Obsidian Entertainment made an unexpected announcement today: its highly anticipated upcoming title The Outer Worlds will launch on Nintendo Switch.
The game launches on other platforms October 25, but the Switch launch date isn’t set in stone yet. Virtuos is handling the port. It’s the company responsible for porting the likes of Dark Souls Trilogy Remastered and L.A. Noire to the Switch, among other titles; despite the definite differences in processing power between the Switch and other consoles, it would seem The Outer Worlds is in good hands.
The Outer Worlds is a choice-driven, first person sci-fi adventure from the studio that created Pillars of Eternity and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II. Players take control of a being kept in artificial sleep for years who is suddenly awakened by a mysterious man called Dr Phineas Wells.
The Halcyon Colony where the game takes place is under threat from a corporate conspiracy, and uncovering motivations of various factions’ involved, not to mention shaping the colony’s fate, falls to the player.
It’s a massive world, full of areas to explore and monsters to fight, but also with characters to meet and recruit. Each companion has their own goals, missions, and beliefs that potentially impact how players experience the game.
That’s because choice drives The Outer Worlds, as it does in many Obsidian titles. Decisions made throughout the game will affect how the story ends and what happens to the various friends met along the way.
However, one big new addition is character flaws. Over the course of the game, the player can choose to take on various flaws, offered based on how the game tracks your progress.
One example given is with combat against certain monsters, the Raptidons. Consistently encountering problems while fighting them gives players the option to take on the Raptiphobia flaw, which inflicts a debuff during combat, but balances that with a big payoff after victory.
If you can’t wait until the game launches to see it in action, check out our impressions of The Outer Worlds‘ E3 demo, and feast your eyes on the footage shown off during PAX East earlier this year.
