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OuterWorlds Online Kickstarter throws MMO, RTS, MOBA and RPG genres into a collider to see what happens

OuterWorlds Online

What happens when a couple of bored New Zealanders jack in their jobs to go an make an indie game? They become wildly ambitious and come up with the idea to create a sci-fi MMO that’s equal parts real-time strategy, online battle arena, and role-playing game. The result is the acroynm-packed headline you see above, but also a Kickstarter campaign that will help this teeny tiny Kiwi studio fund their dream. 

OuterWorlds Online takes the conventions of its influencial game genres and smashes them together at high speed, then blends them with a healthy dose of sci-fi staples: mechs, folding guns, and power armour. Oh, it then generates entire universes through the use of algorithms. Shiny. 

In the great tradition of sandbox space games, OuterWorlds will allow you to choose the way you conquer the galaxy, regardless if your preferred route to domination is through trade or war. Players have their own ship which can be piloted out to the inky black in search of new worlds and new materials to use in manufacturing. With a planet colonised, you can create an army and invade other players’ planets. An invading move becomes Dota in space, as your army works like creep whilst you take on enemy players in close combat and construct defences to protect your own base.

To say OuterWorlds is hugely ambitious is understatement then, especially considering the team’s size (lead programmer and designer Michael Lang works alongside four other developers, and only two of them are working on OuterWorlds full time) and the low, low budget of $35,000. What the final result will be is anyone’s guess, but if your guess is “gorram awesome” then you can throw some money at the project at the Kickstarter campaign page. You might need to call on some friends too; the project has just 14 days to go to gain funding, and just a smidgen has been raised so far.