The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition - Obsidian's first-person sci-fi RPG set in a corporate space colony

[KVVRR]

The Board path isn't for you. It's primarily for those who put self-interest above all. Ruling in Hell instead of serving in Heaven.

I've said this before but this doesn't work for The Board. The appeal of an evil or selfish playthrough like that is to rule either by yourself or amongst the best; to cast the plebians down to the pits where they belong and pound them with an iron fist as you see fit. You don't get this with the Board. Any material wealth you could amass with them is rendered useless both gameplay and in universe by halfway through the game when the starvation issue becomes clear, and the board itself is just way too incompetent for anyone to realistically want to side with them. This isn't New Vegas where you can be seduced by the appeal to power Mr House has in his own little town, with him showering you with caps and promises of a great future together as his second hand; this is a place where you're unironically going to be a wagie no matter how high you rank up, and your best hopes are to be frozen while somebody else fixes the problem, maybe. And as Lemming's said, their quest is locked behind so many roadblocks -- not JUST the genocide or how it's set up, you can't even walk up to them in the first place and rat Welles out, you have to go through another incompetent manager first who also hates your guts -- that even I had to force myself to go through a board playthrough instead of just shooting everyone and getting it over with.

This is what happens when there is an agenda. Instead of something that is logical or even remotely believable, those with an agenda makes it so distasteful to work with a certain group that players have to force themselves to do it, and most won't. And that is the point. It is the writer being preachy.

I'm not sure it was an agenda being pushed so much as just the writers not really wanting to develop the Board/the alternative route all that much and just rather prefer spend their time making "funny" dumb NPCs instead. Same thing happened in the DLCs if I'm not remembering wrong.

 

[Wesp5]

It is the writer being preachy.

That is the best summary of the writing in this game. Just look at competent women vs incompetent men, I have never played a more sexist game before !

 

[Cael]

It is the writer being preachy.

That is the best summary of the writing in this game. Just look at competent women vs incompetent men, I have never played a more sexist game before !

The wymmyn are irrelevant. It is obvious that the writers were pushing the player towards only one possible outcome, with the other side being utterly odious. I am not even talking Saturday Night camp here, which was what they claimed to be trying to do. It was outright "The LOOORRRDDDDD will FOOORGIVE me for raping and killing your children!"

 

[Sannom]

They had to cut a lot, also as I understand to streamline a lot (the whole flaw system which on paper was pretty cool in practice turned out to be very meh) etc etc.

The flaw system would have worked better if they hadn't emptied the perk selection to fill up the automatic rewards associated to skill progression. I'm really curious to see if they will keep that system in the sequel, it's a nice idea in theory but the knock-on effects on the "legacy" system of perk selection were too big.

 

[Child of Malkav]

The perks on Tow were so bad, especially when compared to NV. Unreal.

 

[Roguey]

The Board path isn't for you. It's primarily for those who put self-interest above all. Ruling in Hell instead of serving in Heaven.

I've said this before but this doesn't work for The Board. The appeal of an evil or selfish playthrough like that is to rule either by yourself or amongst the best; to cast the plebians down to the pits where they belong and pound them with an iron fist as you see fit. You don't get this with the Board. Any material wealth you could amass with them is rendered useless both gameplay and in universe by halfway through the game when the starvation issue becomes clear, and the board itself is just way too incompetent for anyone to realistically want to side with them. This isn't New Vegas where you can be seduced by the appeal of power Mr House has in his own little town, with him showering you with caps and promises of a great future together as his second hand; this is a place where you're unironically going to be a wagie no matter how high you rank up, and your best hopes are to be frozen while somebody else fixes the problem, maybe. And as Lemming said, their quest is locked behind so many roadblocks -- not JUST the genocide or how it's set up, you can't even walk up to them in the first place and rat Welles out, you have to go through another incompetent manager first who also hates your guts -- that even I had to force myself to go through a board playthrough instead of just shooting everyone and getting it over with.

Read the endings in my spoiler box. Your idea of how things work out is wrong.

Additionally, as I said, there is no "genocide" if you're not a schizo who helps out a woman who is so very obviously hostile to the board.

Arcanum's evil path legitimately does require you to destroy an entire town for the dark hippie elves. This isn't like that.

 

[KVVRR]

The Board path isn't for you. It's primarily for those who put self-interest above all. Ruling in Hell instead of serving in Heaven.

I've said this before but this doesn't work for The Board. The appeal of an evil or selfish playthrough like that is to rule either by yourself or amongst the best; to cast the plebians down to the pits where they belong and pound them with an iron fist as you see fit. You don't get this with the Board. Any material wealth you could amass with them is rendered useless both gameplay and in universe by halfway through the game when the starvation issue becomes clear, and the board itself is just way too incompetent for anyone to realistically want to side with them. This isn't New Vegas where you can be seduced by the appeal of power Mr House has in his own little town, with him showering you with caps and promises of a great future together as his second hand; this is a place where you're unironically going to be a wagie no matter how high you rank up, and your best hopes are to be frozen while somebody else fixes the problem, maybe. And as Lemming said, their quest is locked behind so many roadblocks -- not JUST the genocide or how it's set up, you can't even walk up to them in the first place and rat Welles out, you have to go through another incompetent manager first who also hates your guts -- that even I had to force myself to go through a board playthrough instead of just shooting everyone and getting it over with.

Read the endings in my spoiler box. Your idea of how things work out is wrong.

Additionally, as I said, there is no "genocide" if you're not a schizo who helps out a woman who is so very obviously hostile to the board.

Arcanum's evil path legitimately does require you to destroy an entire town for the dark hippie elves. This isn't like that.

I know about the ending cutscenes, that doesn't change the fact that the system is doomed unless somebody fixes the soil situation -- which afaik this doesn't happen if you side with the board -- and that the board itself is INSUFFERABLE during your entire playthrough even if you side with them from the start. I personally don't care about wiping out edgewater, I'm the kind of player Tim specifically designed the "no unkillable npcs" design rule for, but when you have planets like Monarch still up and about despite "branching" away from the Board for years and with a leader that effectively also wants nothing to do with it, who DIDN'T rise to power in what's effectively a coup by an outsider, getting that as your first real board mission does nothing but make the board seem like incompetent and malignant fools. The town itself realistically had nothing to do with it, yet they're being punished all the same. So why would you ever send the one guy who caused the problem in the first place to deal with it instead of punishing him? What does the Board gain by wiping an entire colony off of their star system?
And mind you Akande is the one board member who seems to be halfway competent. Every other board faction member seemed to be written to be dumb funny first, an actual character second. Like I said before, the game prevents you from ratting Welles out, board's public enemy number 1, asap despite you knowing where he is hiding. The reason? Management incompetence.
It's been a while, but I also remember there not really being a good in-universe incentive for the player to side with the Board itself. From all you know at the start if the Board finds you out you're as good as dead, you're actively working with a terrorist and belong to the class of people the faction is going to dispose of to make room for themselves. Again, would money really be a good motivator when for all the player knows the system is going to fall into ruins very soon?

 

[Roguey]

I know about the ending cutscenes, that doesn't change the fact that the system is doomed unless somebody fixes the soil situation

This is a "Yeah, and?" situation for someone who's only looking out for #1. The system isn't going to collapse in your lifetime, you'll die happy. There's perhaps a climate change or some other similar allegory in here somewhere.

Like I said before, the game prevents you from ratting Welles out, board's public enemy number 1, asap despite you knowing where he is hiding. The reason? Management incompetence.

That's the narrative reason. The behind-the-scenes reason is that branching the path that significantly would be too much scripting and design work.

 

[KVVRR]

This is a "Yeah, and?" situation for someone who's only looking out for #1. The system isn't going to collapse in your lifetime, you'll die happy. There's perhaps a climate change or some other similar allegory in here somewhere.

Perhaps it's me but setting yourself up for a cozy life is kinda what most endings in these games end up doing unless it's a fail state or a downright bad ending, it's not like you end up in extreme poverty or anything if you don't go for the Board. When the system you're integrating yourself in is so obviously set to fail and you're surrounded by genuine morons on all sides it kinda pulls away from that "looking out for number one" because I'd rather just wipe all of them out and live with the robots instead, it's not like it'd be any different if we go by how people act in Byzantium.

That's the narrative reason. The behind-the-scenes reason is that branching the path that significantly would be too much scripting and design work.

If the excuse for the secondary faction's path feeling like dogshit and making them look totally incompentent is going to be "it'd be just too much work" then perhaps obsidian shouldn't be making RPGs, no?

 

[Infinitron]

I think that the symmetry between Phineas Welles' plan and the Board's plan was narratively clever - one side wants to remove everybody from cryostasis, the other side wants to put everybody back in it. But I agree with KVVRR that the Board wasn't really compelling as a path that a player would actually choose to take. If you know that the colony can grow and survive, why would you choose managed decline instead? You become such an important figure in the colony after the endgame that if you were evil, you could become the evil overlord of Halcyon even if Phineas won.

 

[Roguey]

Perhaps it's me but setting yourself up for a cozy life is kinda what most endings in these games end up doing unless it's a fail state or a downright bad ending, it's not like you end up in extreme poverty or anything if you don't go for the Board.

You end up with so much more with The Board though.

If you know that the colony can grow and survive, why would you choose managed decline instead? You become such an important figure in the colony after the endgame that if you were evil, you could become the evil overlord of Halcyon even if Phineas won.

But you don't know the colony will grow and survive. I mean yeah with metagame knowledge you do, but Phineas is banking the survival of the entire colony on Great Minds pulling their fat from the fire (while also adding a greater load on resources in the short term). An all or nothing gamble, while The Board path is incredibly risk averse, as corporations tend to be.

 

[Fedora Master]

RPG Codex > Putting more thoughts into games than the devs

 

[KVVRR]

You end up with so much more with The Board though.

Do you? In game you don't get anything you wouldn't get otherwise and there's nothing in the end credits saying you can't rest your whole life chilling in Byzantium as the hero who saved the colony afaik.

An all or nothing gamble, while The Board path is incredibly risk averse, as corporations tend to be.

It really, really isn't if you take into account just how stupid the board is portrayed as all through the game. I myself was complaning that Welles' plan was just a blind gamble but even that seemed like a better alternative than putting my life on the hands of the people with literal human cubes factories regardless of how safe that might be.

 

[mediocrepoet]

If you know that the colony can grow and survive, why would you choose managed decline instead? You become such an important figure in the colony after the endgame that if you were evil, you could become the evil overlord of Halcyon even if Phineas won.

But you don't know the colony will grow and survive. I mean yeah with metagame knowledge you do, but Phineas is banking the survival of the entire colony on Great Minds pulling their fat from the fire (while also adding a greater load on resources in the short term). An all or nothing gamble, while The Board path is incredibly risk averse, as corporations tend to be.

This is already more interesting than playing the game. Is there any way to make it not boring as hell?

It's like a paint by numbers fps. Just awful.

 

[jaekl]

This was one of the first games I remember playing where I felt such an intense annoyance at every npc who started talking to me that I began killing everyone instead of listening to what was going on. Now, that's pretty much my MO so this game was so retarded that it began my transformation into a villian, notorious across multiple universes for senseless and cruel npc genocides.

 

[Lemming42]

But you don't know the colony will grow and survive. I mean yeah with metagame knowledge you do, but Phineas is banking the survival of the entire colony on Great Minds pulling their fat from the fire (while also adding a greater load on resources in the short term). An all or nothing gamble, while The Board path is incredibly risk averse, as corporations tend to be.

This should have been what the game revolved around. It's been like a week or something since I finished it and it's still driving me insane.

Welles wants to risk everything on a stupid plan for his own ego and to assuage his own guilt, and he might doom the colony in the process. His only source for any of his claims is "trust me bro", but if he's right, he could pull Halcyon back from the brink. If he's right. This could have been a great character.

Akande, meanwhile - who is a compassionless killer, but appears genuinely unselfish and acts out of a sincere desire to rescue the colony - wants to save Halcyon at any cost, and has a concrete plan in place to do it, but the plan is morally repugnant. This could have been a great character.

WHY ISN'T THE FUCKING GAME ABOUT THIS CONFLICT. WHY. Theoretically, this is a rock-solid foundation for a plot. The two factions counterbalance each other perfectly - both are simultaneously appealing and repulsive. Welles has pretty promises, Akande doesn't sugarcoat anything. Welles thinks he can save everyone, Akande knows she can't. Welles just hopes that his madcap scheme will work, Akande tries to verify that hers will. Welles thinks a revolution is a worthwhile risk, Akande wants to protect people's existing way of life as much as she can. Siding with Welles is a gamble which could kill everyone but could also save everyone; siding with Akande means definitely saving some people but dooming others with equal certainty. On a personal level, Welles is charming but deceitful, while Akande is stern but brutally honest. Taken like this, both sides are viable, and fans of the game (all two of them) could have been debating this for years in the way people still discuss New Vegas' main quest.

It's a fantastic outline for a really gritty, tricky plot with no right or wrong answer. So how did it end up so fucking bad. Why is Akande - who, without meta knowledge from the epilogues, may be completely correct about everything - demonised the instant you meet her. Why does the epilogue make it 100% clear that Welles' plan was the right one. Why did they write a situation that begged for ambiguity and moral dilemmas, and then systematically suck out any and all ambiguity from it, making it entirely black and white and also making it retarded as fuck. Why did I spend most of the game hearing unbearable shitty unfunny jokes from tedious NPCs, rather than dealing with this core plot. Fucking why.

Fucking Obisidian. I genuinely hope that the studio goes under and that TOW2 never gets made. I've not been this pissed off by a game's failings in a long time.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Fucking Obisidian. I genuinely hope that the studio goes under and that TOW2 never gets made. I've not been this pissed off by game's failings in a long time.

I think it's entirely possible that you're the one person on Earth who's given this game the most thought, including over the writers. I wish I found it as interesting as you do. The furthest I've gotten is completing the first planet's questline and then I just can't will myself to boot it up again.

 

[Lemming42]

I think it's entirely possible that you're the one person on Earth who's given this game the most thought, including over the writers. I wish I found it as interesting as you do.

It's less a case of it being interesting and more of a case of the game brazenly flaunting its wasted potential in the player's face like a geriatric flasher pulling his trenchcoat open to show you his shrivelled ballsack. You don't want to think about it anymore, but the experience was so strikingly grotesque that it still haunts you every time you close your eyes.

It's maddening because the interesting plot I'm describing is actually in the game, it's just somehow told in such an abominable way, and the characters and situations are treated so staggeringly badly by the script, that any value in it is sucked out and dashed to pieces. It genuinely feels like one person at the start of the project came up with an entirely solid initial story outline and pitched it, then a group of hacks set upon it and shredded it to ribbons, while also shitting on it and openly declaring their contempt for it. It's bizarre, the game shouldn't suck as much as it does, it has to have been an active choice on Obsidian's part.

I don't know why they'd do this, but somewhere along the line, it looks like a decent outline somehow turned into the gigantic pile of steaming fucking shit that was shovelled into our mouths on release in 2019.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I think it's entirely possible that you're the one person on Earth who's given this game the most thought, including over the writers. I wish I found it as interesting as you do.

It's less a case of it being interesting and more of a case of the game brazenly flaunting its wasted potential in the player's face like a geriatric flasher pulling his trenchcoat open to show you his shrivelled ballsack. You don't want to think about it anymore, but the experience was so strikingly grotesque that it still haunts you every time you close your eyes.

It's maddening because the interesting plot I'm describing is actually in the game, it's just somehow told in such an abominable way, and the characters and situations are treated so staggeringly badly by the script, that any value in it is sucked out and dashed to pieces. It genuinely feels like one person at the start of the project came up with an entirely solid initial story outline and pitched it, then a group of hacks set upon it and shredded it to ribbons, while also shitting on it and openly declaring their contempt for it. It's bizarre, the game shouldn't suck as much as it does, it has to have been an active choice on Obsidian's part.

I don't know why they'd do this, but somewhere along the line, it looks like a decent outline somehow turned into the gigantic pile of steaming fucking shit that was shovelled into our mouths on release in 2019.

Well, if you think Obsidian with its current creative crew is the right team to bring whatever vision Cain and Boyarsky had to fruition... I'd say you got the game you deserve.

 

[Cael]

Why is Akande - who, without meta knowledge from the epilogues, may be completely correct about everything - demonised the instant you meet her. Why does the epilogue make it 100% clear that Welles' plan was the right one.

Because it was written by woketards. Just look at that hbs game (or as real Battletech fans call it hBStech).

 

[Yosharian]

You guys are overthinking a stupid plot that was written by talentless diversity hires

 

[Wesp5]

Why is Akande - who, without meta knowledge from the epilogues, may be completely correct about everything - demonised the instant you meet her.

Can you remind me again what her plan was? Wasn't it freezing everbody until the problems magically disappears? Without any new scientists to work on it except for the idiots the game showed being active at the time?

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

My theory is that the core plot conflict was conceived by someone who thought in terms of ideas, while the actual script was written by left-wing tribalists. A conflict of ideas can have nuance and tradeoffs. A conflict of tribes just has the Good Tribe and the Other Tribes Who Are Evil. And, as left-wing tribalists, there was no way the writers would allow the corporations to be the Good Tribe.

 

[Silverfish]

The furthest I've gotten is completing the first planet's questline and then I just can't will myself to boot it up again.

I only made it slightly further. I got to Roseway and completely checked out after something to do with experimental toothpaste. I don't ask for much, but even Borderlands was funnier.

 

[ColonelMace]

It's a fantastic outline for a really gritty, tricky plot with no right or wrong answer. So how did it end up so fucking bad. Why is Akande - who, without meta knowledge from the epilogues, may be completely correct about everything - demonised the instant you meet her. Why does the epilogue make it 100% clear that Welles' plan was the right one. Why did they write a situation that begged for ambiguity and moral dilemmas, and then systematically suck out any and all ambiguity from it, making it entirely black and white and also making it retarded as fuck. Why did I spend most of the game hearing unbearable shitty unfunny jokes from tedious NPCs, rather than dealing with this core plot. Fucking why.

I'll wager that whoever was leading the writing team (and whoever helped him in that regard) had the overall idea of the plot, which is pretty good.
Then the little hands in charge of actual narrative design® could simply not fathom the possibility that Akande's plan, despite how inhumane it seems on a surface level, could have been presented as viable, if not more viable, than Welles'.

I used to believe, before playing this game, that Obsidian being bankrupt on the writing front was more of a meme than anything (like, sure, it's not Avellone's tier of good, but then again what is ?), but this specific game really made me consider how fucked they are.
To be able to present more than one option in an, at least, tolerable way (or have characters champion their dubious ideas sincerely) is the absolute necessity when making any sort of reactive storyline.
To let the player free to pick an option blatantly presented (if not cemented in the epilogue) as the wrong one is plain stupid.

It seems to me that it's mostly the junior writers who fucked up here. And I'm even more leaning towards this conclusion after playing Peril on Gorgon. This dlc is even more linear and a tad bit clichéer than the base game, but at the very least, here, it takes its characters, plots and pathways seriously. I enjoyed it much more than anything past Edgewater from the main game.
I've started Murder on Eridanos, but it seems to dive back into wacky and zany nonsense, and despite the fact it's an actual investigation, which is always cool, I feel like it'll be less engaging than Peril on Gorgon.

I hope for them they learn from their experience on ToW for the sequel, and even for Avowed. Otherwise, they're next in line for the pyre, after the prompt incineration of Bethesda this summer.