Comment on The Outer Worlds 2 | Review Thread
theoriginalcows@lemmings.world 3 days ago
They have some really bad writers on their team that focus more on telling players what they want instead of giving them what they want.
Comment on The Outer Worlds 2 | Review Thread
theoriginalcows@lemmings.world 3 days ago
They have some really bad writers on their team that focus more on telling players what they want instead of giving them what they want.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Having played the original (and most Obsidian games), I can only partially comment (also: Support BDS, fuck Microsoft, Obsidian are probably dead either way regardless of sales…):
I strongly disagree with that. I think a much better statement is that Obsidian… generally doesn’t super care about the overall plot outside of a few major beats (Pillars of Eternity 1 being their really big exception and it arguably being their greatest work as a result).
They instead care about the moment to moment narrative. They want you to CARE about what is happening in the now. Because the main quest? That is mostly a quick journey. What matters is the people and scenarios you meet along the way. And a huge part of that is writing those chains of quests in a way that it feels like your actions Matter.
And when it works? It fucking WORKS. You really feel like you are part of a living and breathing world in a way that few studios can even hope to manage. Like, yes, the world is ending, but life still moves on and you become deeply invested in this family that refuses to give up and die… even though they probably will. It is very reminiscent of how RGG does the Yakuza/LAD games.
And… like the LADs… it also can mean that you just don’t actually care about what the giant bad vibes tree is actually going to do. But, once you have finished up all the side quests you kind of just don’t care? RGG tends to avert that by making the last hour or two just constant cutscenes, epic fights, and shirts getting ripped off. Obsidian prefer to go much more introspective and… if you vibe with that then it works. If you don’t, it doesn’t.
But yeah. That is a huge chunk of why so many people never finished Outer Worlds 1. They did the three or four planets to get access to the imperial capital world and… were done by then because they had effectively experienced two or three REALLY solid mini stories/arcs and didn’t see much point in moving on.