It’s a first-person shooter with clear RPG elements set in a dystopian universe where massive corporations with names like Spacer’s Choice and Auntie Cleo’s have taken over entire planets.
The game is published by Private Division, a new label started by Take-Two (the company that owns 2K and Rockstar) to make medium-budget games.
I think this looks pretty great - Borderlands with an actual story! Hints of No Man's Sky's pulp-flavoured art design are only a positive in my book.
(I'm also kind of a fan – as is most of my Twitter feed, it seems – of the "original creators of Fallout and developers of New Vegas - y'know, the good ones" tone it strikes, given how utterly Bethesda shafted Obsidian on New Vegas royalties.)
And despite Obsidian now being a Microsoft Studio, they're still going to be releasing this on PS4 alongside the Xbone and PC.
It certainly looks like a videogame. I like Obsidian's stuff, but if you rub all the rough edges off…. aren't they just producing the same old stuff as everyone else? This seems quite safe and designed by committee to me. Bioshock - check. No Man's Sky - check. Firefly - check. Fallout - check. Borderlands - check. etc.
If you "rub all the rough edges off" any game it's going to look largely like other stuff on the market. It's the rough edges, the details and quirks and idiosyncracies, that are what differentiate any RPG-inspired first-person shooter from the others. It also seems weird to write Obsidian off as "producing the same old stuff as everyone else" before they've shown any gameplay, given their last two games are old-school isometric RPGs – hardly a juggernaut genre these days.
Sure, this might only be distinguished from its peers by the quality of its writing, worldbuilding and quest design but y'know what? I'll take that over a sequel.
I bought the Handsome Collection yesterday on PS4 for £11, since it's on sale on PSN. I rinsed BL, but never the sequel. That should be fun then. Assuming I actually ever get round to starting it.
