Outer Worlds 2 Is Ditching a Key Avowed Feature to Preserve Mystery

Obsidian has two big RPGs out in 2025, and they quietly made opposite choices on a very nerdy-but-useful feature. Avowed kicks things off early in the year with a slick in-dialogue glossary that makes Pillars of Eternity lore go down easy. The Outer Worlds 2? No glossary. Not a bug, not a cut corner. A choice.

First, the thing Avowed did so well

Avowed uses those highlight-and-explain terms right inside conversations. Tap a keyword, get a clean explanation of a person, place, faction, or concept, and keep playing without diving into a codex. Pillars of Eternity 2 did this too, and it worked. Which is why it stands out that The Outer Worlds 2 skips it entirely.

So why skip it in The Outer Worlds 2?

• Technical: Game director Brandon Adler says The Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed were built on completely different code bases. That alone makes feature parity less straightforward.
• Creative: Creative director Leonard Boyarsky pushed for a different vibe from the jump. He prefers letting players question what they hear rather than handing them an encyclopedia mid-dialogue. In his words:

"The thing for me, and I always try to push for this in the games I have a say in, is that I like unreliable narrators. I like the player having to decide what's true and what's not. If we start giving you glossaries or all the lore like it's coming from an encyclopedia, I think it robs the world of some of its mystery. I don't think that's always a bad thing, but there's a place for it."

Adler and Boyarsky even joked about having to remember early development calls, which tells you this wasn't a last-minute casualty. It was baked in early: different tech, different storytelling priorities.

Will you be lost without it?

Short answer: no. Even though it's a sequel, The Outer Worlds 2 is built so you don't need to have played the first game to follow along. There are nods to the old corporation wars that shaped new factions, but the plot doesn't demand homework. If you want extra context, sure, a glossary would help. But Boyarsky is pretty clear he likes the discovery aspect: the team plants information early that you later realize isn't the full picture. You're meant to ask, Do I actually believe what I'm being told? There isn't always a definitive answer, and that uncertainty is part of the engagement.

Where they said it, and when

Adler and Boyarsky talked through all this in a recent interview timed to the release of The Outer Worlds 2, as part of a week-long deep dive over at GamesRadar+.

My take: it's a very designer-brained choice that fits The Outer Worlds' whole who-can-you-trust tone. Still, a toggle for glossary pop-ups wouldn't kill the mystery for players who want it. Options are nice.