How Outer World 2 lets you run wildly with RPG character architecture – IGN First
Blog Andrew Joseph 15 Apr , 2025 0
(Note: All shots are from an alpha build in progress.)
Finally seeing the Outer World 2 for yourself, it is obvious that skewing deeper RPG elements is one of the priorities for developers Obsidian. In the first game, it’s easier to approach by streamlining the system and building the character’s progress, and the sequel is about avoiding homogeneity and even making you play in an unorthodox way. But that's not entirely to complicate it. Outer World 2 wants players to become creative, become more professional about things they spec, and accept odd choices they may have to make.
“We're looking for ways to inspire players to experiment with different builds (traditional or non-traditional)” Design Director Matt Singh said in the conversation. Speaking of the broader approach, he said, “We really want to rely on synergy, studying how player skills, traits and allowances can all be injected into interesting builds that are able to play other systems.” You can see some of these ideas in our exclusive Outer Worlds 2 game, which showcase new guns, stealth, gadgets, and dialogue. But for this part of our IGN, and for the exclusive coverage of Outer World 2, we will focus on how all of these systems are redesigned and what you expect from them.
Rethinking the Skills System
“We often see everything the characters are good at, and by the end of the game, these characters minimize your personal experience with the characters.” Lead Systems designer Kyle Koenig told me when I reflect on the first game and consider the changes to the sequel. Part of the reason Obsidian does is to stay away from dividing your stats into original skill categories and grouping together individual skills that have a much bigger difference between them. “We want to focus on making everyone upgrade and investing very important. When should I invest in one skill or another. If I want to be a player who is related to guns and uses medical devices, I know what skills I really need to care about. By getting them apart rather than in grouping, and the characters can be made more professional.”
“It's not just traditional stealth-centric builds, combat-centric builds or language-centric builds. The concepts blend a lot, play with other systems and incorporate them into a fairly broad but unique range of different players,” Singh added. He mentioned that certain investments in skills are manifested in other ways, such as observation, which can emphasize secret doors in the environment or things that interact with objects that you can't recognize, which can lead to alternative paths forward.
On the surface, this seems to be expected for RPGs – if anything, the outside world becomes outlier with the way they group skills together. However, in the sequel, it is about using a revised skill system to create greater differences and open up more possibilities in character building, especially in relation to improved privileged systems.
Get the privilege of experiments
Obsidian seems to focus on specificity and provides unique avenues for competition. “We've greatly increased the number of over 90 of these allowances – everyone needs various skills to unlock. When you invest in skills, it changes the way you can invest in allowances and lead you on many different paths,” Koenig explained. He offers an example called Run and Gun for those who like to use shotguns, SMGs, and rifles that can get you fire while sprinting or sliding, and combined with Tactical Time Expansion (TTD) that can make you very much part of the track in the outside world a part of the outside world. “The way we look at them when designing them is to see all the different game modes the players have, and all the actions they can take and how we modify all of them,” he said.
“We have a lot of privileges that cater to non-traditional game styles,” Singh mentioned, providing an example for building a building for players who basically kill all NPCs. You can tilt along this route along privileges like psychopaths (such as psychopaths) and serial killers who will award bonuses in this way, such as permanent health. “Especially in an Obsidian game, we allow you to kill anyone – the game responds, it will scroll with it, and you can still finish the game. Actually, it's a really fun way to play on the second or third play, just to see how far you can go.”
As for the more traditional play style, Koenig has some insight into character building, exploiting the basic aspects of combat by leveraging different types of damage. Even if you want to mix and match them, you can be a role for plasma and burning while recovering from recovery – or shock damage to disturbing cars and letting them fight for you temporarily, while paralyzed creatures and humans – or use corrosive damage to take away all weapons and cause all attacks, causing all your attacks to damage these damage, which can cause significant damage.
Singh stresses that there are other ways to be experimental, referring to opportunities to choose harmful effects, thus masking another aspect of your character. The mechanics he mentioned can reward you in a way that hurts yourself and asks the question: “How do I build a build that is actually tempting me to really get there and get hurt so that I can do other things effectively? I really like these creative builds that allow you to play the idea and turn something into something that builds positives.” The design philosophy is part of the original, but now it's the driving force of Outer World 2, especially with features and flaws.
Positive and negative characteristics
Koenig mentioned: “One thing in the outside world is the key to impacting consequences, you may have negative attributes that will actively harm your character, but you will get some extra points that can be spent elsewhere.” The way it manifests in the original is through a flawed system, which allows you to choose to permanently effect based on the behavior in the game in exchange for additional privilege points. But from what I've seen so far, this idea has doubled in Outer World 2.
A system of positive and negative traits is essential for giving and attraction, and you can choose a negative trait so that you can choose an additional positive. For example, you can give you extra skill points in character creation in brilliant form or bravery skills that allow you to sprint into your target. And if you want more positives, you have to choose a negative, like stupid stupidity, put you out of five skills into five, or get sick to reduce your basic health and tolerance for toxicity. These are just some of the options I've seen in these early stages.
Although I'll get a deeper look in another post, I can say that Outer World 2 is becoming more and more creative in a stupid and clever way (sometimes both). I found myself rejecting the most (if not all) flaws in the original game because I don't have much to use for the extra cheering points, and the compromise is usually not worth it. In this sequel, the game itself is still monitoring your behavior and habits, but the flaws are now constructed from specific conditions that are both positive and negative, as if another layer of the feature system is another layer, but pops up unexpectedly depending on how you play it. You still have to select them, but they will be a permanent part of your character.
Tutoring players and abandoning Respec
There seems to be more active parts in Outer World 2, and another focus of Obsidian is to make these aspects digestible and clear, both from the explanations in the game and from the UI elements. “From the beginning, from the perspective of character creation, we really wanted to put the difference between these skills and what they do,” Koenig told me. This shows examples of gameplay not only in the help text, but also in a short video in the menu. For me, the thing that stands out is the ability to mark privileges as favorites before unlocking them to help organize and plan some kind of path to progress or build. Mapping them also seems intuitive, as the need to display bats and icons in the menu helps to represent the general play style and applicable skills of PERK.
Obviously, Obsidian wants players to think about these options carefully, but, especially since the introduction sequence is not reviewed, which means that once you invest in skills, cheering or traits, your character must rely on that choice throughout the playback. “By removing Respec, we really motivate it to be your experience. This is part of your experience without someone else, and I think it's really special for RPGs and Expecs that tend to reduce.”
As for Singh, he told me: “From a philosophical point of view, we really feel that all your choices should be important. They should be meaningful changes to your gaming experience. He concluded: “It’s just one of the ways we ask you to make a choice, stick with it and make it in a fun and fun way.” ”
We've covered more of the Outer Worlds 2 in this month's IGN. Stay tuned for the new defect system, all wild and quirky weapons, and our open area and level of wide range will be conducted among its major developers in Itsidian.
Michael Higham is the tech review editor for IGN, but is still talking about one of the RPG Sickos of Fallout: New Las Vegas staff. You can @brazyazn.bsky.social.
