Obsidian, makes of Pillars of Eternity, and long before that, Fallout: New Vegas, have just announced their latest title, The Outer Worlds. It’s… basically Fallout without the name. Which of course is perfect timing, given the dumpster fire that is Fallout76 right now, and the fact that Bethesda won’t ship a ‘real’ Fallout game for a long, long time, with Elder Scrolls 6 being the next big title, and that being years away.
My first impression is that it looks good, and I trust Obsidian to do a quality job in terms of story and world-building. Hopefully the FPS gameplay is at least on-par with Fallout 4 (not the highest bar, but for me good enough, if I want ‘pure’ FPS gameplay, I’ll fire up PUBG), and the number of bugs on release day are lower than the typical Fallout experience (again, low bar). The current release date is 2019, which I hope isn’t late into 2019.
And of course I love the direct jab included in the trailer with the line “Made by the creators of the original Fallout”. Again, in the context of what is happening with Fallout due to F76, that’s a nice little zinger.
Hardcore Casual 
Geez, gimme a preorder link
I watched the reveal trailer and then the gameplay trailer, and… eh. There is a time dilation effect, but it’s no VATS, and combat looked pretty janky overall. In the gameplay video they mentioned there being companions but no romance options, which seems more lazy than anything. Dialog options based on stats seems to have made their return, but I hated that in Pillars of Eternity (which I never finished), so that’s not a positive IMO.
We’ll see. New Vegas was great, but the core of it was an improved Fallout 3 experience, which they do not have here. The days in which a great story is worth slogging through unfun action is far behind me.