Obsidian hopes to stand alongside CD Projekt and Larian by making "best-in-class" reactive RPGs, says The Outer Worlds 2 director: "I don't know if we're there yet, but I'd love to get there"

When The Outer Worlds 2 was first announced in 2021, its first trailer showed off a big creature that definitely wouldn't be in the game, a bunch of "pointless" slow motions shots, and a silhouette of the hero, because, as the narrator humorously declared, the developers at Obsidian hadn't finished the protagonist's design… or the story… or any gameplay that was ready to show. As game director Brandon Adler tells me, the team "really didn't have much of anything" at that time beyond "high-level" concepts for areas like Paradise Island, along with some early prototypes. So, with nothing else for it, the team decided to "have fun" and debut a very self-aware trailer that wasn't just, in the words of Adler, "total BS".

"I don't think people realized that it was going to be another four years after that before they were going to get it," Adler says, reflecting back on the announcement. "They probably thought that they'd get it in another year or two. But we tried to at least sugarcoat a little bit with how far out we are."

It certainly worked out, though, because years later, I still remember that initial trailer and the way it felt so in-tune with the humor of the 2019 RPG. Fast forward to 2025, and those initial concepts laid the foundations for what would become Obsidian's bigger, more ambitious follow-up, which has now been out for a little over a month. Now, as the team looks ahead to what's next for The Outer Worlds 2, I take the chance to sit down and chat with Adler about not just the future of the sequel, but of Obsidian as a studio.

Filling in the gaps

In the weeks since The Outer Worlds 2 released at the end of October, we've already seen a patch arrive that addressed over 350 fixes and changes. But after speaking with Adler, it's made very clear to me that the team isn't stopping there. With plans to continue working on ways to improve the overall experience of the space-faring RPG, soaking in feedback from players has been Adler's life since the game launched. From the sounds of it, it's been a real learning experience for the team.

"It's been a whirlwind, "Adler says. "There are definitely highs and lows. Every single day I come in and I see somebody, either a streamer or somebody who talks about some experience they had, and I'm like, 'that's awesome. They found that thing that I didn't know anybody was going to find'. And it feels really good, that's awesome. You know, they're digging it and they're loving that. And then people have valid criticisms of things that we want to get better at. Like, what are the things that we need to do to kind of up our game there?"

Wider discussions are being had within the team about "how to make more compelling companions in the future" in light of player feedback about the crew of The Outer Worlds 2 – with some saying that they don't feel as attached as they were to the likes of Parvarti in the first game. But they're also looking at the possibility of bringing in more difficulty options for those that have been requesting it, along with improving the in-game maps (something I personally struggled with) to make them more distinct so you can easily identify areas that are traversable.

"Those are more sobering discussions," Adler adds, "because that's what we're constantly trying to do, is analyzing what we did, seeing what people like, and then kind of pushing things in a little bit of a different direction the next time, while still keeping the core of what we're doing. I think that this past month has been a lot of that, a lot of back and forth with those things. It's been a lot of talking through: how do we want to support The Outer Worlds 2?"

Alongside planning out how to improve the RPG, the team are "starting to spin up DLCs". While Alder says they're still figuring out the basics, they are aiming to follow a "general philosophy" when it comes to what direction the story expansions will take. Having worked as game director on the DLCs for Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, Adler explains that typically they'll look at "where the holes are inside of the game" that DLC might be able to fill.

"Like, hey, there weren't enough of this kind of weapon, or people really wanted this kind of companion, but it didn't exist," Adler says. "Or what kind of stories do we need to be telling? Or, hey, we need more dungeon spaces, because people really like dungeons, and we don't have enough of those."

"So our conversations right now are very focused on, are there parts of the story, maybe that people don't understand as much and we want them to understand more?" Adler continues. "How do we incorporate that into this DLC? And then also, even, where does it fit in? Do we put this towards the end of the game? Do we put this towards the middle or beginning? Because that really also affects the types of equipment that you can find in there, the types of enemies you're going to find in there, even the stories that you're going to be telling. So all of these are the kinds of discussions we're doing right now."

While the team "don't really have anything at this point" because they're still working through it, Adler does highlight that they have "some very, very high level ideas", adding that "maybe we'll lean a bit harder into some of the more minor factions, like Sub Rosa, and build them out a little bit."

"This is an Obsidian game"

What's ahead for The Outer Worlds 2 is still being carved out, but I can't help but wonder what the future holds for Obsidian as a developer. It's been a big year, after all, with the studio releasing three games in 2025 alone – Avowed kicked off the year before Grounded 2 launched in Early Access, and was then ultimately followed by The Outer Worlds 2 – and with Obsidian being made up of various teams and so much veteran talent, there's a lot of possibility when it comes to what's next.

"We do look at everything that's available to us," Adler says. "Microsoft and Xbox has a ton of different IPs that we could be looking into and playing around with. We have our own IPs at Obsidian. Do we want to kind of follow those up, or is there something new that we kind of want to bring to the table on that?"

While the studio's next project remains a mystery, our conversation takes a broader turn. The studio has a long history of developing games that center around role-play – but in such a rapidly growing genre, what makes an Obsidian RPG stand out? What makes an Obsidian RPG, well, an Obsidian RPG? As it turns out, Adler has already been asking the same.

"I've been kind of figuring that out, because I don't know if we have a good answer beyond: we love reactive elements," says Adler. "We love player agency. We love player builds and making fun player builds. Characters are very important to us. So having strong companions that can be important to the player. These are all things that are always Obsidian elements."

"But I really want, in the same way that you can look at a Bethesda game and go, like, 'oh, yeah, that's a Bethesda Game', I want Obsidian to have that style and that feel where people are like, 'Yeah, this is an Obsidian game'," Adler adds. "When it feels like this one has these elements, when it does this. I want people to emulate the kind of games that we make. And so I think that's the next challenge for us, is figuring out how to build that kind of identity for us in that way."

It's been a great time for RPG fans like myself over the past few years – from Baldur's Gate 3 to the transformative update that dropped alongside the Phantom Liberty expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, to more recent releases like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (to name a few). And of course, with Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 from Obsidian, it begs the question: what kind of space does the studio want to occupy in such a rich genre going forwards?

"You have a lot of really talented RPG studios. The CD Projekt's, the Larian's of the world, and so it's like, all right, where do we want to fit into all of that?", Adler says. "And I always kind of come back to the thing that I think we can do amazingly well, the things that we've done in the past that I love are things like what Alpha Protocol did, right? For those that aren't familiar, it's this highly reactive experience. It's like this web of reactivity between all of the NPCs and the world itself. We were able to scratch the surface of that on The Outer Worlds 2. But we want to take that even further."

"We want that to be the thing that when people talk about Obsidian RPGs, they talk about how reactive those games are in a way that is best in class," Adler says. "And so, I don't know if we're there yet, but I'd love to get there. And I think that that's our next goal: how can we actually get to that spot where people are talking about us and saying, when you have an Obsidian RPG, you're getting that kind of reactivity you just can't get anywhere else."

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