Obsidian Entertainment: The Outer Worlds – Come to Halcyon Trailer

Cute but the gameplay looks janky as hell

Seems like the game had a fairly low budget. Makes me think of a mix of Fallout New Vegas and Alpha Protocol, with the jank of both included. Everything I've heard about the quest stuff and writing makes me think the game can overcome at least some of the usual Obsidian jankiness.
 
Seems like the game had a fairly low budget. Makes me think of a mix of Fallout New Vegas and Alpha Protocol, with the jank of both included. Everything I've heard about the quest stuff and writing makes me think the game can overcome at least some of the usual Obsidian jankiness.

I've already said it, but it looks like they emulated Fallout New Vegas. And too perfectly, as the terrible FO3/NV style conversation camera, bad animations and whatnot were carried over. I assume the budget was low as you mention, but seems like they took the good and bad of FONV.
 
It's running on Unreal Engine, so they can't blame Gamebryo. Combat looks like VATS; not thrilling. Boyarsky and Cain seem to be going for the "Fallout" feel they created - unbridled optimism contrasted with grim reality. I'm confident in their writing abilities, hopefully the execution does the writing justice.

With the Epic Store exclusive bullshit, I won't be playing until a year after release. Hopefully the bugs will be patched.
 
It's running on Unreal Engine, so they can't blame Gamebryo. Combat looks like VATS; not thrilling. Boyarsky and Cain seem to be going for the "Fallout" feel they created - unbridled optimism contrasted with grim reality. I'm confident in their writing abilities, hopefully the execution does the writing justice.

With the Epic Store exclusive bullshit, I won't be playing until a year after release. Hopefully the bugs will be patched.

The combat looks nothing like VATS.

It'll be on Game Pass and the MS store at launch as well, if you wanted to go that route.
 
It'll be on Game Pass and the MS store at launch as well, if you wanted to go that route.

It's the only sensible route to go. My god, can't believe I'm endorsing the Windows 10 store, or at least Xbox Game Pass. But it's the least worst option for PC unless you fly the black flag.
 
Cute but the gameplay looks janky as hell

Yeah. It kind of looks like Bethesda animations... which isn't a compliment.

Nasty contrast, too. I hope that's just something wrong with the video. And if it is... why did they put it out without correcting it?
 
I’m excited about the concept of this game.

Seeing this trailer... maybe I wait for a sale
 
It should be better than Fallout 4 or 76. Talk about ruining a great game franchise. Todd Howard needs to go.

I wonder how many of the decisions with either game were due to Howard himself vs his boss at BGS, the bosses at Bethesda Softworks, and the people running Zenimax. Howard's at fault for all the lying and other bullshit (and probably to blame for trying to play off all of Bethesda's faults as jokes during E3) but beyond that there are a lot of layers of cooperate bs over at Beth these days. Not sure all of the studio's problems can be laid at one person's feet at this point. If Howard isn't solely to blame then replacing only him isn't going to fix much.
 
I wonder how many of the decisions with either game were due to Howard himself vs his boss at BGS, the bosses at Bethesda Softworks, and the people running Zenimax. Howard's at fault for all the lying and other bullshit (and probably to blame for trying to play off all of Bethesda's faults as jokes during E3) but beyond that there are a lot of layers of cooperate bs over at Beth these days. Not sure all of the studio's problems can be laid at one person's feet at this point. If Howard isn't solely to blame then replacing only him isn't going to fix much.
I will agree with all of that. Howard is just an easy target to blame since he seems to be the face of the company. Meanwhile, the higher-ups are laughing all the way to the bank.
 
I wonder how many of the decisions with either game were due to Howard himself vs his boss at BGS, the bosses at Bethesda Softworks, and the people running Zenimax. Howard's at fault for all the lying and other bullshit (and probably to blame for trying to play off all of Bethesda's faults as jokes during E3) but beyond that there are a lot of layers of cooperate bs over at Beth these days. Not sure all of the studio's problems can be laid at one person's feet at this point. If Howard isn't solely to blame then replacing only him isn't going to fix much.

Going by his comments in interviews over the years, I think that the continuous dumbing down into oblivion of everything about Bethesda Game Studios' games has had a lot to do with Todd Howard's decisions - he's seems to be a pretty dense and opinionated person, and he's been a game director or executive producer on everything BGS have made since 2003. And the last RPG BGS made is Morrowind and its expansions. All their games since then have been increasingly simplistic Action-Adventure - coinciding with Todd Howard being at the reigns.
 
They just had to show some dude sitting on the loo. :p

Did anyone notice at 3:17 the dude firing the weapon left-handed? I wonder if players will be able to do that in-game?

I'm liking what I'm seeing so far.
 
Meh, it looks and plays like Fallout 4. Sixties meets space age, nothing new here. It would be a skip even if it wasn't locked in to epic.
 
There is another IGN video if you search for it the game looks and sounds pretty epic some awesome ambient sounds going off the trailer is just for the Epic fortnite crowd if you ask me.
 
Looks like a modified Gamebryo engine graphics. Pretty dated.

It is UE4, but as always art direction and budget/talent dictate how good or bad a game looks. Obviously they have an aesthetic going and their budget wasn't huge. Probably not a AAA game but a AA game (if that is even a term). The result is pretty lack luster. Bad camera angles for conversations and poor animations are the real standouts. Some props are pretty low end as well.
 
It is UE4, but as always art direction and budget/talent dictate how good or bad a game looks. Obviously they have an aesthetic going and their budget wasn't huge. Probably not a AAA game but a AA game (if that is even a term). The result is pretty lack luster. Bad camera angles for conversations and poor animations are the real standouts. Some props are pretty low end as well.

Yeah have to agree. What catches my eye is realistic lighting and it doesn't have to be ray tracing to look descent. All the shadows are "lit" and you don't see the bright and dark contrast of direct sun light. Makes it look cartoonish.
 
Signed up for Ultimate Game Pass with MS for $2 so I'll get to play this game. Can't wait!
 
Well at least they used an engine that has quite a bit of capability and are not stuck in a corner with an engine that is maxed out with no path forward.
 
Obsidian is giving Bethesda a run for their money when it comes to awful facial animations.

I wonder if something like good facial animation, like doing performance capture and stuff like that is prohibitively expensive for lower budget projects. You don't often see AA or lower games have high quality face animation, it is usually reserved for games with AAA budgets.
 
I wonder if something like good facial animation, like doing performance capture and stuff like that is prohibitively expensive for lower budget projects. You don't often see AA or lower games have high quality face animation, it is usually reserved for games with AAA budgets.

Aside from motion capture, it's down to the actual people creating the animations/key frames. I dont know how much multi-tasking Obsidian employees do, but if the people working on animations also have other responsibilities, it's understandable that they can only do what time allows. If, however, there are dedicated animators there's no excuse for the faces or "carrot in the butt" running animations.
 
I wonder if something like good facial animation, like doing performance capture and stuff like that is prohibitively expensive for lower budget projects. You don't often see AA or lower games have high quality face animation, it is usually reserved for games with AAA budgets.
Motion capture is not prohibitively expensive. For example senua had full motion capture too, which wasn't AAA either. It is more likely a time management thing, they said this is good enough and did something else with their time.
 
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