The Outer Worlds 2 is an expansive RPG built around a web of branching decisions. It nearly became even more ambitious — so much so that one proposed feature would have added years to development. Obsidian Entertainment eventually cut that system, a common outcome in game design. What makes this case interesting is how the discarded idea helped the team confront a long-standing design challenge.
“Leonard [Boyarsky], Brian Hines — who was content director then — and I kept debating how immediate and reactive we wanted the world to feel while still encouraging players to explore,” director Brandon Adler told Polygon over video. “The plan was for major encounters to reward investigation: find information in the world, then use it in conversations.”
That cut feature was a dossier system: players would gather intelligence on important characters, unlocking new conversational options and unconventional solutions as they assembled relevant facts. Hunting down that intel would pull players away from the main quest and, ideally, make exploration and discovery feel genuinely rewarding.
Adler describes a sample encounter where bypassing a stubborn guard depended on more than just stats. By talking to other NPCs and uncovering background about the guard, players might learn he can’t be intimidated but can be fooled with the right bluff — a tactic that only works if you know the specific detail or recruit the right companion.
“When it worked, it felt incredible,” Adler said of the concept. But there was a major problem: writing a single fully realized conversation and its branching outcomes took roughly six months.
That timeline was unsustainable across a project of Outer Worlds 2’s scope. Playtests also revealed another complication: the dossier system encouraged a kind of meta-play where testers chased every scrap of information, turning the act of collecting intel into the dominant gameplay loop and sidelining the narrative — the exact opposite of what the team wanted for a story-focused RPG.
Rather than abandon the effort entirely, Obsidian repurposed the work and evolved its approach to skill checks. Traditional RPGs — including the first Outer Worlds — gate dialogue options behind specific skill thresholds. Outer Worlds 2 preserves that model in many situations but layers in a second requirement: certain influential choices now require both an appropriate skill level and evidence you’ve uncovered through exploration.
In one early sequence, the only way to de-escalate a confrontation with a senior military officer is to know he’s being manipulated and to have a high speech skill. To help players recognize when they’re missing a critical piece of information, Obsidian added subtle pop-up hints on those dialogue options. The hints don’t reveal details but signal that there’s something left to discover — encouraging players to revisit locations or investigate leads they might otherwise ignore.
That problem — players not realizing alternative solutions exist — has recurred across Obsidian’s titles. The shelved dossier concept became a springboard for solving it, alongside smaller design changes such as displaying a “this will be remembered” note during consequential conversations. Adler says they borrowed that idea from the narrative clarity used in other story-focused games; players responded strongly, so the team integrated it into Outer Worlds 2.
Boyarsky describes the result as a pragmatic middle ground between exposing every conversational branch outright and leaving players to stumble onto them unaided. It’s a compromise: meaningful reactivity where possible, and gentle guidance where necessary. Both Adler and Boyarsky acknowledge there’s room to push further on reactivity in future projects.
“Given how much content we built, had we adopted some of these systems earlier we could have made the world feel even more reactive,” Boyarsky reflects. “We did a good job, but there’s still potential to go further.”
Source: Polygon
