Where The Outer Worlds was deliberately developed with a smaller scope in mind, Obsidian says The Outer Worlds 2 is a greatly expanded RPG folding in more of the Fallout: New Vegas depth and crunch that fans have come to associate with the studio. This represents a bit of a reversal on the back of the first game's success, as the developer was previously careful to say The Outer Worlds is not "New Vegas in space."
Speaking with GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2025, game director Brandon Adler and creative director Leonard Boyarsky touched on the comparisons Obsidian has made between New Vegas and The Outer Worlds 2, and how it's grown the sequel without sacrificing what made the original game compelling.
"New Vegas, to me, was a natural comparison," Adler says. "It had a lot of the elements that we knew we wanted to push forward in terms of, just in general, the deeper RPG, the more omnipresent factions and how they fit into the world, the type of open story that we wanted to tell, and even the exploration of the world itself. And so for us, it was just a natural comparison. We even have a bunch of people at the studio that have already worked on it. We continue to talk about what that is. But it just really matched the values that we were trying to hit on in this next game."
Boyarsky touches on the journey with The Outer Worlds from a pitch to what's now a franchise.
"When we were trying to publicize the first game, obviously no one knew what The Outer Worlds was. We're like, okay, me and Tim [Cain] made Fallout and Obsidian made Fallout: New Vegas. So then almost every interview we did, we were like, okay, this isn't New Vegas in space. This is much smaller. So we're trying to set expectations.
"And a lot of people really loved the first game. But if we had had the time and money, we would have done what it sounded like people wanted, which, the shorthand is, New Vegas in space. But as Brandon was saying, that's referring to how we always make games, or at least how I've always made games, and it was a conscious decision to be smaller in the first one. So it's more like a touchstone. And going, okay, we're taking some of our lessons, because they did some stuff really great. But you know, as Brandon said, it's just our pedigree, it's what we've always done."
Boyarsky mentions exploration as a key point of improvement in The Outer Worlds 2. Some things "you need square footage for," and The Outer Worlds 2 gives players much greater room to wander and discover.
However, as Adler notes, the tight pacing and focus of the original game also had its fans, so Obsidian looked for a Goldilocks middle ground. The solution it arrived at is simple: build a big RPG with a compact critical path.
"We saw with, in general, what our fans really wanted, one of the top things that they requested was a much more expanded experience, a larger experience, more game to play. When we were talking very early on how we wanted to deal with that, obviously, we wanted to make more, but I think that what Tim and Leonard hit on early on was actually really good, because there are some people who do like that tighter experience.
"So we made a game where the core of the game, the critical path, is maybe 10 or 15% of the total content that's actually there. So if people want, they can actually have that really, quick core experience, and it'll feel really good, and it'll be great. But there's a lot of extra game there for people that want more, and they can actually really explore and get the most out of that. So we just want players to choose how much of the game that they really want to play there, right? If they want that big experience, we've made it there for them. But again, if they want that tighter experience, it's also there for them."
"Our job is to get you to want to play the entirety of the game, right, not force it," Adler adds.
With the first game to build on, and with "more time and more money from Microsoft" on the sequel, Adler feels The Outer Worlds 2 has "gotten to where we really want it in terms of that crunchy RPG."
The Outer Worlds 2 was helped along by Fallout co-creator Tim Cain, but Obsidian is switching up RPG history by going "much bigger and deeper" with its sequel. Check out our The Outer Worlds 2 hands-on preview to see what we think of it.
