The Outer Worlds - New game RPG from Obsidian

I know this might sound overly nostalgia-driven but Persuasion and Deception (Lying) skills do somewhat ring a bell!

Other than that, great announcement and a marvelous presentation!

 

I was watching game play the other day and noticed that the player character can choose to acquire irrational fears related to the situations they encounter. I think that's really cool, to not only be flawed from the start, but to allow the character to take on additional "traits" through organic game play.

Personally I'm looking forward to Obsidian Entertainment's Outer Worlds. Although some of the game play I did see was limited in a sense. However I think this could be a situation of insufficient information at this time.

Either way, I'm interested and will likely purchase the title to explore it further.

 

I wouldn't call Fallout and Fallout 2 a hub-based game. They both had an overworld map in which you can travel freely, without having to return to a central location (i.e. hub). The best example for a hub-based game I can think of is Mass Effect, in which the hub is your ship, the Normandy. If they wanted to create an open-world in the Fallout sense, they'd have to create a game similar to Star Citizen, but Obsidian can't do that.

 

Additional "hub" based games to shed additional light.
Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot Cortex's revenge, and Banjo Kazooie.

Hub game: An interactive menu/level selection system that facilitates the transition of locations to forward progress. Games may have multiple hubs within them, however a hub only serves one function and does not facilitate game play within it's boundary.

Fallout 1 and 2 do not qualify as a hub based game since the player does not have access to a static point to facilitate further game play. If the location or hub moves then that also no longer qualifies as a hub. Therefore in this context Mass Effect does not qualify either since the ship itself engages with action as well traverses the starts which exposes it to danger.

Hubs are menus presented in a more tactile way for the player to experience.

 

The ship in Mass Effect does not travel or engage in any sort of action. It's an illusion created by cinematic cutscenes, therefore it qualifies.

In case you haven't played it before, you basically pick a "mission map" from a star map type of thing and the game places you on that map after showing you a "travelling" video. In the first game you also had to use ship's exit door in order to switch to the mission map, in later games they removed it.

 

I must disagree with you, because the ship's interior is impacted during the progress of the game such as collectors boarding the ship, the death of Sheppard, as well a narrative device. Hub's do not function in this way. The only hub location in Mass effect is the star map, not the ship.

 

The "ship" is not an actual ship, it's another map, which functions as the player's base or home and the star map, which by the way is NOT a location, cannot exist without it. Therefore the ship is the "hub" in the game. It doesn't really take any real damage and certainly not due to player actions. It just gets replaced by another version of the same map for narrative purposes. I don't care how you define a hub-based game, but this game will be similar to Mass Effect in that regard.

 

@nkchan16 I'm aware of your perspective however I'm talking about design and mechanics. The ship is not a hub, the star map inside the ship is the hub. Just like the hubs for when the player fast travels to different locations when they are docked somewhere like the Citadel.

The ship is a narrative vehicle, nothing more.

 

I see. I was thinking of places like Navarro, New Reno and NCR as sort of "Hubs".

 

I wasn't familiar with the term "hub-based" either, had to look it up just a few days ago. It's basically the type of game in which you have to return to a central location in order to advance in the game (e.g. to get other missions or to reach other maps/levels etc).

 

The "hubs" presented to players in the original Fallout titles was that of the mini/spawn-map of the location that allowed the player to select where they spawned in the area they traveled to.

So a player arrives at Junktown, they have already explored the area, but before they spawn into the area they get to select which region of the town they want to begin in rather than always forcing the player to walk through the gate. Those are the only "hubs" in the original Fallout titles.

 

What I'm really interested in is how are the controls, are they better or worse than Fo4? Are they better or worse than FoNV?
I'm really hoping for a middle ground between the two, responsive controls that flow well and don't feel like you're constantly fighting it, but at the same time not so fluid that you feel out of control and bogged down.

Regardless I'll be playing it, but I want it to be just that much more playable.