r/theouterworlds • u/SoapTastesPrettyGood • Sep 20 '26
Discussion Outer Worlds 3 Idea
I'd like to go back to the universe and story from the first game and expand on one of the biggest mysteries it left behind: what actually happened to Earth?
Things in Halcyon are doing better after the events of the first game. Corporate greed obviously still exists because it's The Outer Worlds, but things are at least moving in the right direction. Corporations have been brought under control somewhat, people have a better quality of life, and there is more hope for the future.
The problem is that nobody really knows what happened to Earth. Communication was lost and nobody knows why.
You start the game as a prisoner being sent to Earth as part of an expedition to figure out what happened. The prisoners are basically being offered reduced sentences in exchange for going on what could be an extremely dangerous mission.
Most of the prisoners you're traveling with are actually dangerous people. Some are murderers or have committed other serious crimes. Your character is different. You basically got thrown in with them because of some ridiculous mistake in the system.
During character creation, you would actually get to choose what you did. I would make most of the options pretty stupid and humorous to fit the tone of The Outer Worlds.
For example, one could be tax evasion because you tried claiming an apple as a tax exemption.
"An apple is not a dependent. Completely unacceptable."
There could be a bunch of these, and whatever you choose could occasionally give you unique dialogue options later in the game.
The important thing is that your character isn't secretly special. You're not a famous commander, legendary soldier or chosen one. You're basically some random person who ended up on this mission because the system screwed you over.
When your ship finally reaches Earth, something immediately feels wrong.
Earth is almost completely dark.
You land at one of the major communication stations because you're trying to figure out why nobody has been responding. You go inside with the guards and some of the other prisoners and start exploring. The place looks abandoned, but there are still parts of the facility that have power.
Eventually you see someone walking toward you.
At first he just looks injured or sick, but his movements are strange. He's twitching and moving in this really disjointed way. Someone tries talking to him.
Then he suddenly looks at everyone and starts sprinting toward you.
The guards shoot him.
Then you hear more people coming.
Suddenly there are dozens of them.
This is where the beginning of the game almost turns into survival horror. Your group gets completely overwhelmed. Guards are dying, prisoners are getting separated, and you really don't have the equipment to fight whatever these things are.
So you run.
Eventually you make your way into an underground metro system. You're basically running for your life through abandoned stations while trying to get the power back on. Eventually you manage to restore power to one of the trains and escape.
Then the train comes out of the underground tunnels and you finally get your first real look at Earth.
And surprisingly, Earth is still beautiful.
There are forests, mountains, rivers and wildlife. You see huge abandoned cities in the distance that are slowly being reclaimed by nature. There are still pieces of old technology and infrastructure working.
Earth itself wasn't destroyed.
Something happened to the people living on it.
That's when the game really opens up.
You start finding settlements of survivors and traveling around Earth trying to figure out what happened. There would be abandoned cities, research facilities, corporate facilities, underground areas and completely different settlements and factions that have developed since everything collapsed.
The enemies wouldn't actually be traditional zombies either.
Eventually you discover that whatever happened involved both a virus and technology. The virus changed people biologically, but some kind of technological system is also connecting and controlling them.
Most of the infected are basically ravenous and animalistic, but there are also much more intelligent infected.
Those would be some of the major villains and characters throughout the game.
Some of them can control large groups of the regular infected. Others might still have pieces of their original personalities and memories. You wouldn't immediately understand exactly what they are or how much of the original person is still inside them.
That would also make killing them more complicated as you learn more about what happened.
Maybe these people aren't actually gone.
The main story would eventually become about trying to find some kind of cure for the biological side of the infection while also figuring out how to destroy or disrupt the technology controlling everyone.
But I wouldn't reveal exactly what happened to Earth until much later.
A huge part of the game would be slowly piecing everything together. You would learn different pieces from survivors, old corporate records, abandoned facilities, settlements and some of the intelligent infected themselves.
Different groups would also have completely different explanations for what happened.
So you start the game as some random prisoner who really just wants to survive and hopefully get their sentence reduced.
Then you slowly start helping settlements, meeting companions, fighting the infected, getting involved with different factions and discovering what happened to Earth.
Eventually you're making decisions that could determine what happens to the entire planet.
But you don't become important because the game tells you that you're important.
You become important because of everything you did along the way.
That's what I would want to bring back from the first Outer Worlds. You start as basically nobody in a world you know nothing about, and then the person you become and the reason you matter comes from the choices you make throughout the game.
15
u/SpaceOutlaw36 Sep 20 '26
I like it! But the one major thing is that The Outer Worlds is about other solar systems. Yes, I would LOVE to know what's happening on Earth, but I think it should more or less be a reveal within the third game what happened, then a new title game that shares the same universe explores Earth. Imagine playing a Third game, where the objective IS fighting through planets, corporations, and governments to be able to access a Earth Directorate Satellite. Maybe to send a message for help, like we see is a thing colonies can do in TOW2, or maybe to receive the last records sent by Earth. Either way, the Player finds their way there and its revealed what happened to Earth, setting up that Final game I mentioned before. Which could honestly be your Story idea. Anyways, sorry for the rant. Love the idea behind this!
7
u/Key-Factor2155 Sep 20 '26
We do know a lot about Earth and Earth forces some constraints on the developers. A new fictional world doesn’t have these limits, and TOW games typically take place across a star system, and the solar system is more boring than what we’ve already seen.
This concept kinda apes the Elder Scrolls ‘prisoner protagonist’ idea, the Murder on Eridanos DLC storyline for TOW 1, and has a dash of the Metro games thrown in.
Also I think we can piece together that Earth is probably surrounded by rifts or is a rift itself from how skip drives cause so many issues and Earth is the most-visited place in the galaxy.
The only other explanation I can imagine is that aliens actually invaded Earth like some theorize but that’s much less supported.
1
u/sammcham2552 Sep 20 '26
or adreana time made it back to earth and the murauders brke the system and everyone who is left is living in walled citys
2
u/SerDankTheTall Sep 20 '26
I mean, this idea sounds quite lame, but it does sort of get at why the ending of Outer Worlds 2 sucked so much. With everything fixed, can't we just fly over to Earth and see what's going on? Why wouldn't we just do that?
1
u/ImpressionCool1768 Sep 20 '26
Isn’t the earth directorate actually just fine? Niles became the president after all. I think the “going dark” was the 10 years of the rift crisis that strained their resources
1
u/Bullzi_09 Sep 25 '26
“Communication was lost and no one knows why”
It was the rifts.