Companions in the original Outer Worlds were kind of stiff. You could build up your relationships with them. They’d tell you when they were unhappy. But none of it ever led anywhere. They amounted to a fire-suppressing peanut gallery that helped you learn about and reflect on the world around you but little more. The Outer Worlds 2 will try to fix that. You still can’t romance companions in the sequel but at least they’ll try to kill you this time if you really piss them off.
You’ll have six optional companions in Obsidian’s upcoming sci-fi RPG, many associated with particular in-game factions. Niles is an engineer from the Earth Directorate. Valerie is a robot from the same faction. Aza is a cultist from the Glorious Dawn. Inez is a field medic from Auntie’s Choice. Marisol is an assassin from the Order of the Ascendant. Finally there’s Tristan from the Protectorate who has a giant hammer. Hurt their friends or break their rules and they’ll turn on you.
“One of the things that was really important is we wanted these characters to feel like they’re their own people,” design director Matt Singh said on the latest episode of the Xbox Expansion Pass show (via Gamesradar). “They have their own goals, their own motivations, and if the player’s aligning with them, that’s great. They’re going to be there for you. They’ll fight alongside you. But if you go against their interests, they’re going to have something to say about it. That might break out into a conflict, that might mean they leave you or you have to fight them to the death. But if you do build that relationship with them, they’ll be there for you in the end.”
This sounds neat and builds off one of the most memorable moments from the original Mass Effect in which two of your squadmates clash, resulting in an unreconcilable showdown. Over a decade later I still remember what choice I made during that part of the game and why (fuck you, Ashley). I don’t expect The Outer Worlds 2 to rise to the same level since these confrontations don’t sound like pivotal scripted moments so much as procedural consequences.
Singh also suggests you can sort of skate by the friction if you have a good enough relationship with the NPC. Something like, “Uh, sorry I wiped out your clan, remember that time I finished your second loyalty mission though?” I hope that’s not the case. I hope we have some real friends-to-enemies journeys out there in Halcyon this time around. One of my biggest complaints with party-based RPGs is that the people you’re with never seem to quite have a mind of their own outside of sassy retorts and disappointed scowls. It sounds like The Outer Worlds 2 is trying to evolve the formula beyond that.
“We still wanted to make sure that the player has choice—meaningful choice—here,” Singh told RPGSite in another interview. “Companions are completely optional. If you don’t want to engage with them, you don’t have to. But you can take them along and see how that changes your story. Same thing with factions, right? The factions are there. They have their goals. They have their motivations. You can try to side with them. You can try to bring them together. Or you can say, ‘F it. I’m going my way. I don’t care about you. We’re going to do it the way that I would like.’ We’re all trying to figure out how to give the player as much player agency as possible and respond to it in interesting ways.”
