It was fun to discover how many pacifist choices you could make in the first "Fallout". This is because not only are you allowed to talk or sneak away to solve a problem, but the game recognizes and rewards you for doing so. Subsequent RPGs and immersive sims are littered with peaceful options, but a completely pacifist playthrough often ends up being a masochistic challenge in which you are breaking the game rather than playing it. One wonders how troublesome it would be to play "Outer Worlds" as a pacifist.

Given that "Avowed" draws inspiration from the best-in-class first-person combat of "Vermintide," it's no surprise that Obsidian's upcoming RPG won't let you play it 100% non-violently. Speaking to PC Gamer this week, game director Carrie Patel said, "It's not a game of pure pacifism."

However, bloodshed is not the only way to clear the quest log; as in Pillars of Eternity, you could also talk to solve problems." Players can expect solutions and opportunities using dialogue." Patel continued, noting that there are "some stealth solutions," but players should expect to "focus on the combat."

During the development of The Outer Worlds, Obsidian experimented with adding a knockout gun to promote a less murderous play style, but as Tim Cain said in the NoClip documentary, it was "causing a lot of confusion" and was eventually discontinued We did. Players didn't know how long the enemy would be stunned, and they didn't know what it meant to stun a robot in the first place."

Furthermore, if a bounty hunter is tasked with collecting people's fingers, can he stun them and take their fingers?

While "Avowed" doesn't allow for complete gungee, one of Obsidian's aims seems to be to give people more freedom in how they explore and approach problems. "We're not planning a certain linear path that players will take through that world," Patel said. So we're trying to take into account the different places they might be, the different points they might find, what they might see from there."

We also learned that Avowed companions will not abandon you if you make the wrong choice, and that Avowed employs a Skyrim-like ability tree rather than classes. As announced at the recent Xbox Developer Direct, the game will be released this fall.