I asked McPhee about something he’s really proud of that perhaps hasn’t been pushed in the marketing campaign – we’re used to seeing the bombastic trailers, the panning shots of the environments, the character models, but often the developers favourite elements of the game they’ve worked on are over-looked massively when the publisher rolls out the sizzle reel for the game.
He told me it’s all about “the little touches” for The Outer Worlds. One that he is most proud of, in particular, is a campfire soirée.
“At some point, there are three guys around a campfire with little vodka bottles. And if you take those bottles, they’ll react to that – it results in a really fun conversation. Probably 99% of people aren’t going to do that, they’re not gonna see it, but the 1% that do are gonna crack up. I’ve tried to litter that stuff through the game.”
McPhee also tells me about the factions he worked on that inhabit Monarch.
“When I was setting up two factions, I imagined, it would be interesting if you had two groups of people who dealt with this situation differently. One group is trying to hold on to that corporate identity. And the others are like, well screw them, they left us here, corporations are not the way to go.”
“And they’re much more pseudo-anarchistic. They’re kind of a cult of personality. And then once I establish that I have them slowly, like start to butt heads on the planet and eventually come to a conflict with a lot of really cool character-driven drama. That was really fun!”
According to McPhee, you can actually push away companions if you oppose their ideas in a serious manner, though it’s apparently fairly difficult to achieve.
“There are a couple rare pretty hard to get to points where they’ll draw a line in the sand” – we look forward to the ‘how to lose friends and alienate people’ speedruns!
If you are more of a solo flier, there’s also a Lone Wolf perk you can pick up if you want to go explore without companions. The ball is in your court.
In regards to companion variety, McPhee made it clear that there is a good diversity to “represent all the skills” in The Outer Worlds, as well as characters that are both for and against the corporations to “give the player a lot of context” about narrative decisions.
McPhee also talked about how decisions in different parts of the open world will have ramifications for the rest of the in-game space, which was great to hear.
On whether we could see more sequels or DLC set in The Outer Worlds, McPhee sounded keen: “We would love to – I mean we’ve created this cool setup so the more we get to do in it the better!”
To wrap up, I asked about LGBT representation in spite of a lack of romance options, and whilst McPhee didn’t have any details, he confirmed that it will be in the game, which is great news!
Get ready for The Outer Worlds when it drops later in the year on October 25 for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
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