During the development of The Outer Worlds 2 (our review here), the new Obsidian Entertainment title available today on all platforms, the designers had to face an unexpected challenge: transforming those mysterious dimensional fissures called Rift from simple scenographic elements to interactive game mechanics. The decision, which came relatively late in the creative process, ended up profoundly influencing the final exploration experience, as game directors Brandon Adler and Matthew Singh revealed in a recent interview.
Initially conceived only as visual elements to suggest the threat looming over the colony, the Rifts have become a fundamental tool for the re-exploration of areas already visited. Singh explained that the team purposely peppered these portals throughout the game’s early zones to capture players’ attention, while keeping the interaction completely optional. Significant rewards are hidden within these fissures that encourage you to return even to the initial locations of the adventure.
Transforming the Rifts into playable elements required a complex iterative process. Adler tasked Singh’s team with identifying optimal locations to integrate them into the game’s overall design, a job that also included quality-of-life improvements like automatically marking them on the map once discovered. \