This game has great mod and dlc potential

[LadyAthena]

I am wondering how easy the game is to mod. I'm hoping it is, as it has great potential.

That being said.. I hope great "expansions" are considered for the future too.. Like full on expansions, or large dlcs. Even ones similar to the skyrim housing dlc. Would love a dlc where I can customize, or get other ships, and customize the interiors a bit. Would go a long way to furthering my role playing in the hardest difficulty. Especially since you can only sleep in your ship and it's your mobile command center basically.

[Clawdius_Talonious]

It seems likely that the Unreal Engine isn't super easy to mod, as there aren't many mods available for e.g. Bioshock, and those that do exist seem more in the "UI/Sound/Graphics tweaks" category than anything that influences gameplay. That said, Obsidian doesn't have any real reason to have artificially limited the mod-ability of the game. I'd try to give you a more concrete answer but I'm not allowed to look in the Arc of the Covenant Microsoft Xbox Game Pass install directory since I don't have ownership of that directory.

The UDK used to make the game is available to the public, but any tools Obsidian designed to mitigate the workload of producing content would likely not be theirs to release (as they would have been built on the UDK code that they don't own) and so it's tough to say how detailed mods could realistically be. The game itself seems fairly modular, and it's certainly not impossible to imagine self contained e.g. asteroid bases or space stations that could be slotted into the existing game with ease. That said, it's tough to know without having delved into the files and directories what kind of effort it would take to accomplish that. If it's too onerous a process for the most groups of mod developers, then we'll likely only see official content. 

As for DLC and expansions, I'm hoping that the stipulations of the contract between Obsidian and Private Division aren't so demanding that we don't see any. I'm sure that right now there are a few ideas for "what comes next" but whether they take the form of a sequel Private Division wouldn't have a claim on, funded entirely by Microsoft likely at a significantly larger budget than The Outer Worlds had to work with or DLC that PD would almost certainly get a cut of (PD's parent company certainly makes most of their money through microtransactions these days so it seems unlikely they'd have left out clauses relating to DLC) is anyone's guess. We're going to have to wait and see official announcements before we know what to expect. Given that there isn't already a Season Pass for sale, I'm not certain that we'll see DLC even though I too hope for a nice expansion sized chunk of content. A huge space station that was used to grow crops and fell into disarray after some corporate malfeasance, or even a sinister plot by weapon manufacturers to capture and infect people with a pathogen that turns them into Marauders (a few terminals describe people descending into a sort of madness) to boost demand for newer more expensive weapons and armors... There's definitely so much potential here, and I'd love to be able to expect to play fresh content in the universe of The Outer Worlds sooner than a sequel would likely be coming.

On the up side there's definitely community interest, Nexus Mods already has more mods available for The Outer Worlds than they do for Bioshock. ( https://www.nexusmods.com/theouterworlds ) although at the moment they're mostly graphical tweaks and unlocking the dev console, the primary requirement for mods is people with the desire to mod a game. Time will tell whether we see cool new areas to explore released as mods.

TL;DR: There's hope for mods, but I can't personally crack open files and see what kind of scripting is exposed for modification. DLC is uncertain, but if there's enough demand and Private Division's cut isn't too large, there's hope for that as well.

[Ommamar]

Just the fact that there are ten mods up on nexus two days after release is an indicator there is interest., hopefully it snowballs and we get some good player made development.  Along with the DLC I am expecting Obsidian to produce.

[Omgilovesteak]

YES then i want some better hair modded in!!!  lol

[Mister Holdout]

6 hours ago, Clawdius_Talonious said:

It seems likely that the Unreal Engine isn't super easy to mod, as there aren't many mods available for e.g. Bioshock, and those that do exist seem more in the "UI/Sound/Graphics tweaks" category than anything that influences gameplay. That said, Obsidian doesn't have any real reason to have artificially limited the mod-ability of the game. I'd try to give you a more concrete answer but I'm not allowed to look in the Arc of the Covenant Microsoft Xbox Game Pass install directory since I don't have ownership of that directory.

The UDK used to make the game is available to the public, but any tools Obsidian designed to mitigate the workload of producing content would likely not be theirs to release (as they would have been built on the UDK code that they don't own) and so it's tough to say how detailed mods could realistically be. The game itself seems fairly modular, and it's certainly not impossible to imagine self contained e.g. asteroid bases or space stations that could be slotted into the existing game with ease. That said, it's tough to know without having delved into the files and directories what kind of effort it would take to accomplish that. If it's too onerous a process for the most groups of mod developers, then we'll likely only see official content. 

As for DLC and expansions, I'm hoping that the stipulations of the contract between Obsidian and Private Division aren't so demanding that we don't see any. I'm sure that right now there are a few ideas for "what comes next" but whether they take the form of a sequel Private Division wouldn't have a claim on, funded entirely by Microsoft likely at a significantly larger budget than The Outer Worlds had to work with or DLC that PD would almost certainly get a cut of (PD's parent company certainly makes most of their money through microtransactions these days so it seems unlikely they'd have left out clauses relating to DLC) is anyone's guess. We're going to have to wait and see official announcements before we know what to expect. Given that there isn't already a Season Pass for sale, I'm not certain that we'll see DLC even though I too hope for a nice expansion sized chunk of content. A huge space station that was used to grow crops and fell into disarray after some corporate malfeasance, or even a sinister plot by weapon manufacturers to capture and infect people with a pathogen that turns them into Marauders (a few terminals describe people descending into a sort of madness) to boost demand for newer more expensive weapons and armors... There's definitely so much potential here, and I'd love to be able to expect to play fresh content in the universe of The Outer Worlds sooner than a sequel would likely be coming.

On the up side there's definitely community interest, Nexus Mods already has more mods available for The Outer Worlds than they do for Bioshock. ( https://www.nexusmods.com/theouterworlds ) although at the moment they're mostly graphical tweaks and unlocking the dev console, the primary requirement for mods is people with the desire to mod a game. Time will tell whether we see cool new areas to explore released as mods.

TL;DR: There's hope for mods, but I can't personally crack open files and see what kind of scripting is exposed for modification. DLC is uncertain, but if there's enough demand and Private Division's cut isn't too large, there's hope for that as well.

Wow, thanks for sharing your knowledge. I hope to see more content for this game as well. 

[kozzy]

I would enjoy Fallout New Vegas style DLC or witcher 3 expansions but if we have to wait for Outer Worlds 2 I would be fine with that to. I have a feeling I will be playing this for many moons.