The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition brings moving foliage and 4K 60fps to space next week

rockpapershotgun.com:

Late last year game voted Most Likely To Make Me Accidentally Say The Name Of A Different Game and neo-old-school space RPG The Outer Worlds was rated for a mysterious Spacer's Choice Edition. Obsidian are now ready to officially reveal said wash and brush up, which is coming next week on March 7th, and bundles both DLCs for the game with remaster-y improvements to AI, VFX and technical art. To mark the occasion I got to chat with co-directors Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain, and producer Eric DeMilt, all of whom who made games that are stastistically likely to number among your favourites - especially if you like RPGs.

The conversation was both delightful and insightful, and featured a cameo from DeMilt's puppy Luna, but as soon as it was over I discovered it hadn't recorded properly, and had to creep back, cringing and whining, to ask for them to please answer some email questions. Luckily for all of us, they very kindly did.

The Outer Worlds, one of those good ol' fashioned single-player RPGs, came out in 2019, so you'd be forgiven if you expected an Ultimate Edition bundle instead of a remaster just four comparatively short years later. It's not a huge top to bottom redoing, but, as DeMilt points out, October 2019 was late in the PS4 and Xbox One lifecycle: "With the Spacer’s Choice Edition, we had the opportunity to take advantage of newer, more powerful PC and console hardware, to update the game, and bring it to the newer systems."

There are a bunch of new features. As well as bundling in the DLCs, Spacer's Choice raises the level cap; there are small adjustments to AI, including improved routing for your companions; the team did art passes on most assets and characters, improved facial animations, re-lit