I Killed Every Single Person In The Outer Worlds, Here's What Happened

A senior designer at Obsidian Entertainment named Brian Heins told The Verge back in August that it would be possible to kill every single character in their new game The Outer Worlds. Following in the footsteps of Let's Play Youtuber "Many A True Nerd" who famously killed every single person in Fallout 3. I decided to not take Heins' word for it and do the damn thing so no one else has to.

I'd already completed my first playthrough of the game (and wrote a pretty great review if you don't mind me saying,) so I'd already had the experience of agonizing over every decision and conversation in an effort to serve the greater good and save the people of Halcyon. This time, I threw the quest log away a focused on a singular, nonnegotiable goal: to kill every single NPC in The Outer Worlds.

A Man Named Ed

Ed was a fairly unremarkable man before boarding The Hope. He worked in a kitchen as a line cook, wasn't particularly strong or clever, and never really expressed to anyone ambitions beyond watching the next Rizzo's Rangers Tossball game. Unfortunately, when Phineas Welles woke him up, Ed was no longer the same man. A bad mix of life support chemicals or some other faulty equipment had done significant, irreversible damage to Ed's brain. Now Ed had ambition. Ed wanted something: to kill.

I built Ed to be average in every trait with the exception of a few extra points in guns and melee. Aside from Tactical Time Dilation, Ed had two very important skills that would make this playthrough possible: the ability to see the future and save scumming. I had a pretty good idea of how the plot would unfold since I've already played the game, but I was going to be making some very different choices this run and, to make sure I didn't do something that would prevent me from killing every last person, I saved A LOT. This wasn't going to be a one man rampage across the solar system. Rather, this was a methodical, careful plan to eliminate every breathing soul in the game.

A Man, A Plan, And A Laser Pistol

My first concern was that I wouldn't be strong enough to take on the town of Edgewater without leveling up, so I beelined to the power distribution facility to take out the robots and monsters a long the way. The Outer Worlds is very generous with experience, and after getting a few levels, clearing out the power facility, and establishing a waypoint, I made my way to Edgewater.

Upon meeting Reed and agreeing to accept Parvati as my companion, I promptly blew his head off.

This was a calculated move, there were only two other guards in the room and I decided now would be the best opportunity to test my mettle. Luckily, Reed and his goons posed no major threat. Parvati, despite issuing the killing blow on Reed herself, immediately expressed her disdain for my actions. When I told her I did it in defense of her honor, she reluctantly agreed to continue on the mission in order to keep an eye on me. Parvati spent the rest of the game joyfully murdering every living person in the galaxy with nary a concern until the final act of the game, which honestly, surprised me.

Things Got Horrifically Dark

I expected to exit Reed's office and have to fight my way out of Edgewater, but after a few armed guards attacked, I found the majority of Edgewater's citizens to be largely non-hostile. Rather than attack me endlessly, they cowered in corners and ran away from gun fire.

Uh-oh.

Thus began my Edgewater shooting spree. I coldly hunted down every last person in the town until not a single person was left alive. I attacked people at work in the factory, drinking at the bar, in their homes, and one the street. Many tried to run away, they begged me to stop and hid behind tables and crouched in corners. I shot all of them. Throughout the slaughter Pavarti would constantly hoot and holler and tell me "nice shot boss" whenever I gunned down an unarmed man on the street. I didn't expect it to be like this. It was horrible.

The rest of my journey to be the only living person left in The Outer Worlds was much of the same. Pavarti and Nyoka remained by my side as enthusiastic accomplices to my never ending killing spree. I really expected the companions to draw a line eventually, I know from my first playthrough that at least Felix knows when to draw the line and leave, but despite killing all of Nyoka's friends in front of her, her allegiance never wavered.

When Sophia eventually instructed to me to officially neutralize Edgewater (a little redundant, I know) Pavarti vehemently objected to the notion. I told her to shut up and know her place. She did, then she helped me doom the Halcyon colonies. It felt terrible.

In The End, Someone Still Lives

I knew from my first playthrough that I was going to have a problem killing both Sophia and Phineas. Whether you side with the board or against them, one of these two people will always live. I tried every which way to ensure their deaths, but no matter what the game ended and one of them survived. Ultimately, I decided the cleanest solution was to betray Phineas, kill him, and then turn the game off before freeing Sophia from her cage. She'd certainly starve to death in there, there was no one left in the galaxy to free her.

It's impossible to break the game by killing important NPCs. To Obsidian's credit, there's always an alternative to move each quest forward. If you show up on The Groundbreaker and kill Gladys, ADA will initiate sequence "The Captain Is A Psychopath" and open up a different, more dangerous landing zone on Monarch.

Killing every person in The Outer Worlds was not fun. When I realized most people weren't going to fight back I immediately regretted doing this run. Making the NPCs cower and beg for their lives is a layer of realism that I don't think is necessary or particularly responsible in an era when video games have a target on their back for representations of violence. My killing spree has been difficult to shake off. In the end, I knew I was going to be alone, but I didn't know I was going to feel so empty.