The Outer Worlds: Peril on Gorgon developer interview — DLC is just another part of Halcyon

The Outer Worlds stands firmly as one of the most exciting new RPGs in recent memory and fans have been eager to find any excuse to dive back in to this colorful universe. With the recent launch of Peril on Gorgon, there's never been a better time.

I sat down with Carrie Patel, the game director for Peril on Gorgon, to chat about what players can expect from this DLC, the inspirations for the new adventure, and how it ties in with the base game.

Miles Dompier, Windows Central: So I know a lot of people have been hungry for more The Outer Worlds content, which is an awesome place to be with with a new IP... If I'm someone who's gone through The Outer Worlds and I've done everything there is to do... what can somebody look forward to with Peril on Gorgon?"

Carrie Patel, Obsidian Entertainment: So Gorgon has a new story, several new locations, some new characters, and basically just a lot more of the content that players who enjoyed the base game are going to love. Again, this takes the player to a new location called the Gorgon asteroid for an entirely new story campaign with its own side quests and side missions.

You'll get three new science weapons as you're exploring. And then there are several new locations that we've added, in many cases to existing base game maps to just expand the world for the player and give them more places to dig into new content and characters."

So for players who are new to the game, if they're just jumping in for the first time (they've picked up The Outer Worlds and picked up Peril on Gorgon) what do they need to do exactly to get to this DLC? Do they need to be far into the game?

So you do need to make a bit of progress. The content with Gorgon is a bit higher level so we wanted to make sure that players have the skill points as well as the equipment to deal with it. The entry point can happen anytime between the completion of the Monarch Crypt path and the quest Radio Free Monarch, or the point of no return save that is generated when the player reaches the endgame — at any moment between those two points. Once you travel on your ship, there will be a unique event that gets fired off. And that will start your entry into Gorgon.

I know The Outer Worlds pulls a lot of inspiration from pulp sci-fi, and that seems to be very prominent and kind of amplified with Peril on Gorgon — your crew on The Unrealiable even talks about it being kind of parallel to a serial drama. So were there any specific shows or movies that inspired this this new adventure?

Not specifically. We wanted to take a little more of a pulp noir approach with Peril on Gorgon. We felt that was something that synced well with the the basic aesthetics and flavors of The Outer Worlds while also giving players a slightly new twist and spin on these things that feels, I think, very appropriate for the subject matter of Peril on Gorgon. But we weren't so much saying "let's look at the Maltese Falcon" or, you know, any specific property as much as like — these are flavors and themes and tones and elements that even people who are not really connoisseurs of pulp noir are going to recognize as kind of living in this in this general flavor.

Are you going to be involved with what what comes next for The Outer Worlds? I know this is the first bit of DLC, but without spoilers, does this tie into the main story at all? Or is it a cliffhanger?

It does have a defined beginning and ending, but we really did want this to feel synced up and meshed in with the base game. So someone playing the content from the start begins a new game and just has this content with the rest of their game. You will notice we do have UI elements that identify when you're on a Gorgon quest, and obviously, our new areas are related to the DLC content, but you can jump back and forth between the base game content and the Gorgon content.

We wanted this to feel like another seamless part of Halcyon and so it does have its own story arc. It does have its own internal path like Groundbreaker does, like Monarch does. But we wanted to find that sweet spot between having events and having content that reflects on the larger world and the reflects on the quest that you're doing as part of the main game but that is also self-contained enough that it's going to feel appropriate and adaptable for players no matter where they're entering content from.

Are there any other key features or details that you want to stress for fans of the series fans of the game? What are you most excited about for players to kind of experience with this?

Coming from a narrative background, I'm super excited about the new story and characters that many of our writers have introduced. I think we've got some fantastic new conversations and moments that players who enjoyed that in the base game are really going to love.

I also think that our environment art team has taken our area design, just the look, aesthetic, and the environmental storytelling of many of our areas, just up to a new level. And there are also a few ways that I don't want to spoil anything, but we really did try to embrace player freedom with this DLC. So we really did go out of our way to try to accommodate "if players color outside the lines here, how can we accommodate them?" How can we make sure that we're not just providing a fall through but that the short story really is shaping itself around the decision they just made? So I think I think players who really dig in, explore heavily and try different things are going to be rewarded.

Bottom line

The team at Obsidian Entertainment has something truly special on their hands wiith The Outer Worlds and the first piece of DLC is a great sign of things to come. Peril on Gorgon is available now on all platforms and offers a special discount for Xbox Game Pass members.