Highly anticipated: One of the best parts about open-ended RPGs is their emphasis on player freedom. Kill all the villagers in a small town and watch how the world reacts, or swipe everything that isn't nailed down from the local mage's house and sell it to shady fences; it's up to you. These sorts of choices are the bread and butter of many other RPGs, and Obsidian's upcoming sci-fi title "The Outer Worlds" will be no different.
We already know it will be possible to complete The Outer Worlds without killing anyone (or, at least, you can come close), but now, Obsidian designer Brian Heins confirmed that you can do the opposite as well.
In true New Vegas fashion (another one of Obsidian's RPGs), players will be able to kill every single character they meet, with or without a valid reason. Put simply, there are no "essential" NPCs.
Best of all, unlike New Vegas, doing so will not break major questlines. If you kill an important character, the designers will have a backup opportunity for you to get the information they would have given you: you may loot a notebook off of their body, access their personal data terminal, or even lockpick a chest in their office. Designing quests in this manner has proven challenging for the team, as it requires story writers to create or omit much more dialogue to reflect the player's decisions.
Of course, just because a scorched-earth playthrough is possible does not mean it will necessarily be easy. The Outer Worlds is an RPG at heart, and as such, you'll likely run into tough enemies regularly.
At any rate, it's nice to see bigger-budget RPGs begin to take player choice more seriously once again. We know you can finish Cyberpunk 2077 without killing anyone, for example, and The Outer Worlds is set to offer the same level of freedom.
The Outer Worlds launches on October 25, 2019, across the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. On PC, the game will be exclusively available on the Epic Games Store for one year, at which point it will arrive on Steam and other digital retailers.