Xbox Games Showcase Deep Dive | The Outer Worlds 2

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

MALIK PRINCE: What is going on, everybody? Welcome back to the official Xbox Podcast. It's the only podcast coming to you from inside Xbox. Now, we've got a week of great shows coming at you following the Xbox Game Showcase with more news and more shenanigans. I'm one of your hosts, Malik Prince, and I'm joined by, oh, my God, it's Ethan Rothamel.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It's happening. Yeah. How many years has it been?

MALIK PRINCE: Since we've been on camera, maybe three or four. They couldn't pay me enough until now to be back on camera.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Sure. You say that, but literally in a meeting about this podcast, you had said, like, a month ago was -- to the day of the meeting was like our eight-year anniversary of meeting.

MALIK PRINCE: Trauma.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It was beautiful. Okay. But anyway, excited to join -- for you to join us and talk about The Outer Worlds 2, which we're going to get into right now, because joining us from Obsidian Entertainment we have the Game Director, Brandon Adler, and, of course, Design Director, Matt Singh. How are y'all doing today?

MATT SINGH: Good, thanks for having us.

BRANDON ADLER: Doing great.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Welcome. Good to have you here. Seriously, really looking forward to get to talk about this game, obviously coming off the heat that was Showcase, and we learned quite a lot, and I'm sure the fans have a lot of questions, but I want to dive into a little bit about what you all do. Brandon, Game Director, you've been at Obsidian for quite some time. Talk about your life at Obsidian so far.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, so, gosh, I've been at Obsidian for almost 20 years, so it's, yeah, it's been a while

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Jeez.

BRANDON ADLER: But it's cool. I mean, I got the chance to kind of work my way up through quality assurance, did that for a while, led that, jumped into production for a long time, did a lot of design work. But being a game director is a cool mix of all of those things. You know, at Obsidian, you're managing the entire project and also a lot of the creative elements as well and the overall vision for what's going on. So it's been a really great mix for me.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I wonder if a lot of that QA influence and other things not only have influenced your job, but perhaps influenced how this game has been developed and the stories therein.

BRANDON ADLER: Well, I mean, you know, in QA in particular, you get to see everything, right? You get every aspect of the game. You get to understand all of the elements, how they fit together, and the same thing is production, right? Production, you also kind of get that as well, and so I think it really helps as you're kind of constructing a game to be able to understand all of the different aspects, how they kind of fit together. Matt's got like the same background as well.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I was going to say, Matt, you've been at Obsidian quite some time as well. Let's talk about that a little bit.

MATT SINGH: Yeah, I've been at Obsidian for 17 years now.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, wow.

MATT SINGH: So been a long time. Brandon actually hired me.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, really? Oh, that's awesome.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, it was my biggest mistake (laughter).

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Still regret it, yeah.

BRANDON ADLER: You know.

MATT SINGH: Yeah, we came up through QA together, did production work, and have been working on games for quite a while now.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That is incredible, 17 years.

MALIK PRINCE: Almost four decades between the both of you at Obsidian, and I got to say, like, in visiting the studio, it's just very clear the culture that you all have at the studio of, like, just building incredible RPGs and just games in general and just walking through those halls, it's so incredible, and now we have this game to show for it. And speaking of this game, a few months ago, I got to visit Obsidian and play The Outer Worlds 2 and saw the intro, but we're going to share that with you right now. Let's take a look at the intro cinematic of The Outer Worlds 2. [ Music ]

BUDDY: Commander, we've been hit by one of those space anomalies.

COMMANDER ZANE: Buddy?

BUDDY: And the piloting system is down.

COMMANDER ZANE: Buddy.

BUDDY: The gears are shot.

COMMANDER ZANE: Buddy (slap), get ahold of yourself. You're an Earth Director Agent.

BUDDY: Affirmative, Commander. What are the orders?

COMMANDER ZANE: Brace for impact. [ Music ] Brace for impact. [ Music ]

SPEAKER 2: Is it the end for Commander Zane and Buddy? Tune in next week to find out. [ Screaming ]

COMMANDER ZANE: From one side of the galaxy to the next, the Earth Directorate is on your side. [ Music ] Whether against corrupt corporations (music), tyrannical governments (music), or corrupt corporations in league with tyrannical governments (music), the Earth Directorate is here to fight for the rights of all colonists. [ Music ] So remember, if you or your neighbor's government has turned tyrannical or sold themselves out to greedy corporate interests, just commandeer Skip Drone and send the Earth Directorate an SOS and we will respond immediately.

ROBOT VOICE: Please allow six months to ten years depending on your proximity to the nearest Earth Directorate base and any unforeseen encounters with -- (beep).

MALIK PRINCE: There we have it. So incredible. Let's talk about the opening cinematic that we just saw. Set it up. What did players just experience?

BRANDON ADLER: So that kind of gives you a little peek into the Earth Directorate. So that's the players' faction. Think of them like space cowboys, space marshals, space sheriff, something like that. And so again, this is their propaganda that they kind of send out. It's in the form of a serial that people watch of Commander Zane and Buddy. They get to see --

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.

BRANDON ADLER: You know, all of their adventures and, you know, kind of get hyped up and want to join up. So yeah, I mean, that was really kind of setting the stage for the player to understand, okay, this is who you are. This is where you come from, at least at a basic level, you know, and yes, they're going to be building out their backgrounds to kind of put a little spin on that, but that's really what the organization is about out and kind of, again, sets the stage for, right now in this first kind of mission or quest that you're doing, what does this mean and how does that interact with that?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, "serial" is a good thing to call it because, like, it is reminiscent of like Flash Gordon or even some of those, like, classic Americana shows, like, The Shadow on cassette or something, like it just -- it has that je ne sais quoi. You like this --

MALIK PRINCE: Je ne sais quoi.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, you say it better than I do.

MALIK PRINCE: French classes.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Well, there you go. Yeah, on the side, on the side.

MALIK PRINCE: Learn so far.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MATT SINGH: That's definitely a lot of the inspiration that we take from, and one thing that's actually really cool is, you'll be able to find little, like, comics of Buddy and Zane kind of throughout the world and they all have their own little kind of unique stories you can see.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Very cool, very cool. Well, obviously, Showcase was, you know, happened earlier this week and folks have had a chance to get some information about the game, seen some videos on the game, obviously, but I thought it'd be cool if we could re-watch the trailer from Showcase, maybe talk about it a little bit with you guys in real time. Sweet, let's do it. Yeah, without further --

MALIK PRINCE: DVD commentary-esque.

BRANDON ADLER: All, right, yeah, we can talk on top of it.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I love it, I love it. Let's do it. [ Music ]

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, so establishing shots of our beautiful environments. Got to have that, yeah.

MATT SINGH: We wanted to have bigger worlds, and so this is really just showing these big, expansive environments.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: And the invasion, obviously, kind of the pivotal moment that we get dropped into here.

MATT SINGH: Mm-hmm.

BRANDON ADLER: So the cool thing about this is, this is from Auntie's point of view of, like, what's going on in Arcadia itself, and so you, again, you're getting, like, the Auntie's Choice version of kind of what's playing out.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, very sanitized.

CHARACTER: They're not alone in doing so.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Just very, a lot of stylistic choices already and you can see across the different environments, like, in such a short time.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, we wanted each faction to have a very strong visual identity, and even the environments they're in have that as well.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.

CHARACTER: Stranger aligned with the order and that no computer of theirs --

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Ugh, creepy. Don't touch the head. Oh, oopsie. Yeah, you should not have touched the head.

MALIK PRINCE: I'm seeing some platforming here, a little bit of --

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: Innovation in weaponry.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, exactly. We spent a lot of time really revamping that.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, the ad bots.

MATT SINGH: That one's pretty fun.

CHARACTER: Get out there and buy our way to victory.

BRANDON ADLER: Got to have the slow motion shots.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, of course.

MATT SINGH: Yeah, we got that TTD back in, so that's always fun to play with.

MALIK PRINCE: And the music here, I got to call it out, so good.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, so the music is interesting because, actually, you can hear him talking about yearning for something. Is he yearning for a product? (laughter). So everybody thinks it's, like, you know, maybe his wife or girlfriend or someone else, like, no, it's a product.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That's so good.

MATT SINGH: So fitting for the game, yeah. Oh, and you see Amos in there.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I was going to say, is that Amos?

MATT SINGH: Mm-hmm, from the Secret Level.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That is awesome. [ Music ] It's a really good trailer. Gets you really pumped, like, the pickup of the music, the action. There she is.

MATT SINGH: I love this part.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, God.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah, there you go.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: There you go. You got to smash the small guy, so satisfying. [ Music ] Oh, nice. Blurring something at the right time is always funny. [ Music ]

MALIK PRINCE: And I just love this, the pan away.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Great transition.

BRANDON ADLER: And there's the beautiful key art. [ Music ]

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Wow. Yeah, I literally walked into the studio today and I just -- I love the key art for this thing. It looks just so good.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I mean, let's talk a little bit about what goes into something like a key art or trailer, like this game is going to be, obviously, have so many different aspects.

BRANDON ADLER: Sure, sure.

MALIK PRINCE: The story, to the weapons, to the characters and companions. What goes into making a good trailer like we just saw?

BRANDON ADLER: Well, a lot of times it starts with, like, all, right, what is the overall message or thing that we're trying to do? For this one in particular, it was, well, we want to tell the story of what's happening for the player. We haven't really had a chance to show that off in a good way, and so we knew that we wanted like an in-world experience, and so we chose Auntie as the person that was going to be kind of like talking about that stuff and really showing the viewer, like, her point of view of what's happening on Arcadia itself. And then from that, it was, like, all, right, what are some of these main elements we want to make sure that players see or that they understand that are kind of like a focus for us? So again, things like the in-world interactions that can give you different choices in how your game plays out. So we had those elements in there where you're sneaking through, flipping a switch, having a, you know, a turret come down and shoot somebody. We had things like the weaponry, obviously, showing you, like, yeah, we've got a ton, like even the stuff that players have seen at this point, or viewers have seen, it's a very small number of the actual overall uniques and things that we have, but we just want to keep showing off more and more cool stuff like that. So we just go with those high-level goals, and we try to construct something around that that fits really well.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I mean, did such an incredible job.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: You know, you said it in the trailer. You kind of highlighted how the trailer is told from the perspective of one of the factions.

BRANDON ADLER: Oh, yeah.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Specifically, my girl here, but (laughter) I'm curious, like outside of the Earth Directorate, what are the other factions at play here? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

BRANDON ADLER: Right, right, right. So we have three major factions. We have a lot of minor factions.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Sure.

BRANDON ADLER: But the three major factions are going to be Auntie's Choice, which, as people will kind of come to learn, is actually a merger of Auntie Cleo, your shirt, and Spacer's Choice. Auntie took over Spacer's Choice, and I'll say that some folks in Spacer's Choice are not entirely happy with that.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, cool.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, then you have the Protectorate. Those are the more authoritarian faction that you can see, and we'll talk about some of that stuff as well, and then we have the OA, the Order of the Ascendant. When we were originally doing that stuff, we wanted, at least for the three major factions, we wanted different aspects of life, and just, you know, we wanted different points of view of just what life was on Arcadia and how that came to be. Initially, we had almost, like, a triad of, we have, like, the Crown, which is the Protectorate we had, the Church, which is the Order of the Ascendant, and then we had like the merchant class with Auntie's Choice, and like, what is the interplay between all of those, and how do they view the world and how they interact with each other. Matt, if you want to go maybe a little bit deeper into each of the factions?

MATT SINGH: Yeah, I mean, Brandon kind of did a really good overview, but for each of these factions, we really wanted them to feel distinct and have their own flavor, right? First game, very, very heavy on the corporate tone, which was really cool, really fun. We wanted to expand that in a lot of different ways, and that's why we gave these additional new perspectives on kind of how you deal with governing people, right? And we go down to even, like, we want them to have different visual identities, so our art director actually picked, like, different color and shape language for each of these. So Protectorate, very, like, rectangular, very angular. You'll see a lot of that. For the OA, they're always using, like, circles, constellations, things like that, that you'll see kind of come through their art. And then AC actually has, and you'll see right there there's this diamond pattern, right, and you'll see that mirrored in a lot of, like, their armors and the things that they create, which is really cool. You kind of get those different key identities. You see that come through in everything that they do. They're more, like, chaotic. They're more, hey, we're going to test this stuff on the fly. We're going to yeah roll the dice. Yeah exactly, like, we think this will work. Well, let's just push it out there and see, you know? And you see that come through in, like, things like their weapons. They're more wild. They've got things like corrosion and goo that's spewing out of them. They've got -- we talk about, like, the wire management of our different factions, right? Where Auntie's Choice is just like this rat's nest of stuff. It's kind of like how my --

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah.

MATT SINGH: You know, or --

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Same, for real.

MATT SINGH: And like, Order of the Ascendant, well, they're very meticulous. They're very careful with their planning, and so you'll see that kind of come through, through the aesthetics of the places in which they come from, their armors, their outfits, their weaponry. All of those kinds of things kind of speak to that tone.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Wasn't Auntie Cleo like a subsidiary in the first game or something, too, so, like, things are going well for Auntie Cleo.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, I mean, if anybody watched the Secret Level story, you can actually see, like, Auntie's origins a little bit.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Totally worth a watch.

BRANDON ADLER: Maybe why they're going in the direction that they are. It's cutthroat out there, but they're doing well, like you said, like, you know, they took over Spacer's Choice. Now they're taking over parts of Arcadia.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, business is booming.

BRANDON ADLER: Business is booming.

MATT SINGH: Well, and in Arcadia, they're actually an invading force. They're there to, like, liberate resources for people, right?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yes, liberate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: I actually want to ask you about that, because I think, one, just I love -- this is like the signs of a great, like, world building. It's, like, not only putting a name to a faction, but really just figuring out their motivation and building out how everything from their weaponry to, you know, where they're based and how that is designed. I'm curious, from a player's perspective, as they encounter these factions, like, how are they going to see the motivation of each faction and how is that going to create the conflict of the story?

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, so, I mean, with the different factions, how that kind of plays out is the player is dropped into Arcadia. They don't have a lot of knowledge of what's going on. I won't get into the exact beginnings of the game, but there are kind of some reasons for that, but they learn very quickly, okay, the Auntie's Choice, AC, they're an invading force. The reason that they're there is because they're saying, like, hey, it's not fair that Arcadia, this place with abundant resources and some of the best technology and the best health care, things like that, why are they hoarding it to themselves? Like, that's not fair, like, no, we should be spreading that out. Of course, they'll say that. They're doing it for their own reasons, their own profit, their own whatever, but, you know, they'll tell you, no, like, we're just -- we're helping everyone out here. This is what we're trying to do, right? The Order of the Ascendant, their larger goals are almost like elevating humanity itself, like making us, you know, in the image of gods or something like that through the use of a perfect information and perfect knowledge and being able to craft, like, these perfect societies in some way. And then you have the Protectorate, which are authoritarian. You know, it sounds pretty bad on the outside from us, but if you really talk to the Protectorate folks, most of them were fairly happy before AC came in and disrupted everything, like they had a utopia of sorts, right? Like, yes, it was one where they had to play the cog in the machine kind of thing, but they were happy doing that because they had, again, the best food, the best health care. They didn't really work. They had auto-mechanicals that would work for them. They would just program the auto-mechanicals, and then now everything is kind of falling apart a little bit. That's actually even what caused the OA to split away from the Protectorate originally, the OA, the Order of the Ascendant was part of the Protectorate. It is their wing of, like, the church. When AC came in and everything started to crumble a little bit, they said, hey, you know, maybe the Sovereign, the head of the Protectorate, maybe he doesn't exactly know what's going on here, you know, maybe he's a little too young. He took over, and maybe our way is a better way, and then that's when they kind of split off and caused some of this chaos that's going on.

MATT SINGH: Yeah, and the OA, so they follow what's called the "grand plan," right?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Of course (laughter).

MATT SINGH: They believe that through prediction, through mathematical calculations, they can predict the future, and if they follow that, it will be towards good ends, right? And that comes through in things, like, hey, they have a giant world-spanning computer that is built into this kind of moon, ice moon, right, to cool it down.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.

MATT SINGH: Which is really cool.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, that is really cool.

MATT SINGH: And you can interact with that machine, but, like, they'll use that to try and get prescient knowledge that they can then use to govern their people, right? And again, we go back to there's a lot of themes of how to govern through these different kind of worldviews, and what does it mean in terms of, you know, Protectorate? They give up freedom for comfort, and is that a valid way to, you know, be successful or not? Sometimes the freedom in which somebody like Auntie's Choice provides to its people, it produces some very cutthroat things that are maybe not good for the collective, right? And so we get to question some of those things.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, it's very clear, like, players getting dropped in and kind of not having a ton of knowledge about it. They're really going to have to, like, base their decisions on, like, maybe who to align with based on some of that propaganda and, like, who you actually believe from a player's perspective in quest, like, how much can you align with a specific faction? Is it like quest to quest, or is it like I can overarchingly align with Auntie's Choice or Order of the Ascendant?

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, I mean, just like most of other Obsidian games, like, we have faction quest lines where you can go in there and you can support them and kind of work with them. Again, pushing their agenda forward, you don't have to, but that's always a choice. The Protectorate is a little bit more limited in that respect, but early on in the game, you get do get to work with them mainly because you really want to be able to see the actual lives of the citizens, like, again you're hearing a lot of the propaganda as you're either listening to the radio or you're hearing people on you know AC side talk about the Protectorate and how bad they are, whatever, and then when you go and find them out in the world and help them you're, like, well, actually, in some ways they're kind of noble in how they're dealing with things, and, like, yeah, that's a bad lot that they got right there, and you might not even agree with how the Protectorate is treating some of these people, but you can understand why they have that loyalty to their various factions, right? And so to go back to your original thing, we allow players to really delve deep into this and really support these factions, but again, like, we always want to make sure that we have the ability to kind of jump between that stuff. If you don't feel like supporting them anymore, maybe jump to a different one.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Cool.

BRANDON ADLER: As long as you haven't screwed them over too bad, you're probably fine.

MATT SINGH: I mean, you're an outside agent to this system, right? You can align with these different factions, or you can carve your own path. You don't have to align with them if you feel like their path is not the right one. You can do your own, and because you can kill anybody and everybody in this world --

BRANDON ADLER: If you're Matt, you will (laughter).

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, interesting.

MATT SINGH: I mean, you know, sometimes you can -- (laughter).

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah, tough day at the office (laughter).

BRANDON ADLER: Take it out on everyone in Arcadia.

MATT SINGH: Sometimes you can get yourself into situations where, like, okay, I'm following -- I'm building these relationships, but if things go south, like, they can go real south.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I love that.

MATT SINGH: And we tie that in also with, like, our companions because these companions that you have, they might share or not share these worldviews as well, but you don't have to navigate that with them, which could also lead to some really bad conflicts with them as well, them leaving or maybe even turning on you, which is really cool.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Like, the most powerful calculator in the world is, like, Ice Planet. I feel like you'd be Order of the Ascendant just because of that quick math you did adding up their tenure at Obsidian.

MALIK PRINCE: I mean, that was quick math and I do want credit for that in the comments (laughter). But no, I think I probably -- Auntie's Choice, I feel like I'm a little bit more --

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: You know.

BRANDON ADLER: Purveyor of freedom.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: And yeah, your shirt, yeah.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Messy cable management.

MALIK PRINCE: That's mostly what it is.

BRANDON ADLER: I hear you.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah.

BRANDON ADLER: We're all a little Auntie's Choice.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I like that. I always equate my RPG gaming and single-player gaming to playing dolls a little bit because I really do like to immerse myself in games and just like live in those worlds, and I think you guys do a great job in all your games of environmental and visual storytelling, and with each of these factions being so distinctive, I'm curious, like, can we talk about what to expect when it comes to looks of armor, weapons, things like that?

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, this is actually Matt's purview, right, here.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, I love it.

BRANDON ADLER: He came up with a lot of the stuff.

MATT SINGH: Yeah, I mean, we wanted each of the factions to feel very distinct in the way you interact with them and how you interact with their equipment. So Auntie's Choice is all about things like biological research, pharmaceuticals, drugs, all that kind of stuff, and that'll come through where they're actually, like, taming creatures, taming wildlife, and using them to fight alongside them, so that'll be kind of a cool, unique thing that you'll experience with them.

BRANDON ADLER: You have to talk about the Boars (phonetic) Blaster.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh.

MATT SINGH: This is a fun one where you can actually shoot out these tumors that will stick on people and explode, like little grenades. But another cool thing is, from the first game, we had these things called "cystic pigs" that had tumors that you could actually eat, right? These tumors do the same thing. So you could shoot them on enemies for damage, but you can shoot them out in the world and eat them in the middle of combat, which will actually give you a little bit of a health boost. So it's got some really fun and kind of disgusting --

BRANDON ADLER: It's nasty, but it's great.

MALIK PRINCE: I love it, I love it. Just innovation. Actually, we have some examples to look at. So let's take a look at these.

BRANDON ADLER: So this is the Earth Directorate, right, here. You see that cowboy aesthetic, that sheriff flair that we're kind of going for with the capes, the hats, the side arms, things like that.

MALIK PRINCE: Nice.

BRANDON ADLER: This is the Player Ship. So we wanted, yeah, we wanted a different look for the Player Ship this time, so this one we made a little bit more asymmetrical, a little bit sleeker in some ways, but yeah, I think it looks really good.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, really cool. Oh, I love this. I think we saw this in the opening cinematic. Kind of looked like Buddy was holding something like this.

MATT SINGH: Yeah, I mean, so this is kind of the standard issue pistol that you'll get as an Earth Directorate agent and you'll get a knife as well, so you can go in and do some kind of stealth attacks with that thing. We can mod these weapons, put on silencers, and all that kind of stuff that can be really fun. We wanted our weapons also to be modeled in a lot of ways off of realistic weaponry, too, like, see the function of them, so this is --

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It's kind of art deco, right? I feel like with the ceramic portions, I don't know, there's --

BRANDON ADLER: Art nouveau. If you say "art deco" around an art director, he'll blow a gasket.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That's it. Thank you for the correction (laughter). Yeah. I don't want to get attacked by an art director.

MATT SINGH: This is the Protectorate symbol, and I, again, as I was saying, very angular, you have that squared-off look, but because the Order of the Ascendant is part of and breaks off of that faction, you can actually see that in the logo, and then you'll see that kind of break out when you see their stuff.

BRANDON ADLER: All, right, so here's the Sovereign.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, that's a shocker. Yeah, that is the head of the Protectorate. If you're wondering, can I wear that awesome --

BRANDON ADLER: Well, you can.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Cape that is full of golden links, if you can find it, you can wear it. Nice hands.

BRANDON ADLER: So this is a Protectorate revolver. Again, very blocky, very rectangular in some areas. The gold, the black, the red, the real deep colors there. There you go. Your girl, Auntie. Yeah, so that's the Auntie's Choice logo. Not a whole lot to say there other than again, running the same colors, the diamond shapes, organic. You could see things, like, they're little puff wheats. They look like little onions, but they're little puff wheats that are all over Arcadia.

MATT SINGH: And then those rockets are a little bit of a callback to the space --

BRANDON ADLER: Yup, yeah. So the mixture of those two and here's Auntie herself doing Auntie things.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, 100%.

MATT SINGH: You might be able to wear that, too (laughter).

MALIK PRINCE: Yes or no, for sure.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, of course. We wouldn't be saying this unless you could dress up like Auntie and run around scaring everyone.

MATT SINGH: Yeah, so this is an Auntie's Choice weapon. You see a very stark difference between this and the Protectorate weaponry. You can see that kind of diamond pattern even in the crosshairs there, and it's just more chaotic. It's got, like, weird goo-like thing.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That organic look.

BRANDON ADLER: Inside of it, organic-like, and shoots out these cool, like, corrosive projectiles.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Love the ammo can, too.

BRANDON ADLER: Oh, and it has a really cool reload where, like, you're pouring it back into the pistol and then you just throw it off to the side (laughter).

MATT SINGH: Yeah, that's a fun one.

BRANDON ADLER: So this is the Order of the Ascendant's logo very, like, circular in a lot of the shapes, lots of curves. You can even see it almost looks like there's, like, at a mountain peak and it's got, like the little, like, halo around it kind of thing. So that is Ruth. She is the Space Pope. She's a bishop.

MATT SINGH: Head of the Order of the Ascendant.

BRANDON ADLER: She's head of the Order of the Ascendant, and I love the look of her armor. It actually has that gold leaf of like actual leaves and stuff coming down, and the headdress looks insane when you're talking with her. So yeah, it's good stuff.

MATT SINGH: If you want to take that, too, you can have it (laughter).

MALIK PRINCE: Options, options.

MATT SINGH: This is an example of the Order of the Ascendant's weaponry. You can see kind of that tight, meticulous patterning on the side, that wiring that's very specific. This is actually a really cool one called the "Bolter Pistol," where those bulbs on the side, it's got like a little bit of an interesting mechanic where as you charge the weapon, those little light bulbs will pop up and you'll get more bonuses depending on how many are up there. And there's a little tight window where if all three of them go up, you can let go and get, like, a major bonus. So there's a little fun little mini-game in the game.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I love the copper, the rose gold, like, it is pretty.

MATT SINGH: Yeah, and you can even see on the left there, I don't know if we'll see more, but yeah, there's that helmet.

BRANDON ADLER: Whenever you see those, it's one of the future predictors. Here's all of them. Yeah, we realized we did not have a cool piece of concept art that actually has all three faction heads, and so we were, like, you know what, let's put something together that looks really cool and kind of shows off the personality of each, and so you can see Auntie has her canids with her. She's kind of leaning back. You know, you see the Protectorate and he's looking towards the sky. He's looking very regal. He's got like a little spider mind that's next to him, and then you see Ruth. She's got the wasp next to her.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Awesome, awesome.

MALIK PRINCE: So cool.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, this is -- for the viewers at home, this is not the episode to listen to as a podcast (laughter). There's a lot of really cool visuals.

BRANDON ADLER: Please watch.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah. That was awesome.

MALIK PRINCE: I love it when people are just listening. That's great, too.

BRANDON ADLER: But also, if you're done, please watch.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, pull it up.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Please, please pull it up and take a look. That was really cool. Thank you for sharing that with us. That was a nice glimpse into the development of all the factions.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I mean, again, we go back to the world building and making it deeper than just building out what each faction is, but, like, from their stances to their motivations to everything and how players will encounter it, it's cool to see how you built them.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, I mean, furthermore, like, let's talk about the music. Let's talk about each faction. They have a radio station, right? And I think we have examples of that as well. Let's maybe throw one of those up and you can tell us what we're hearing.

BRANDON ADLER: Sure, sure. Yeah, I mean, radio is extremely important to me. I love it from Fallout, New Vegas, so we wanted to make sure that each of the factions had their own radio station. Again, we wanted the flavor. So when players are listening to this, they're, like, man, they really get to understand who these factions are, and then again, with the music, we really wanted that to come through as, like, the very distinct different styles. Yeah, I think we did a great job with that.

MATT SINGH: It's cool. You'll hear these radios playing out throughout the world, but also you have your own personal radio, so you can turn it on, jam out to the different stations, pick whatever one you'd want, and they all have their own unique kind of DJs, their own unique musical styles. You want to go over some of the musical styles?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah, what are we hearing, right, now? This is Auntie's Choice Radio?

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, Auntie, I think, has more, like, almost like big band, in some cases, influence. Lots of jingles are kind of spread throughout there.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, for the guys shilling products, that makes sense, right? Like, it's a bunch of jingles. And if you're at home yearning for a product, check out gear.xbox.com for the T-shirt (laughter).

MATT SINGH: They trained you well.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, so Order of the Ascendant almost sound like NPR. Like, if you listen to them, they're very calm and measured, and then their music is, if you were to take new wave, new age kind of music and then de-age it and get it all the way back to the 1930s, this is probably what it would be like. It also has a lot of references to things like mathematics and science throughout the entire thing. It's just something that's important to them, so they just constantly talk about that and push that forward.

MATT SINGH: And as the religious order of this system, you kind of get some of those bells and tones in there, almost church-like?

MALIK PRINCE: I think I'm going to end up listening to this the most. I like that kind of, like, talk radio style and, like, makes you feel really intellectual.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I do love that there's multiple radio stations because it really is, like, it's one, to your point, it's immersive, like, it really does suck you into the world and what these people believe in and the environments they live in, but two, just that you can kind of mix it up, depending on the mission, who you're supporting. That's great.

MATT SINGH: Yeah, one of the cool things is you'll hear calls to action, people talking about events within the world.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Cool.

MATT SINGH: And if you switch between different radio stations, you'll get different perspectives on that same event, right? So you'll see a perspective for Auntie's Choice versus the Protectorate versus the OA, how they all see these things differently.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: So awesome.

BRANDON ADLER: I think the name of the song is "Irrational." It's about irrational numbers (laughter). It's really good.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, man.

MATT SINGH: One thing that's kind of cool, our production director is actually an accomplished musician himself, and he wrote some of these songs for us, like, did all the lyrics and did some scratch for it, which is pretty fun.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That is awesome. Maybe we should book in this because we're going on to the next station, but I do have a question on that. So Protectorate's up next here.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, with Protectorate, you're going to hear a lot of military themes, obviously. A lot of military anthems. A lot of almost Soviet-era sounds.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, that's immediately where my mind went.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, and again, it's very, I don't know if "brutal" is a good way to put it. Rhythmic.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yes, "rhythmic's" a good word.

BRANDON ADLER: Also, I love this here. When you're hearing them talk about this stuff, the whole thing is like, everything is great. Don't worry. Don't think. It's really amazing.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: If ignorance is bliss was a faction.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah. Again, talking about how great their system is, how great -- how Arcadia is perfect, until it's not.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It's so good. It's so good.

MALIK PRINCE: I feel like I can be so easily influenced by this. I feel like -- I feel like --

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Now you want to be -- [ Cross-talking and laughing ] It's amazing. Now, you know, when you get in the game, you may feel differently at various points.

MALIK PRINCE: There's something about this music that I feel like just pulls you towards that. So again --

BRANDON ADLER: I legitimately listen to the Protectorate Radio the most when I'm kind of walking around the overland.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: The question I wanted to double click on, now that we've heard all the radio stations, was the music element, because I am curious, like, I'd love to dig deeper into kind of what you were talking about with just, like, did you guys, like, was there a lot of musicians? Was this all kind of done in studio at Obsidian? Like, talk about how it was, what it was like to kind of develop multiple radio stations?

BRANDON ADLER: It wasn't just one person, right? So we have our audio director, our creative director, the production director that is versed in music. They did a lot of driving for, like, all right, so how should, not only, like, what are the overall themes, you know, coming from the creative director, but, like, all, right, what does that sound, right? Again, if you're taking the Protectorate, for example, what does a militaristic society, what is an authoritarian society, what kind of music would they play? What are the themes and things they would talk about, and how would they push that stuff, right? So they sat down and they really worked through a lot of the stuff. They had tons of different references. I would listen to a bunch of stuff and go, like, yeah, I think that sounds pretty good or, like, maybe more like this, and they really kind of, like, hone that in. And then, yeah, like in terms of who's doing all of that, we work with some folks at a place called "Interleave." So I know that they did a bunch of the work of constructing those things with our team. We had lyricists that we hired on top of that, and overall, like, I've just been extremely happy with the process. We've got I think over 20 tracks for each of the radio stations.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Original.

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, original.

MATT SINGH: Sixty original tracks right there.

BRANDON ADLER: It's a lot of music, yeah. If you just listen to it, like, you're probably going to listen for a couple of hours before you kind of hear the same stuff again.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, that's awesome.

MALIK PRINCE: Soundtracks in games are so important, but it just goes to show like the dedication and attention to detail that you all kind of went through. But as we're wrapping up, I know this, again, this is super exciting time, and I think that the discussion we've been having around factions is just an added layer, like, we've seen the trailer, we've seen the direct even, and now, like, the motivations of the players and the factions, how those things interact is going to be so great to see. But any last words that you want to share kind of as we head towards launch later this year with the fans out there watching?

BRANDON ADLER: Yeah, this is a labor of love, like, we love The Outer Worlds 1, and we wanted to give players more of it. We wanted to give players more of what we love about Obsidian games. You know, so a lot of this is hearkening back to how we used to do things in a lot of ways, like really doubling down on our reactivity, getting a lot of, like, the flavor. You know, I reference Fallout, New Vegas a lot because that was very influential for me, like, I love that game, and I think it's some of our best work in a lot of ways. That's why we have three major factions fighting over stuff, you know? That's why we made sure that we have quests that, again, have short-term, medium-term, long-term reactivity. That's why we have these interactions with these factions that are happening all the way throughout the game, not in just sections of the game, like, these are all very important things to us. And again, to the players, I think they're going to love it, and I really hope that they do, because, again, I think this is a hearkening back to the best of Obsidian.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I'm so ready to be hurt by Auntie Cleo. I'm so ready, like (inaudible).

MATT SINGH: Yeah, I mean, I think we had a strong foundation that we built with that first game, and our motto was expand and deepen for this second game, and the factions are just one way that we've done that. We've really expanded that out in various ways and actually tried to deepen their relationship, but that should show through, hopefully, across all aspects of the game. We're really excited for people to get their hands on it.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I'm excited to play it.

MALIK PRINCE: I know, and so if you all are excited to play it, you know what to do. Pre-order, wish list, do all of the things to make sure that you can play on it on --

BRANDON ADLER: Please do, or Matt does not get paid (laughter).

MALIK PRINCE: There's your motivation?

BRANDON ADLER: Not if they don't wish list.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Brandon, Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate the time. Malik, our time together has come to an end again.

MALIK PRINCE: I wish I could say it was a pleasure, but I'd be lying (groaning).

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Unbelievable.

BRANDON ADLER: Oh, that is --

MALIK PRINCE: My BFF.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, I love that you guys are on my side. Thank you. That's awesome.

MALIK PRINCE: Anyway, we have a whole week of amazing deep dives into the games that you saw at the official Xbox Game Showcase. Speaking of which, we had a chance to talk about Grounded 2 a little bit earlier, which is incredible, and, of course, you all shipped Avowed earlier in the year. Now with The Outer Worlds just a few months away, what's in the water over there? Like, how are you all doing what you're doing? It's incredible.

BRANDON ADLER: Honestly, it's just a mindset, man, like, we love to make games, and we focus our whole studio on being able to put games out in fast, efficient ways, right? Like, everything that we do is the thought of, like, all, right, you know, they always say always be shipping. It's kind of lame, but, like, it permeates everything that we do and we talk about. It's, like, yeah, let's always get something out to all the fans so they're always going to be able to say that, like, yeah, I got to play an Obsidian game this year or next year. We don't want to go gaps of like seven or eight years before the players can play an Obsidian game again, you know.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: Matt and Brandon, thank you so much for joining us. It's been incredible, and, of course, you all can pre-order the game right now.

BRANDON ADLER: Please do. Please preorder right now.

MALIK PRINCE: Preorder right now, they're telling you, and again, check out The Outer Worlds 2 when it launches later this year. Again, thank you all so much for watching, and we'll see you on the next episode of the official Xbox Podcast. [ Music ]