A new leaked detail discovered on a job listing suggests that a new game developed by Obsidian — specifically, The Outer Worlds 2, which was just “revealed” with a teaser trailer at E3 earlier this year — will be made on the latest version of Unreal Engine. The new tech in Unreal Engine 5 will allegedly make games less labor-intensive to develop, at least to some extent.
This new detail comes via a job listing on developer Obsidian’s website, which was spotted by an astute Twitter user. The listing is for a “Houdini Technical Artist,” with Houdini being an asset tool that can be used with the Unreal Engine. The reason we suspect this Technical Artist would be working primarily with Unreal 5 is that the job listing mentions, under the things that would be a plus to have: “An understanding of the material editor in Unreal Engine, as well as an understanding of new features coming in UE5.”
I’m with GamesRadar on this one: The most likely candidate out of the games Obsidian has in the pipeline to be developed on Unreal Engine 5 is Outer Worlds 2, as its other game known to be in development, Avowed, is most likely already decently far along in the process. It would make sense for Outer Worlds 2 to be the game that’s developed on UE5, which is currently in early access.
Of course, this could just be Obsidian looking for employees that have experience with an engine it plans to use in the future, not necessarily one it’s working with right at this moment. But still, assuming that it’s something that they’re using with a current game, the literature on UE5 says that it’s supposed to be designed to be developer-friendly. Also, one of the features says: “With Unreal Engine 5, you’ll have the tools and assets you need to create expansive worlds for your players to explore, using content that scales.” That sounds like a perfect fit for Outer Worlds 2.