Outward

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Developer: Nine Dots Studio Game Title: Outward Release: TBA

Website:https://www.ninedotsstudio.com/outward

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Hi! My name is Guillaume Boucher-Vidal, and I’m the lead game designer on Outward and the CEO of Nine Dots Studio.

Surviving in Outward

The point has always been to make the player believe that he is an adventurer, to keep him immersed in our world. The survival elements are meant to make the experience more complete. Adventuring shouldn’t only be about combat. I don’t know what it’s like to hunt a dragon, but I know what it’s like to be hungry, tired or cold. We want the player to think like the character would, and adding factors closer to real life contribute to the immersion. There are basic needs such as hunger, thirst, and fatigue, avoiding and treating illnesses, the logistic of carrying inventory through a backpack and the environmental hazards such as cold and heat, poisonous plants and spores, etc. So the player needs to find food, set up camp to sleep and use the appropriate gear for the situation.

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First, we’re not constantly harassing the player about it. Just like in real life, you can go for multiple days without eating or drinking water. Outward has survival elements in it, but the game’s objective is not just to survive. Outward is a roleplaying game first, a survival game second. If you’re hungry, you get penalties, but you don’t die within a day. If you kill a deer, the meat it provides can be enough to sustain you for a week, but maybe you’ll prefer smoking a part of the meat for conservation for your trips and sell the extra to the nearby village to buy better gear or to repair your equipment. Resources are scarce, but not so scarce that you’re constantly on the run.

The beauty of a roleplaying game is that you progress. At first, survival will be difficult, but as you get better, both as a player who knows how to play and as a character with increased levels in particular skills, the game will migrate to be more and more toward optimization and less about pure survival. At first, the challenge comes from ensuring you have enough food to survive. Eventually it will be about eating the right kind of food to stack up the bonuses needed to tackle on a harder dungeon and stay in peak condition throughout.

The world of Outward

The type of danger changes according to which regions you’re in. In the desert, there aren’t as many monsters as in other regions, but the heat and absence of water offer a particular type of challenge to the unprepared. In the marsh, the temperature is not so much a problem but there are more hostile creatures lurking around, and there are poisonous spores in the air. Dungeons, on the other hand, are more challenging in general than outdoor regions, but they either are necessary to explore to complete quests or to obtain more valuable resources and gear. Moreover, a difficulty isn’t scaled to the player’s level, so you always have an incentive to improve your character’s skills and equipment if you want to see all there is to see, and the most efficient way to do so is by facing challenging areas.

The first step is identifying where it is physically on the game’s world map. Our story and world is based on a lot of geopolitics, and we use that as one of our starting points. Then we identify the different biomes that we think we can pull off well from a technical perspective and choose one appropriate to the location. Then there’s some time spent with the team to figure out what would be the distinctive features of our environment that set us apart from similar biomes in other games. For instance, in the desert, we were wondering what would make it stand out, and we decided to go with large buried statues and boats, and humongous insect hives. Landmarks are especially important since our maps won’t tell you where you are standing, you will need to look around and use the landmarks shown on your map to figure out where you are. After that, we draw a crude map of our design intentions, and let the artists make it a reality.

Inspiration

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We use reference material for sure, but we’re not trying to mimic something that already exists. We’d rather mix different elements and find something that would be our own than to imitate. There is a rocky cape with purple vegetation, a sand desert that buried statues and boats, a field covered in ancient ruins, a marsh filled with bioluminescent plants and more. There are caves, ruins and castles to explore, and towns with different types of architecture and population density.

Traversing a hostile world

The world of Outward is meant to be so hostile that its inhabitants rarely go outside the walls of their town. As such, the towns are meant to be a safe haven and the exterior is meant to simultaneously instill a sense of wonder and threat. There are a lot of ruins of settlements that did not stand the test of time, reminding the player how dangerous it is out there.

The world is divided into regions of about 4 square kilometers, each with a different type of environment. The player can’t use fast travel to skip these explorable regions, however when switching to another area you need to have enough food and water to make the journey to your new destination. If you want to go from one town to another, you need to exit the town, go through its whole region, then skip to the next region if you have enough resources, then get through this whole other region before getting to the other town.

Finding an audience

One big challenge will be for us to convey that our game is an RPG first, a survival game second. We have stories and quests; we have character progressions, and we have dungeon delving. The survival elements are meant to supplement the experience by adding credibility, making you feel like you’re really in the shoes of your character.

But I know Outward won’t be for everyone. We’re not trying to make a game for everyone. I think a lot of RPG players have been looking for something like what we’re offering, but others will be turned off by the survival elements, and that is fine with us. We’re a small team, and we don’t need to sell millions of copies to be successful. We’d rather focus on pleasing one group of gamers than try to please everyone a little bit and miss our shot because we spread ourselves too thin.

Thanks for having me! If you want to stay current on Outward’s progress, subscribe to our newsletter on our website. We might do a closed beta before release, and we’ll use our mailing list to find beta-testers.

We thank Nine Dots Studio for talking about the development process on Outward.

In this Outward Beginner’s Guide, we will guide you on how you start your journey in Outward with some basic tips and tricks. These tips and tricks will help you survive your initial moments in the game because Outward is not an easy game and it will really test your mettle, especially in combat. Outward is true to the core RPG so you need to toughen up if you want to survive in it.

There are different key mechanics that you need to keep in mind when you start playing Outward which include combat, healing, managing your backpack and having good weapons before you set out on your journey. We have curated this Outward Beginner’s Guide which will help you survive your starting times in Outward because the game does very little to explain what you need to do next.

Our Outward Beginner’s Guide, ensures that you need to know everything that you need to know in order to start your journey in Outward.

Save your Initial Money

As you start your journey in Outward, you must save your money because before you can begin playing the game feely, you are bound to pay back a debt of 150 silver within 5 days. During the initial five days, you must save your money and avoid purchasing anything because paying back your debt is very important in Outward otherwise you will lose your home.

For a detailed guide on how to easily pay back your debt, check out our Outward Debt Guide in which we will share some ways by which you can easily collect enough money and pay back your debt so that you do not lose your home.

Finding a Starting Weapon

When you start playing Outward, you will need to find a decent weapon because you cannot really afford to spend your money on buying stuff because you need to collect 150 silver to pay back the loan. There are four weapons which can find at the starting locations simply in the world which will not cost you a dime.

At the very starting location, when you are starting the game at the beach, head to the small area next to the beach where you will find a Machette and some Hyenas. After you arrive in Cierzo city, exit your house and check the yellow bushes next to it to find a Quarterstaff. Check behind the Town Hall building to find a Felling Greataxe and then head to the tavern to find a Pitchfork near it.

These weapons should be enough for the start and will help you save some money so that you can return your debt in time. Once you go out of Cierzo, you can head find some more weapons such as the Simple Bow which can be found at the entrance of the Blister Burrow. This also deals a decent amount of damage to enemies from a safe distance.

Handling Inventory

Inventory management is a very important step in Outward. Your inventory space is limited while the items you will want in your inventory are unlimited. You will have two types of inventory spaces in Outward. One is your backpack while the other is your pocket slots. The items in your pocket slots will always be with you while you backpack items will stay in your backpack and if you take off your backpack, you will not have access to those items.

You must keep essentials such as healing items, potions, water and eatables with you at all times in your pockets. Also, your weapons and a lantern should also be present in your pockets so that you can use it in dark areas to look at what is ahead. You must try to get a better backpack as soon as possible because the starting backpack will have very less space for your items.

The merchant Doran in Cierzo will sell you a Nomad Backpack which has 50 slots and will be good for a good chunk of the starting areas. Another thing you must keep in mind is that in-game currency also has weight in Outward so the higher amount of gold or silver you have in the game; it will have more weight. You can also store some items in your stash which is located at your home in Cierzo.

Regenerating Health

Combat in Outward is brutal and you will need to refill your health a lot so make sure that you know exactly how to do that. The game offers different ways by which you can heal yourself. The most basic method to heal yourself quickly is using bandages. They restore a very small amount of health but they are also the quickest way to heal yourself in combat and other scenarios.

You can also use different potions and consumables which will grant you instant health. You can purchase different healing items in the game from merchants and alchemists such as Life Potion and Luxe Lichette. The last way to heal is the slowest and depending on your location, dangerous as well.

You can sleep to heal yourself in Outward. This will not cost you anything and all you need to sleep is a bed or a bedroll which you can find in your home very early in the game. You can also purchase a tent from Doran who is a merchant and is located in Cierzo. While sleeping, you can also choose a few hours to keep watch if the area is dangerous where you are sleeping. This will ensure that no harm comes to you while sleeping.

Combat

Combat is brutal in Outward and if you are not well prepared for it, you will not survive. Everything in the wild will try to kill you and you will find very few allies in Outward. Do not take anything for friends while you are out exploring the wilds of Outward. Make sure that you always keep healing items and weapons handy.

Your backpack also plays an important part in combat and you must always get rid of it before any enemy encounter. While entering a hostile area, always keep the essentials with you and leave the backpack behind at a safe location. Otherwise, your movement will seriously be hindered.

Just like any other RPG title, Outward has stamina based combat mechanics so each combat action will drain your stamina so keep an eye on your stamina bar. This ensures that your attacks are powerful and you deal plenty of damage to enemies. It always helps to land some ranged hits on enemies before joining them in close ranged combat. Keep on dodging and blocking enemy attacks and you should be fine.

Always Be Well Stocked

You never know what might happen to you in Outward so it is best that you always remain well stocked on supplies. Apart from decent weapons, you must ensure that you always carry enough water, food, medical supplies, potions, a lantern, and a bedroll or tent with you all the times. Sometimes you will also catch a disease so you must have tea with you as well so that you can cure yourself quickly.

Check out more Outward guides below.

This concludes our Outward Beginner’s Guide. If you want to add anything to this guide, feel free to use the comments section below.