Obsidian's latest RPG, the Fallout: New Vegas spiritual successor, The Outer Worlds, is a compacted dialogue and story-driven space adventure. The game features a bunch of interesting characters and storylines that can branch off in several directions depending on how you choose to advance through the game.
Depending on your choices you reach different conclusions in the game but some of the through lines come out the same and leave unanswered questions about the game and the universe that we want to be answered in DLC packs. Spoilers ahead.
10 How did the board label Welles a criminal and hide the Hope?
Dr. Phineas Welles rescues the character out of cryosleep aboard the Hope, the aptly named colony ship full of scientists and smart people. During his prior illegal experiments attempting to revive some of the colonists, he liquified a dozen and was labeled as a terrorist by the Board. What doesn't really make sense here is that the board managed to make him a known terrorist with his face plastered everywhere as a terrorist when they can't talk about his crimes, since they are hiding the Hope from people. They could lie about his crimes but that seems like something that wouldn't have worked out very well in this universe.
9 Where did the Chairman go?
Chairman Rockwell is the public-facing leader of the board of Halycon and a real piece of work. In the prison planet of Tartarus during the final mission of the game in the Welles storyline, you run into Rockwell who gives you a real hard time about upsetting the status-quo of Halycon. The default choice here is to just move on and continue towards saving Welles (and ultimately the colonies), however, you can definitely shoot him if you want to... but his bodyguards pack a punch. If you leave him be, he just disappears and isn't mentioned in the end wrap up. Instead, he is off somewhere making videos for nobody.
8 How long has the famine been known about?
The entire plot of The Outer Worlds revolves around the idea that corporations are bad and do bad things. All that said though, exactly how long have they known about the famine? None of the plans the board is working on during the game to "deal" with the famine are designed to solve the famine.
The big freeze and diet toothpaste plans in the game both would not resolve in a solution to the food problem. It seems as though the board has known for a good chunk of time about this so why are there no plans to create food with nutrients? Wouldn't these capitalist corporations benefit from having their workers alive?
7 What happened to Earth?
One of the biggest "twists" in the game is the reveal that Earth has ceased communications with the Halycon colony. While it is inferred that Earth went quiet by the characters in the game, it is not clear exactly how they know that except that communications have stopped. It's possible that Earth just cut off communications or that Earth has collapsed, most likely due to greedy corporations, since they so willingly let them just run a colony that might be humanity's last hope of survival.
6 How many other colonies are there?
Halycon isn't the only colony but it is the furthest out from Earth. With Halycon nearly collapsing over the course of the game it begs the question; are the other colonies dealing with these issues? Have they collapsed for similar reasons? It poses some interesting questions about the overall structure of the universe. Do these other colonies also get run by corporations and are they the same corporations? The universe must have an interesting setup.
5 Why were a bunch of corporations put in charge?
As an American, this question is incredibly ironic. How did a bunch of corporations get put in charge of colonies from Earth? It's understandable that they would set up shop in new markets but it's ridiculous that they have a board that is the governing body.
Did the corporations pay for the colonies and fund the research? Did any Earth government have any influence or hand in the research and development of colonizing other planets?
4 How much Saltuna is being consumed?
There is a ton of Saltuna around The Outer Worlds. Like, way more than is reasonable. There are two facilities on two separate planets dedicated to Saltuna. The areas visited in the game feature very little production of exports except for this fish. Are the people in Halycon eating this much Saltuna, and does it have any nutritional value? The crops brought with to set up the colonies lost nutrients during the process and this has lead to famine so does eating Saltuna do anything productive for the human body? Probably not.
3 How much importing does Halycon do?
Not every area on every planet is available to explore during the course of The Outer Worlds, but there are not many visible factories where all of the guns and armor the corporations have that available for purchase is made. There are a ton of medical stuff and foods as well that exist. There is so much that it appears to be imported from somewhere else in the universe and in large quantities. It makes sense that stuff can be transported but if that's the case why can't the food with the necessary nutrients be brought in as well.
2 Why were all the smart people on one ship?
Whoever was organizing the colony ships must have had OCD or a wild sense of humor to put all of the smart people on a single ship named the "Hope." This is a video game and it's clearly an intended joke but in the context of the game's universe, why on Earth would all of them actually get loaded together... unless it's an evil plot to not have smart people in the colonies.
The fact that these people single-handedly saved the entire colony from extinction proves they should have been split up for logistics purposes.
1 What is wrong with Felix?
Seriously, what kind of person just sets up camp in front of a random ship in hopes to join their crew? That seems like an easy way to get murdered in this universe, and Felix just goes for it. He is also grossly unprepared when confronted by you on why you should let him on the crew. He also has an attitude, confronting you for even speaking to the board to have the option to take their path at the end of the game.