Even though The Outer Worlds is a completely separate franchise from the Bethesda-owned Fallout series, the game contains strong indicators both Fallout: New Vegas and Obsidian's latest entry in the sci-fi RPG genre are connected and take place in the same universe. Released last week to the delight of both critics and fans, The Outer Worlds has been a pleasant, nostalgia-laden stroll through all the reasons fans fell in love with games like Fallout in the first place, featuring a wide variety of quests, creatures, and thousands of well-written lines of dialog in between.
The Outer Worlds hasn't just been a hit for Obsidian Entertainment, but also Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass program as well. Since the company was recently bought by Xbox, future Obsidian titles like a sequel to The Outer Worlds have a high probability of appearing exclusively on Microsoft's console, and the flurry of good reviews surrounding the title have only confirmed they made a quality purchase.
As relayed in a report by JustPushStart, the ties between Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds may be more than sentimental. Upon the conclusion of one of New Vegas's many faction quests, depending on the player's choices they may learn the leader of the desolated Vegas wasteland, Mr. House, plans on deploying colony ships to the stars in order to search for unpolluted planets. In The Outer Wilds, players take on the role of a colonist who had been prepared to do just that before their ship accidentally ended up drifting in space for seventy extra years.
Fallout: New Vegas was set in the year 2281, and according to the introductory cutscene of The Outer Worlds plans for hibernation chambers and the introduction of the Halcyon colony idea was first shown to the public in 2285, only four years later. Mr. House himself employed a form of cryogenic preservation, and although in New Vegas he mentioned it could take up to a hundred years to perfect it for space travel, perhaps the player's actions as The Courier helped speed this timeline along.
Whether this is simply an easter egg or the developers at Obsidian truly intend for players to think that the Halcyon colony in The Outer Worlds is a continuation of Mr. House's story-line from Fallout: New Vegas remains to be seen. A late-game information twist, not repeated here for fear of spoilers, could offer some confirmation to this theory, and it's hard to argue against the capitalist nature of Halcyon's government, which would absolutely be something Mr. House would come up with. Perhaps there are more clues hidden throughout The Outer Worlds just waiting to be found?
Source: JustPushStart