The Outer Worlds: Obsidian’s Test Run for Greatness
A game review of The Outer Worlds, and Obsidian’s past and future.
It was in conversation with a gravedigger just outside the fictional town of Edgewater that The Outer Worlds first grabbed my attention. I sat horrified as this man revealed his fellow townspeople were being killed by plague and he was burying the bodies. The townspeople had a right, granted by the corporation that ‘employed’ them, to remain in the plot for a set amount of years — as long as their family members paid the fees. He asked me if I’d be willing to shake down those who refused to pay. I refused. He continued on as normal, just another day in the dystopia. And I walked on thinking man, this game is dark.
And of course, parts of the game are dark. Co-Game Director Leonard Boyarsky is in his own words most at home when he’s telling stories that make players feel haunted or uncomfortable.
Whether it’s the undertaker outside Edgewater or the woman who uses ground corpses to grow vegetables, the lifelong slavery dressed up as gainful employment or how the glitzy city of Byzantium handles its early retirees, the world is haunting because, yes, some of it is plainly gruesome, dark and dystopian. But it’s also spooky because the characters feel so real.
