The Outer Worlds Interview - Corporations and Inspirations

Obsidian Entertainment's The Outer Worlds is aiming for an October 25, 2019 release. And with that date just a few months away, we can now read this recent Den of Geek interview with the studio's narrative designer Dan McPhee where he discusses The Outer Worlds' humorous corporate setting, the inspirations behind it, the game's approach to good and evil, its companions with their varying viewpoints, and more.

Here's an excerpt:

The Outer Worlds wears its Futurama influence on its sleeve, but Obsidian also looked to other pieces of classic science fiction for inspiration.

"In terms of characters and dialogue, we took a lot of inspiration from things like Firefly in that we really wanted to preserve this spirit of companionship and having a core crew that you ran around with," McPhee says. "We're all big Star Trek fans. We just took from a bunch of different settings and inserted our own little twists."

The game will feature several companions with different skills and raison d'etre. So far, four of these companions have been revealed: the mercenary doctor Ellie, the rebellious Felix, Parvati the mechanic, and Auntie Cleo's guard Berke.

"We wanted to do a range of skills...but also a range of viewpoints," McPhee says of the different companions you can recruit in the game. "This is a totally new setting, so the player's not going to know much about it. It was useful to have different companions from different walks of life in this setting that could shed some light...You know, one of them isn't necessarily that anti-corporate. The story pushes that agenda really hard at first, but it's useful to have a companion who says, 'Hold on, maybe it's not so bad,' and gives you that alternate viewpoint."