Last week listings were posted on LinkedIn for 11 new jobs at Obsidian Entertainment, the developers of RPGs like Pillars of Eternity and Fallout: New Vegas. The job listings range from lead narrative designer to user interface artist.
Several of them mention understanding of Unreal Engine 4 would be a plus, as well as referencing "first-person melee combat gameplay", "combat with an emphasis on an exceptional first-person melee experience", and "combat actions utilizing both first and third person animations". There's also mention of "branching dialogue", "conversations and cut scenes", and "day/night cycles". They paint a picture of a game that's more like The Outer Worlds than Pillars of Eternity or South Park, although obviously job listing details are a long way from a finished game's features list.
The network programmer position mentions that "Obsidian is looking for experienced programmers to develop network and multiplayer gameplay systems using Unreal Engine." Online multiplayer support wouldn't be new territory for a game from the studio behind Neverwinter Nights 2, but it's certainly not what they're famous for. Other listings call the game they're hiring for "our next great multi-platform RPG", and given this would be their first project begun after Microsoft's acquisition of Obsidian both PC and Xbox are a given.
The Outer Worlds is due on October 25 and will be available on the Epic Games Store and Xbox Game Pass.
Microsoft just can't keep themselves from making everything multiplayer.
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"Can't wait to count out your coin!" -- Bethesda, 2018