Trivia / The Outer Worlds

• Dueling Games:
  • While Obsidian has rejected this, many outlets have said this is very much like a shot across the bow for a war with Bethesda over their handling of the Fallout franchise, particularly their Epic Fail accusations with Fallout 76. Became somewhat moot after both studios were bought by Microsoft (Obsidian shortly before Outer Worlds came out, Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax several months after).
  • With Cyberpunk 2077 as they were both sci-fi FPS-RPG's with an emphasis on choice & were going to be released within months of each other. Cyberpunk was then delayed so much it launched more than a year after Outer Worlds's successful but low-key launch. 2077 also refocused to the action FPS genre due to its Development Hell, which resulted in the situation that the two games aren't considered to be in the same genre, let alone have a rivalry.
• Release Date Change: The Nintendo Switch version was due for release on March 6, 2020. However, just one month away from release, Virtuos, the external development team handling the port, had to close their offices, as studios in question were in China, and thus impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. It was later given a new release date of June 5, 2020.
• Similarly Named Works: With Outer Wilds, to the point that many people regularly mix them up and conflate one with the other, to both games' detriment.
• What Could Have Been:
  • An extensive subplot about corporate espionage had to be cut for time.
  • In the initial reveal trailer and concept art, the character of Phineas Welles resembled the conventional wacky scientist archetype with grey hair, such as from Back to the Future and Rick and Morty. By the E3 2018 trailer his hair was darkened and his face was made to look somewhat younger.
  • Ellie was the first companion shown in the trailers, meaning that she was going the first companion the player was going to recruit in the starting planet. (Note that in the game's cover image, the protagonist has just landed, and Ellie is waving to them in the background.) However, she was replaced with Parvati as the first companion and Ellie was instead moved to the Groundbreaker and was changed to a more cynical and opportunistic Deadpan Snarker.
  • The Emerald Vale Community Center, site of an early game mission involving retrieving medicine for a citizen of Edgewater, was originally envisioned as the "Emerald Vale Community Center & Brothel" to illustrate the 24th century's nonchalant attitude towards sexuality. The developers were unable to implement the idea satisfactorily and dropped it.
  • Romance subplots between the player and companion characters were considered, but ultimately abandoned due to time constraints. Probably just as well given Obsidian's past track record with Romance Sidequests.
  • The developers briefly considered having the day/night cycle on some planets affect the activity and variety of local wildlife.
  • The developers made a deliberate decision to not create mini-games for hacking and lockpicking, since such mini-games have proven divisive in other RPG's.
  • Browsing the game files reveals that a number of quests in Byzantium didn't make it to the final product, which accounts for how sparse the city is compared to earlier hubs.