The Outer Worlds 2’s satire has a Microsoft-shaped downside

Virtually instantly in The Outer Worlds 2, the participant receives information of a company shake-up: Auntie Cleo and Spacer’s Alternative, two of the in-game retail manufacturers, have merged to kind Auntie’s Alternative. Much less a sequence of shops and extra a feudal energy, Auntie’s Alternative manages its staff — serfs, actually — with the cruelty of the steadiness sheet, its army enterprise way more necessary than the faux-cheery public-facing purveyor of somewhat-useful crap prospects can’t get from anybody else.

The fictional enterprise information parallels real-world enterprise information. Proper earlier than developer Obsidian Leisure started work on The Outer Worlds 2 in 2019, the studio was acquired as a part of Microsoft’s recreation developer purchasing spree. Lower than a decade later, Microsoft’s gaming division doesn’t appear to be flourishing regardless of its extremely deep bench of expertise; in 2025, the corporate’s video games efforts have largely been characterised by value hikes, layoffs, lopsided priorities, and an all-consuming curiosity from the corporate’s prime brass in turning into an AI firm.

But Obsidian remains to be right here, and it has one thing to say about these items. At the least, its new role-playing recreation, which casts gamers as an agent in a cheerily fascist group that turns into embroiled in a battle between a megacorporation and a totalitarian authorities, may need just a few issues to say about it. The studio itself? It’s rather less clear.

The Outer Worlds 2 inventive director Leonard Boyarsky and recreation director Brandon Adler will not be within the enterprise of constructing video games that reply to any particular second — video games take so lengthy to make, in any case, and enjoyable is their fixation. They do acknowledge that their recreation’s situation can really feel fairly topical. “Tim [Cain, co-creator of the Outer Worlds franchise] and I’ve at all times made video games which can be about what occurs when individuals get energy,” Boyarsky informed me in a Zoom interview alongside Adler. “We’re increasing on that frequently.”

Boyarsky and Cain (who introduced his “semi-retirement” in 2023 however nonetheless does contract work for Obsidian) are co-creators of the Fallout franchise and have deep roots within the laptop RPG scene, having labored on a string of cult classics like Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and the little-played however deeply beloved Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. Their affect is in every single place, establishing fashionable RPG traits the place factional conflicts and institutional distrust are leveraged to generate attention-grabbing issues for gamers to unravel.

The Outer Worlds video games are greatest understood as one other run at Fallout. Each franchises use a divergence in American historical past to spin out weird far futures outlined by lopsided establishments. Fallout imagines a nuclear golden age post-World Battle II, the place the science fiction of the ’50s turned science reality, earlier than a Twenty first-century thermonuclear battle turns the world into Mad Max-style wasteland wherein gamers eke out a imply, odd existence. In The Outer Worlds’ fictional historical past, President William McKinley isn’t assassinated, an antitrust motion by no means materializes, and the robber barons of the early twentieth century run rampant for a whole lot of years. Therefore the heavy layer of company satire, which Obsidian expands in Outer Worlds 2 to grow to be one thing darker.

Within the first quarter-hour of the sport, gamers are hit with:

There’s a meaner undercurrent to the sequel’s iteration on The Outer Worlds’ company humor, one which tugs at a thread linking company overreach to fascism’s rise. At the least, I feel there’s. Possibly Obsidian thinks so too?

“We don’t discuss in regards to the fascist side of it, however all of us find yourself in conditions the place we don’t have management. Even individuals in energy, whether or not it’s the true world or these video games, I feel individuals in energy are as a lot victims of the system as anyone else,” Boyarsky mentioned. “They suppose they’re accountable for this stuff, however nobody particular person can really wield as a lot energy as individuals need. Since you’re grown up within the system, you react primarily based on the way you had been raised within the system, your beliefs which have come up via being informed what’s proper and incorrect by your mother and father or society on the whole. So all of us discover ourselves in conditions the place it’s similar to: I do not know how I received right here. I suppose I gotta make the perfect of it.”

I inform Boyarsky that appears like a really video game-y view of the world, and ask why he thinks video games are an excellent medium to deal with these quandaries. He tells me that, at the least relating to The Outer Worlds, the themes got here from a convergence of his and Cain’s pursuits. Cain, he says, cherished the thought of a Futurama-inspired setting, leaning into the silliness. Boyarsky says he desires this recreation to maintain that, however push towards one thing tougher and fewer goofy.

“My factor was at all times — and that is one thing that we actually proceed to dig into — all of us inform ourselves tales,” Boyarsky mentioned. “That’s how we address the world, with actuality. That’s constructed by the way you’re raised and what individuals let you know if you’re youthful. However when individuals co-opt that story, they’ll management you very simply.”

These are all potent concepts, however they’re additionally thick with irony due to occasions largely out of Obsidian’s management. A few of them contain geopolitical points effectively outdoors the video games trade. However others lie nearer to dwelling for builders that are actually owned by Microsoft.

“All I can say is that the irony was not misplaced on us once we had been in the midst of making the primary recreation. Railing towards company energy and all these items — and we had been purchased by Microsoft!” Boyarsky says. “However we’ve solely had help from them. They preferred what we had been doing with the primary Outer Worlds, they usually help us making this recreation. We’ve had completely no pushback or messages from on excessive telling us don’t do that, or ensure you do that.”

Whereas it could be true that Microsoft has not interfered with Obsidian’s inventive processes on The Outer Worlds 2, the corporate definitely had preferences on how the leads on the studio mentioned it. The sport, with Boyarsky’s pursuits in exploring the plight of what occurs to those that aren’t in energy when individuals with base pursuits come into energy, appeared notably related to Microsoft’s enterprise entanglements with the Israeli Ministry of Protection.

Earlier than we get additional, a Microsoft rep interrupts to notice that the corporate’s newest statements on the matter will be discovered on-line, and that they needed to maintain the dialog with Obsidian “centered on the sport.”

So let’s concentrate on the sport: Early on you’ll be able to settle for a quest that, relying in your selections, would possibly ship you to retrieve one thing from the Ministry of Accuracy. Just like the identify suggests, it’s a propaganda outfit. Learn via the terminals discovered there and also you’ll see the way it works: Stories from everywhere in the area are funneled via the Ministry, the place staff “sanitize” them to verify they align with the messaging of the area colony’s ruling energy, The Protectorate. Artwork imitating life for Obsidian, as soon as once more. Or perhaps it’s the opposite manner round.

_{The Outer Worlds 2 is out now on the PS5, Xbox, and PC.}