The Outer Worlds 2 Is Begging for One Elder Scrolls Faction…

The Outer Worlds 2, the follow-up to Obsidian Entertainment's cult classic 2019 RPG, is slated to release sometime in 2025. It should be a rather interesting project to behold, especially in the wake of Oblivion Remastered and Starfield before it—two games that clearly share at least a little DNA with The Outer Worlds.

How closely The Outer Worlds 2 aligns with its Elder Scrolls and Fallout inspirations remains to be seen, but the cross-pollination between the IP and Bethesda's body of work is generally considered a positive. This mostly comes down to the fact that, despite having a similar approach to class design, progression, and presentation, The Outer Worlds retains Obsidian's signature focus on flexibility and player freedom, making it a unique spin on the open-world Bethesda format rather than a carbon copy of it. Nowhere is this freedom of choice more clear than in The Outer Worlds' handling of NPC-killing: players can decimate every single character in the game if they please, even locking themselves out of major quests in the process. This being an option speaks to Obsidian's views on player expression in RPGs, but this particular murderous freedom could be elevated by taking inspiration from a long-running Elder Scrolls staple.

The Outer Worlds 2's Boldest Potential Release Date Could Be its Strongest

Obsidian Entertainment could take a page out of another big game's recent release to similarly capitalize on its success for The Outer Worlds 2.

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By J. Scott Thurlow

Why The Outer Worlds 2 Could Benefit from Its Own 'Dark Brotherhood'

A Dark Brotherhood-Esque Faction Could Give Structure to Indiscriminate Killing in The Outer Worlds 2

The freedom to kill every NPC in The Outer Worlds is novel, and certainly sets it apart from other RPGs of its ilk, but the novelty of such freedom wears thin quickly. While it's respectable that Obsidian would account for the potentiality of an interstellar serial killer, rampaging through settlements with no regard for human life, there's not much depth to this playstyle. If anything, it's more like an interesting mechanical experiment, allowing players to see what happens if they eliminate various quest-givers, merchants, and other key NPCs, pushing the game's robust virtual population systems to their limit.

This is quite different from what happens when players commit mass murder in The Elder Scrolls. If a player murders enough innocents in Oblivion or Skyrim, they will be invited to join the Dark Brotherhood, an esoteric league of assassins with dubious morals, to say the least. Joining the Dark Brotherhood will spark a long quest chain, injecting the player's horrible, murderous acts with meaning and gravity. Something similar in a game like The Outer Worlds 2, where players will presumably be able to kill far more NPCs than in an Elder Scrolls game, could add greater depth to the role-playing experience.

The Outer Worlds 2's Sci-Fi Premise Could Offer a Nice Spin On the Dark Brotherhood

The Dark Brotherhood is an interesting concept, smoothly folded into the medieval high-fantasy world of The Elder Scrolls; the faction is characterized by spooky robes, worship of dark gods, and assorted ritualistic behaviors. Everything about The Dark Brotherhood screams "fantasy murder cult," and while this works within the context of The Elder Scrolls, a similar group in a game like The Outer Worlds 2 could be recontextualized in meaningful ways.

Instead of worshiping gods of chaos, perhaps The Outer Worlds 2's theoretical "Dark Brotherhood" could embrace a nihilistic worldview, rejecting spirituality and common ethics in light of humanity's expansion into space. Maybe this organization could be characterized by disillusion, borne from the erosion of mysticism and mystery that may accompany rampant space travel. Conversely, the group could be devilishly Machiavellian, willing to take innocent lives for the purposes of medical science, weapons testing, social experimentation, and the like.

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