The Outer Worlds 2: Fanatical Factions and Reactive Radios | Official Xbox Podcast

SPEAKER 1: Games in this podcast range from E to M. [ Music ]

MALIK PRINCE: Oh, didn't see you there. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Official Xbox Podcast. It's the only podcast coming to you from inside Xbox. And as you can see, once again, I'm back at Obsidian Entertainment because they're about to ship The Outer Worlds 2, which launches October 29th on consoles, PC, and of course, Day One with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Obsidian is known for many things, but one of those things is building great RPGs. And part of building a great RPG is building one that's immersive, building one that the player feels like they are part of, and one of the ways Obsidian is doing that is by building in a radio. Sounds weird, right? But yes, they're building in a radio into the game, and not just any radio, one that actually reacts to you, the player, and your actions. So I want to learn more about it, so that's what I'm going to do because I'm here; so might as well, right? So we're going to go find somebody to talk about it, and I'm going to take this Moon Man head home because, I mean, it's pretty sick, isn't it? So let's go to Obsidian. [ Music ] All right, so I was walking the halls, making myself feel at home. I got myself a cold brew. They have it on tap here, by the way, and I ran into Brandon Adler, who you should recognize from a podcast we did before, and just to get prepared for this before the cameras start rolling, I was like, Brandon, what's your title? And Brandon said, "Emperor." What does that mean?

BRANDON ADLER: Well, first, I don't remember saying that at all. I think you may have re-interpreted that. I'm pretty sure I said "Game Director."

MALIK PRINCE: Here we go. The gaslighting is on, something else today, but I watched back a lot of my interviews, and I realized that I ask the same question over and over again.

BRANDON ADLER: Okay.

MALIK PRINCE: But it's because I genuinely want to know. You're about to ship a game, the third game that Obsidian has shipped this year, The Outer Worlds 2, right? How's the team feeling? How are you feeling?

BRANDON ADLER: Personally, really anxious. I always get really anxious before we put a game out, a little bit nervous, but I'm really excited for players to get their hands on a game.

MALIK PRINCE: Well, as someone who gets anxious, people always tell me it shows that you care. And it's very clear that Obsidian cares about The Outer Worlds 2, and it cares about their audience, cares about making great games, and we've seen that over and over again, as we stop perfectly in time to reference this wall. [laughter] Did we plan that? You'll never know. You'll never know.

BRANDON ADLER: We had it built in the middle of this interview, right there.

MALIK PRINCE: Exactly. So, Brandon, I want to ask you, as a game maker, there's so many little things that you add to a game that while you're making it, you're, I love this; I want to add it to the game; or I can't wait for players to experience this. I want to know from you, what are you most excited about for players to experience when they jump in?

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, well, I feel like The Outer Worlds 2 is kind of, like, harkening back a bit to, you know, how we used to do RPGs. And so, one of the things I'm really excited to see when we actually give this to the players is what kind of character builds they come up with, because there's so many different options. And I'm, man, the players always come up with some stuff that I had no idea. And I'm, wow, that's just ingenious and fun, and so, I'm really excited to see that.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I actually want to take it a step back, because this is a sequel, so I'm imagining there's a lot of different considerations when you're making a sequel; but there are also probably a lot of players who are going to be playing The Outer Worlds 2 and haven't played Outer Worlds 1. What can they expect? Tell us a little bit about what the game is.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, sure, so The Outer Worlds 2 is a big open-world CRPG. It's in the vein of something like a Fallout or Skyrim, if people are familiar with that. You can do dang near anything. You know, if you want to go guns blazing into stuff, we have options for that. You can talk your way through most things. You can stealth and sneak through a bunch of different things. Lots of choice and lots of reactivity and lots of consequences for those choices.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's the hallmark of an Obsidian game, right, everything that you're doing, and the combat has improved. I was watching the previews, and I got to play it myself, and it is everything that I think an Obsidian game should be, but it's clear that you all are taking it to the next level. So I'm excited to play it when it comes out, but we've talked on the podcast previously about factions. And as a part of that, we're going to talk today about the radio.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: And I hear there's a man named Leonard around here.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, I think we've hired somebody named Leonard.

MALIK PRINCE: Okay, well, we're going to find out if that's true, and if it is Leonard; and if they happen to know about the radio, we're going to talk to them. Let's go find out.

BRANDON ADLER: All right. Let's go do it.

MALIK PRINCE: Let's go do it. [ Music ] All right. Brandon and I are properly sat in our seat doing that fake little walking.

BRANDON ADLER: It was not fake. We actually walked.

MALIK PRINCE: That's true. We did it, but I just feel like --

LEONARD BOYARSKY: I was sitting here waiting for you guys. You guys took forever.

MALIK PRINCE: Leonard was just here. Well, you see a lot on the news when they're just doing these walking interviews, and you're just like, why aren't you just sitting doing it? Why do you need to make this overly complicated? But we did it; we did that as a --

BRANDON ADLER: Now we're simplifying.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: We're simplifying.

BRANDON ADLER: Right.

MALIK PRINCE: And we're simplifying with a new friend here. We've got Leonard Boyarsky, who is Creative Director of The Outer Worlds 2. Leonard, how are you?

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Doing good. How are you doing?

MALIK PRINCE: I've been better, but I've been worse as well; but no, excited to have you, a very exciting time. Obviously, you're about to ship The Outer Worlds 2, which is coming up so soon. And so, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the game, but before we do that, you are the Creative Director, which, by the way, at different studios means different things. So what does it mean to be the Creative Director of The Outer Worlds 2?

LEONARD BOYARSKY: So the Creative Director, especially my part in this at Obsidian, is really kind of helping to define what the tone and feel of the game is going to be from a narrative standpoint. I work very closely with Daniel Alpert, our Art Director, in terms of what we want to do visually. I worked very close with him. We worked closely together on the first game, which is where we really started from scratch and set up this IP with no previous knowledge of what it was going to be, just coming up with the early ideas; how we're going to fit it all together; what it's going to look like visually; how that's going to represent our robber barons in space aesthetic. We had this whole turn of the century from the 19th to 20th century. What's the retro future with that as a touchstone? How are the factions going to be represented? All that stuff is kind of tied up in how the writing is going to go and how we're going to represent the different characters and factions in the game. So really, you could boil it all down to what's the tone of the game? What's the humor going to be like? How are people going to feel when they're playing this game from a story and art and just vibe perspective?

BRANDON ADLER: He's also the gatekeeper for what the IP is, right?

LEONARD BOYARSKY: I'm the dream killer for people.

BRANDON ADLER: Well, there's a lot. You know, it's a difficult IP for some people to pick up, so we can get Leonard and be like, hey, does this work in The Outer Worlds? And he can be like, no, not quite, but this would if you did something like this, so he does a great job with that too.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Trying to write for a game like this is difficult enough, and then I'm, hey, let's make it even more difficult. Let's get this really dry humor in there, and, oh, they're going to talk like turn of the century, early 20th century characters, too, so --

MALIK PRINCE: A lot of different pieces to put together, and so, basically, you're directing the creative.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Hey, we should call me that. That should be my title.

MALIK PRINCE: I figured it out. I didn't even have to ask that question at the time. I'm just kidding, but today, we're going to be talking about the radio. We're really excited because there's a lot of different ways that that's going to kind of influence the player. The player is going to experience it in a different way, a few different ways. And so, we're excited to dive in. My Moon Man back here, my buddy back here, excited to dive in? Yes? Nice, just sitting creepily. Let's talk about him. Let's go into radio.

BRANDON ADLER: That's the Moon Man's thing, by the way, sitting creepily.

MALIK PRINCE: Just chilling, right?

LEONARD BOYARSKY: He's really good at that.

MALIK PRINCE: All right. So we're here to talk about the radio and some of the interactivity and all that kind of stuff. What was it about that concept that made it whatever we're going to put in the game, this definitely needs to be in it because it's so important to the game?

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, it was one of those things very early on, just talking with Leonard and Matt Singh, we were, all right, we definitely want to have a radio. How do we want this thing to work? How do we want to piece this thing together and kind of what's important to those things? Obviously, it's a good vector for reactivity. And so, we use that, a good amount in there, where the things that you're doing in the world get commented on by all of the DJs and the different radio stations. It's also a really good way to get a little preview of the life of the people in that faction. You don't always get that when you're interacting with the content itself, at least at that deep level sometimes. And so, having the radio, it just lets you know what kind of stuff do they listen to in terms of the music itself? But what type of ads are they having? What kind of PSAs are you hearing, and that really kind of just sets the tone? It's interesting. I almost view the radio stations, we've got three of them, and they're really fully featured. I almost view them almost like companions in some ways. They just are really fully featured in there. And again, they give a really good insight into the world itself.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, absolutely, and I think some of the best worlds that have been built in gaming have had these moments where it was very clear that the devs went in and implemented places where not through necessary player actions, but just how they built the world, whether it's like art assets in the world or stuff like the radio, some of the best games have had those elements. So it's really cool to see that you all are building that into the game. Just as a baseline for folks who are jumping into Outer Worlds 2 for the first time, actually, can you walk us through what those radio stations are and, basically, the factions that they represent?

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Yeah, we can get deeper into that, but to me, the most important part of the radio is kind of like what Brandon was saying, is it's just another way for us to kind of like immerse the player in it. So you have the view of people in the world. They're the ones who are trying to kind of like follow what they're supposed to be doing, but you also have the radio, which is kind of like the state-sponsored, like here's what you should think of the subject. So the great thing we were able to do with that for each of the factions is really kind of show their idealized version of what they thought of themselves as and what they wanted other people to think of themselves as. So for the Protectorate, the challenge for us there is they're an authoritarian dictatorship. What's their humor? How do we keep them from just being like dry?

MALIK PRINCE: Sure.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: And two, on the nose, so we kind of went with a more, you know, everybody's neighbor, Prudence, is the DJ there. It's this kind of overly sweet, subtly threatening --

BRANDON ADLER: Maternal kind of thing.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Yeah, if you're going to be a good subject of the Protectorate, you have to be like this. Turn in your neighbors if they're doing anything wrong. You know, you, of course, are going to only think pure thoughts. The Order of the Ascendant is all about science as a religion, so they're this weird mix of science lectures with stuff that sounds very religious-oriented. Their DJ is -- we likened him to an NPR kind of like host, and then, for Auntie's Choice, it was, you know, the bombastic salesman always selling you on stuff. So it was a really interesting way of kind of immersing players in that kind of feel of the world. I really love that kind of thing where it's like you have your propaganda posters. You know, we did a lot of that in the base game, but the radio is just a whole other dimension of that where it kind of like just really permeates everything.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, and I imagine you want players to kind of -- I don't know if connect themselves to one faction is the best way to put it, but I'm sure when players are playing the game, they may end up siding with a faction over another one. As you all were playing internally, what was it like seeing other folks play the game and kind of interpreting the propaganda of each station?

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, I mean, early on, we had talked about making sure that every single faction had actually even good elements to it.

MALIK PRINCE: Yes, that's right.

BRANDON ADLER: You can look at that, and you can start talking to them. Yeah, I can see where your philosophy is and why it's important. You may not agree with it, but you can kind of see that, and that's for all three of the major factions, right? And so, I think that's a big important element in kind of drawing people in is making sure that they're also somewhat appealing. They can't just be this, oh, my gosh, you know, Auntie's Choice is grinding its people down into nothing all in the sake of profit or something, because that's just not appealing. But if you see that, like, they actually truly do think that they are spreading freedom and choice to people that don't have it, and they're confused why they don't want it in some cases. They're like, you can do whatever you want. Like, yeah, you have to work hard and you have to maybe, you know, cut some throats and step over some people to get what you really need, but you can go do that. You have the freedom to go do that. When you're a Protectorate subject, you didn't have the ability to do that. And so, I think it's really interesting that we kind of leaned really hard on that and really kind of showed the cool stuff about them as well.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I mean, in movies, TV, games, no bad guy ever thinks they're bad, right?

BRANDON ADLER: Right.

MALIK PRINCE: And so, some of the best characters have that nuance. They have that depth where they believe that they're doing the right thing, and those are the best bad guys, so to speak. And so, I wanted to talk a little bit about -- a little bit more into the DJs, and obviously, they're anything but neutral, right? So can you tell me a little bit about what the writing process was like for that and the casting process?

LEONARD BOYARSKY: The Aunties was probably the easiest for us to kind of wrap our heads around, because that was pretty much a continuation of the kind of the aesthetic and the vibe we set up in the first game, you know, and the type of humor. We did add, you know, the whole self-betterment, self-determination thing, individuality, which wasn't a big part of it in the first game. So we kind of added that element to it where they're kind of using that as their sales slogans. But from there, it was really kind of tough to figure out how do we write for the Protectorate radio? What's funny about them? What's going to be engaging about them? The same thing with the order. How do we make them not dry? How do we make them -- their kind of dryness actually humorous? So it was a lot of iteration; it was a lot of experimentation; it was a lot of going back and forth till we kind of found the right tone. And then, when we went and cast, we had a very specific idea for just how we wanted each one to sound. I think the most -- I feel like, you know, Auntie's was kind of obvious, and the Protectorate, once we kind of came up with this Prudence idea, that seemed kind of like an obvious thing. But The Order one was -- we kind of had the idea of the NPR announcer, but we weren't quite sure how that was going to play. So that was really an interesting one where we kind of went through; we had a couple different really good candidates or people auditioning for it till we found somebody who could just really nail it, which is ironic because he was one of the main characters in the first game.

MALIK PRINCE: I love that, the idea of kind of building something that's your own, right? These are not only, obviously, the stations and the factions are part of this world, but the player will experience songs that you all created, and it's really just building out this faction. And it must be so cool to just kind of see how players are going to react to it, which is going to be cool. So I actually want to talk about reactivity because that is a big piece of this. It's not just about having static radio stations. But as I understand, the radio stations will react to how players kind of tackle quests; is that correct?

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, absolutely, even very, very early on. So there's kind of two major things that we do for content itself, which is we have call to actions, where a lot of times we'll point out an area that you're currently in. And you're, hey, you know, the Arbiter Training Facility, and then, we actually kind of scare players a little bit of it's pretty -- who knows what's going on over there? But there's a lot of odd mechanicals that are still running; it's a really scary place, but there's probably some really cool stuff in there. So players are, oh, I want to go over there and deal with that. And then, you have the other aspect, which is some of our areas have these larger quests and larger implications for what happens. And so, you go in there; you solve a quest in a very specific way; and you have multiple radio stations which are commenting on it, right? Very early on, there's an auto-mechanical repair facility that you're going into, and they have a big problem, which is they're leaking some uranium gas, which is a highly toxic gas. And they're, hey, we're having lots of problems. And so, you can go in there, and they want you to help fix this, and like a good Obsidian RPG, you can help fix that, especially if you have the skills and whatever. Or you can even make it worse and make it so they can never fix it by completely sabotaging it, and depending on what you do, both the Auntie's Choice and Protectorate radio stations have something to say about that, right? If you help them out, the Protectorate hails what a great job it was for them to hire this contractor that came in and helped fix this thing. And then, if you fix that thing, Auntie's Choice talks about you as this horrible presence that is helping out the Protectorate and not helping them. And so, we do that in a lot of different places, and it really kind of makes the world feel alive. Again, it's just reacting to all of the things that you're kind of doing there, and, yeah, I hope that it really comes across to the players as a cool reactive moment for them.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I mean, I think that's what players are going to really love. It's not just that the stations are reactive to what they do, but I think it's the differing perspectives of what they do and how that comes through in the radio station. I think that's such a dynamic experience.

BRANDON ADLER: You also get the big story moments, as well, right? It's like there's big story moments that happen, and it's really cool to see each faction and their radio station and their take on what just happened in front of them.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah.

BRANDON ADLER: And in some cases, they're like, what a gigantic blunder that was. And then, that gets spun on the other side of, like, what a great victory for us in this way. And then, I always found that to be very interesting and really funny to hear all the different sides of all of these things. There's also, we can't talk about some of this reactivity, but there's some really amazing moments in the second half of the game, especially on the Protectorate radio stuff, so I'll let players kind of dig in there.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: There was also some really good foreshadowing, which I won't talk about, because I'd been present for a lot of the recording, and obviously, I was very heavily involved in all the writing or, you know, working with the writers on it. And so, I knew all of it. We kind of had all these plans in place when we went in to record this stuff, but I was running around one of our planets, and I heard somebody on the radio say something, and I'm like -- it was funny, because as a player, I heard it. I'm like, oh, I totally want to do that, and as a developer, I'm like, oh, that totally worked. The idea that we had when we first designed this totally landed in my player brain when I was playing. What's really interesting, though, about all that reactivity is, we kind of had a rudimentary version of that in -- or not rudimentary, but it was like a visual version of it in the first game, where the loading screens reacted, and we kind of continued that here. In the first game, it was all from the perspective of The Board, which was the antagonist of the game. In this one, each faction has different loading screens, just like they have the different radio stations, and the more interesting part from a writing standpoint is when you have a faction like the Protectorate, who's like everything is -- we know everything, and everything is going according to our plan, because we're perfect, and everybody else is kind of second rate. So they always have to spin it like they knew that it was going to happen; it's part of their -- it didn't take them by surprise at all.

BRANDON ADLER: Even that they were a test of some sort.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Exactly.

BRANDON ADLER: And if you pass the test --

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Of course. So that's some really, really good humorous moments there, but it can be very difficult to try to figure out, okay, how are we spinning this in a way that's funny, very obvious to the player that that's what they're doing, but in the world, it doesn't sound like that's what they're doing? So it becomes very meta very quickly.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I mean, that's propaganda 101, right? It doesn't matter what happens. It just matters how you analyze it.

BRANDON ADLER: And now Leonard can go write propaganda for various governments.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Yeah, there you go. That's my life goal.

MALIK PRINCE: That's his ultimate goal.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Yeah, there you go.

MALIK PRINCE: Next, next role. But no, that's great to hear, and I just kind of want to talk a little bit about something I know players will also enjoy, which is something that I sometimes struggle with, with video games is like, all right, you play a game. You're done with your session, and then, you have to come back the next day and pick up where you left off. Oftentimes, that means, wait, what was I doing? Oh, I have a lot going on in life. I can't remember, but you all have worked in a very specific solution to that, Brandon. Tell us about it.

BRANDON ADLER: All right. So towards the end of production -- I don't know, it was probably the last few months of production -- I just had like this weird idea. I was, what if you could have a conversation on the loading screen with somebody, maybe like the Moon Man or whatever, and you could maybe ask him questions and he can answer some stuff for you? You could have some cool, fun reactivity. So I sent something over to Leonard, and I was like, hey, Leonard, is this a crazy idea or will this work? And he was, well, I don't know. There's a lot of problems we're going to have to work through, but I think it could probably work. And then, we talked to Tim. We're like, hey, Tim, what do you think of this? And Tim was, like, yeah, it's a cool idea. We should try to do something like this. So I worked with Leonard and Tim and a few other people, and we came up with the conversational main menu. So it is a conversation that you're having with the Moon Man. Even the very first time you start up the game, he talks to you and addresses you, and it's really funny, and he's also extremely sarcastic. He's also a little bit salty about Auntie's Choice and what happened to him. And so, that kind of comes through, as well, but the really cool elements are he reacts and talks to you every time you kind of load in a new game or when you start up the game again. It takes a look at your save and it will just talk to you about things that you've done. It will talk to you about how you've built out your character, maybe items you've found. Sometimes it will even point you in a direction if you haven't found something. It's, oh, yeah, why don't you try looking over here in his funny way? And it took a while for it to really kind of come together because we had to get all of the writing and all of the reactivity, but it's a blast. And every time you go through -- and it even talks about things that you've done in the game or the next thing you're going to be doing in time. So to your point, it kind of reminds you, hey, you're on this part of the path and here's kind of the next thing you're going to be doing; but again, in a very kind of like fun, funny, conversational way with the Moon Man himself.

MALIK PRINCE: Which I love. You know, Brandon, you mentioned how you and Leonard kind of were discussing whether it's possible just from a cool idea standpoint. But to your point and the blossoming into something that I think will help a lot of players with busy lives and just wanting to -- and also delighting them. I think that's such a cool thing. Every time you start the game, you can expect the progress that you made since the last time you played to be, I guess, referenced back to you, and I think that's such a cool thing to see. All right. So we've talked a lot about what players will experience when they turn on the radio in The Outer Worlds 2, but as I do in many of my interviews, I'm going to ask you to pick your favorite child. So is there -- from both of you -- a favorite ad, PSA, or song in the game that you want to call out without spoilers, obviously?

LEONARD BOYARSKY: For me, my favorite ad and only because I just laughed so hard the first time I heard it -- which, again, I had read this copy before it was ever recorded -- but it took me by surprise when I heard it, and I just laughed out loud. It was something that Tim actually wrote for us, which was an ad for "The Fab," which was "perfection in sandwich form," I think, is the actual line. It's an order product, and everything is science with them. And so, they did all the math to make a perfect sandwich, and then they sell it to you, which just made me bust up.

BRANDON ADLER: I'm not going to lie. I kind of want one.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: I was going to say --

BRANDON ADLER: How could you not want a "Fabwich?"

MALIK PRINCE: I was going to say, anyone who knows me, knows I hate sandwiches, and the reason -- it's like, any time we have a team meeting and it's, "Oh, we're ordering sandwiches. What would you like?" I'm like nothing.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: You would like no sandwich.

MALIK PRINCE: Exactly, but the reason for that is because one -- two reasons. One, you could just make a sandwich at home, so I feel like -- you can make anything at home, but a sandwich is just such a home thing. But the second thing is the ratio of meat to cheese to bread has to be right. Otherwise, it throws off --

LEONARD BOYARSKY: The Order would have no problem with satisfying you.

MALIK PRINCE: I'm right there with you on that one. I love that. Brandon, what about you?

BRANDON ADLER: Well, I've kind of got two things. So the first, my favorite song is called "The Undiscovered Axiom." It's just legitimately a beautiful song that the water sings. It has almost like a Gregorian chant kind of style and flair to it, which is pretty cool. And so, that one, actually, whenever that's on, I'm just like, yeah, okay, cool. My song popped up, and I'm having a good time. The other thing is it's actually a PSA kind of from Auntie herself. So when you're listening to the Auntie radio, she has this thing where she breaks in, and it's kind of her airing of grievances. She talks about a bunch of employees, and she's, "Hey, you know, John Smith. Remember that time that you were talking about, how I underperformed on this thing?" It's like, "Well, now you're going to be underperforming by picking up garbage." And so, she just kind of goes through this whole list of people that she's demoting, and I think it's actually called "The Demotion List" or something like that. And so, she goes through the whole thing, and it is really funny. Every time, I bust out laughing.

MALIK PRINCE: No. That sounds hilarious. I cannot -- but I'm excited again. We're focusing on the radio because, again, it's going to be such an integral part of what the players experience as they're playing through the game and how much it makes them feel a part of the world. That's going to be so cool. I also -- I want to wrap this up by asking you-all what you're most excited to see. Brandon, we talked at the top of this podcast about how you all are feeling. You're about to ship this game, the third game in the year, which is insane, but you're shipping The Outer Worlds 2, and it stands on its own. So what are you most excited for players to experience when they jump in?

BRANDON ADLER: Just the increased reactivity. I mean, this is this is something -- one of our main goals is always, as far as the RPGs we make, is the reactivity. In the first game, we had some really good reactivity, but you know, it was a shorter development time, a much smaller team, a much smaller amount of time and resources. So we kind of had to pick and choose, and this one, we kind of went old school where we're just like every -- as much as possible, we want the player to be able to make their own choices; have the game react accordingly; and that that takes like us going through and playing the game and having people going, hey, why can't I use my perk here? Why can't I do this thing? And that's -- so much of our great ideas came from people playing the game on the team and being, why can't I do this?

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Well, of course you can. We're you know, it's funny, like Brandon, when you pitched the radio stuff, it's just like, is this too crazy? It's -- well, it's if it's crazy, we should do it, and that's kind of like that's kind of how we approach this stuff. It's the more unexpected and the more players being able to do whatever they want, the better, and I think we've really kind of delivered on that. So I'm really excited to not only hear players' experience of the game, but to hear their experience of hearing their friends' experiences and comparing those two things and how much fun each one had, and hopefully, getting people to jump back in to try different builds and different play styles.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, that's the best part of any RPG is, oh, did you experience this? No. I didn't see that. Where did you -- the best part of RPG. What about you, Brandon?

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, kind of piggybacking on what Leonard had said, I hope that -- and I'm excited for -- players to see kind of a return to form of some of the older stuff. A lot of what we did is take inspiration from not only Obsidian's older games, things like New Vegas or whatever, but older games that we loved in the industry, in terms of the type of RPG and bringing that RPG through; building out all the build reactivity that we do, all the reactivity in terms of how -- everything you'll play out in the world. These are all things that, over time, have kind of been streamlined out of RPGs in a lot of ways.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah.

BRANDON ADLER: But we love that stuff, a Leonard was seminal in making some of that stuff. And so, it was easy to talk to him about this and go, how can we bring this stuff forward? What are the types of things that we need to be doing to really kind of bring this stuff back? And I think we did a really great job, and I think players are going to love that.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, building off of the history of Obsidian, and then, also, building on, as you mentioned, Leonard, some of the things that the team was, why can't I do this? I would love it if I was if I were able to do this in a game. I feel like those are the ingredients for a fantastic game. October 29th, The Outer Worlds 2 is out, but, yes, you can play, early October 24th. And, of course, it's going to be Day One in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Leonard, Brandon, thank you all so much for joining me.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, thanks.

LEONARD BOYARSKY: Thank you.

MALIK PRINCE: Thank you, and Moon Man, for joining me as well. You've been such a good little couch member, good couch companion.

BRANDON ADLER: There you go.

MALIK PRINCE: Thank you. And for all of you, thank you for watching, and we'll see you on the next Official Xbox Podcast. [ Music ]