The Outer Worlds – A Look at the Wildest Weapons

Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds will feature some unique and zany “science” weapons set apart from the rest of the game’s arsenal by their crazy and oftentimes comedic effects. The latest GameInformer article tells us a bit about those weapons, using The Outer Worlds’ Duke Nukem-style shrink ray as its main example. An excerpt:

The Shrink Ray

According to co-director Tim Cain, science weapons are designed to have “inexplicable effects that we thought would be funny, and we didn’t care in any way if they were realistic.” The shrink ray is a perfect example of this philosophy: It collapses the space between atoms, causing creatures hit by its continuous beam to grow smaller (and stay that way as long as the beam remains focused on them).

The concept came from an unexpected place: huge monsters. Out in the wilderness of The Outer Worlds, you may encounter “mega-fauna,” which are especially large versions of specific creature types. Visually, these beasts are scaled up from their regular counterparts – but the technology that produces that effect goes in both directions.

“The scaling can be used for a lot more than what the artists were using it for,” Cain says. “The artists didn’t want to use extreme values on it, because then things can’t move around, then can’t get through doors.” So what happens when you experiment with those extreme values in the form of a handheld gun? A shrink ray.

In addition to making enemies very small, the shrink ray also increases the pitch of their sound effects and deals a small amount of damage. But the more practical benefit comes from reducing their damage threshold; in other words, enemies that are normally resistant to damage are much more susceptible to it the smaller they get.

“It changes effectiveness based on your science skill,” says lead designer Charles Staples. “As you gain a higher science skill, it shrinks them more. It reduces their damage threshold more.”

You might assume that an effect that powerful will not work on more powerful foes – that they might have immunities to shrink ray. That assumption is incorrect. If you want to use it on one of the formidable mega-fauna, go for it; you get what Cain refers to as a “mini-mega.” But what about the final boss? “Right now, yes,” Staples says. “But then it will just be a matter of making it balanced enough where it still feels like a meaningful end to the game for most players.”