The Outer Worlds is the eagerly-awaited new game from Obsidian, whose epic reveal got a lot of RPG fans excited as it seems to be a space version of Fallout. As the developers of Fallout: New Vegas, and the original creators of Fallout being on board with the game, that’s a tremendously exciting prospect. A fair number of those fans on PC may therefore be a little disappointed to learn that Obsidian has signed an The Outer Worlds Epic Games Store exclusivity deal for one year, meaning that The Outer Worlds will not be on Steam until late 2020.
This exclusivity deal was announced at Epic’s keynote presentation at GDC today, along with the reveal that Quantic Dream’s previous PS4-only games Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human, would all be coming to PC on Epic Games Store. The Outer Worlds is possibly one of the biggest gets yet for Epic, as particularly since the poor fan reaction to Bethesda’s own Fallout 76 (which also did not launch on Steam), Obsidian’s latest RPG was being hailed as a new hope for Fallout fans.
Fan reaction to this news has, predictably, been profoundly negative. It was much the same regarding Metro Exodus and that game’s move to Epic Games Store, although in that case Deep Silver had made the game available to pre-order on Steam for a long time. Fans felt cheated that they had been told about the move so close to release, although Deep Silver did allow a Steam version to exist for anyone who pre-ordered.
The Outer Worlds situation is a little more unusual, however, as Obsidian has recently been bought by Microsoft. While The Outer Worlds will be published by Private Division, an offshoot of Take-Two, Microsoft now own the developer and will publish any further games by them. Consequently, The Outer Worlds will apparently also appear on the Microsoft Store too, although that may just be for the Xbox version. Regardless, if you want The Outer Worlds on Steam, you’ll have to wait until late 2020 at the earliest.
