The game is played from a first-person perspective, and players can use combat, stealth, or dialog (persuasion, lying and intimidation) options when encountering potentially hostile non-playable characters.

Led by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, the creators of the Fallout series, the development of The Outer Worlds began in April 2016.

At the beginning of the game, players create their avatar (dubbed the Stranger in-game) and are given six attribute points to distribute across six categories (strength, dexterity, intelligence, perception, charm and temperament).

[5] Players encounter various NPCs who offer side quests and optional objectives and reward them with experience and in-game currency used to purchase weapons and other items from vendors.

[12] Weapons and armor, which boosts defense, are collected through exploring the game world, looting enemy corpses, or purchasing from vendors.

[16] Investing in stealth skills allows players to lockpick,[17] pickpocket other NPCs,[7] and wear a disguise to infiltrate otherwise restricted areas.

They can then unlock perks which grant single bonuses or effects and spend points on seven different skill trees (Melee, Ranged, Defense, Dialog, Stealth, Tech and Leadership).

These can be obtained when players fail certain gameplay segment repeatedly or engages in harming behaviors such as alcohol abuse or frequently falling from height.

As a result, Theodore Roosevelt never succeeded him, and the great business trusts of the era were never broken up, leading to a hyper-corporate, class-centric society dominated by the power of megacorporations.

In 2355, the Hope is discovered drifting on the outskirts of the Halcyon system by mad scientist Phineas Vernon Welles, who manages to safely revive one of the passengers, the Stranger.

Welles informs the Stranger that the Halcyon colonies have fallen on hard times due to the incompetence and greed of the megacorporations (referred to collectively as "The Board").

After leaving Terra 2, the Stranger is instructed to head to Monarch, a colonized moon orbiting the gas giant Olympus, where an information broker holds the location of a batch of dimethyl sulfoxide, a chemical Welles needs to revive the remaining colonists.

With the Broker's intel, Welles directs the Stranger to Halcyon's wealthy capital Byzantium, where the Minister of Earth, Aloysius Clarke, has just signed for a shipment of dimethyl sulfoxide.

The dimethyl sulfoxide is being used on human test subjects to attempt to recreate Welles' formula, in the hope that workers can be repeatedly pulled out of extended periods of suspended animation.

Welles suggests using ADA and the Unreliable's power to "skip" the Hope into the inner Halcyon system, placing it in orbit near his laboratory above Terra 2 so that he can begin the revival process.

Depending on where the Hope arrives in Halcyon, the ending diverges: Regardless of the outcome, the Stranger is informed that contact with Earth has been lost, and that a Board troopship traveling back has mysteriously disappeared in transit.

[28] The upgrade system allowed players to create "hybrid" characters who excel at two of three ways of gameplay (combat, stealth or dialogue).

[40] The Outer Worlds originally featured six human companions, but one was replaced with the janitor robot SAM due to time constraints.

[26] Boyarsky described the Halcyon system as a "corporate utopia" in which the Board exerted control on every aspect of life, and people were taught to place the companies they worked for above themselves from birth.

[48] While the game explores themes such as capitalism and bureaucracy, it was not intended to be "politically charged" and the team did not want to lecture players on these topics.

[27][50] The game features a number of locations: Terra-1 is a feral, lawless planet whose occupants staged an uprising against the Board, while Terra-2 is more refined and more influenced by corporatism.

Some of the scrapped content was integrated into a location set on an asteroid (Scylla), which was created quickly since it had no settlement and did not require intricate art design.

Obsidian compared the length of The Outer Worlds to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, which takes players between 15 and 40 hours to complete depending on their playstyle.

[59] A Nintendo Switch version was originally scheduled to be released on March 6, 2020, but was delayed to June 5 due to issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

[65] On March 7, 2023, a remastered version of the game called The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition, also developed by Virtuos, was released for PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S.

[66] Spacer's Choice Edition has updated visuals and a higher level cap,[67] and includes the base game and all downloadable content.

Sam Machkovech from Ars Technica wrote that the game was a "dizzying, dense shot at reclaiming the indisputable glory of Fallout: New Vegas".

[78] The game's environment diversity and art style were praised by critics for further enhancing its worldbuilding and making the experience feel consistently fresh.

[77] Wilson wrote that humor was the best part of The Outer Worlds, describing it as a "funny and an effective critique of corporate culture",[81] though Machkovech and Evans-Thirlwell found the game's depiction of capitalism and usage of stale sci-fi tropes to be monotonous and one-dimensional.

[74] Fraser Brown, also from PC Gamer, called the game Obsidian's "most conservative RPG", and that decisions made by players rarely felt impactful.