Obsidian Entertainment Trademarks “The Outer Worlds”

A certain eagle-eyed Obsidian forums user who goes by UrbaNebula spotted a number of Obsidian Entertainment trademarks for something called The Outer Worlds. I say something, because these trademarks cover a broad range of entertainment products, from video games and online services to board games and comic books. The leading theory right now is that this may be the working title of Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky’s mysterious Project Indiana but we can’t be certain of that just yet.

Here’s the original UrbaNebula post:

So I was digging around on Justia Trademarks out of interest, mainly looking for any new information on the Starfield trademark filed by Bethesda Game Studios. Out of interest I started looking into other projects, Fallout, New Vegas and so on, to see when they were filed and the different stages and so on. Basically, I was very bored. I then looked up Pillars of Eternity, and clicked through to the Obsidian page to see the other things they had filed and when. I was expecting to see things like Project Eternity, Tyranny and so on.

Then I noticed that just over a week ago there were four new trademarks filed for something called The Outer Worlds. These trademarks seem to include everything from videogame software to printed media to board/trading card games. You can see the trademarks for yourself here: https://trademarks.j…nt-inc-1303648/

The only major reference I could find to the same title was a novel (first in a series) published in 2016: https://www.amazon.c…k/dp/B01JVS6OU6

It may well be entirely unrelated as I assume Obsidian would want to write and develop the story themselves, but the blurb from that page sounds exactly like the premise for a role playing adventure:

“An alien invasion sweeps across the galaxy. The hope of humanity rests with an exile from an ancient empire and his loyal crew. They must work together to save the human race from imminent extinction. High adventure on a galactic scale.”

I don’t know if this means anything, but knowing that Obsidian is working on Pillars 2 and a secret AAA RPG, this looks a lot like they are going all in with it. A tie in TCG, and printed media similar perhaps to the All Roads graphic novel which tied in with New Vegas?

Would be interesting to see what you guys think?