have called attention to itself too, especially if the same voice clips got repeated over and over again.

It felt like an elegant solution at the time, IMO. By Half Life 2, when you are mutely participating in longer and more complex scripted scenes and conversations, and when you have Alyx tagging along much of the way, it wasn’t really working anymore and felt more like an affectation.

Yeah, I agree- HL1 it wasn’t too bad. HL2, and especially the biggest modern offenders Destiny 1&2, this is just painfully stupid.

I’l admit that games without fully voiced protagonists kind of feel cheap in this day and age. The bar has been raised, IMO. I mean, it isn’t a deal breaker or anything, but having everyone else talk and you just selecting lines off a menu is always a little jarring.

Whenever you cut off an NPC by choosing an option before they’ve finished their line, they should cut your line off by the same amount.

Would you -
I won’t -
But the King -
Screw -
Then at least -
SPARTA

or something.

I prefer silent protagonists for exactly the reasons Tim Cain laid out.

And I felt the exact opposite. When someone spoke directly to me, I replied to them in my head. I thought it was perfect.

Dialog wheels and the like annoy me.

I don’t think Gordon’s silence would have bothered me nearly as much if just about everyone he encountered didn’t constantly give you these looks of hopeful anticipation, like ‘maybe this time he’ll talk to me!’. But no, you just stand there, blank, unresponsive, just an empty vessel for others to project their hopes and fears onto.

It’s the epic tale of a mute who saves the world

I would like to see more of the “vats” like combat. I am to sure I got it – it’s a slow time it looked like.

Plus it is a lot more colorful that Fallout. For better or worse.

My favorite sentence I read in a while.