Pvt. Lee Flores and Comdt. Sanita pay a visit to the team behind The Outer Worlds!
My good friend, Lee, and I ventured on a trip to California for 10 days. We landed, completely wiped after a 14-hour flight with delays and irritably confused from the timezone shift of leaving Thursday morning and arriving Thursday morning... Before hopping into our rental car (that I weirdly named Lisbeth), I messaged our dear friend Tim, who wholeheartedly welcomed us to his home state. We’d been planning a trip to California for a while so we could visit him, check out his office at Obsidian Entertainment and meet Abby, his energetic blond Labrador that we often talked about and sent photos. I spent the next hour in the car screaming because I was driving on the other side of the road, but also excited that the day was finally here.
GX Australia 2017!
We first met Tim at GX Australia in 2016. I started working for Good Game as an assistant and my team decided to do a story on the first queer-oriented gaming convention in Australia. Coaxing Lee with the premise of meeting Tim Cain and Chris Avellone, we spent the day listening to various panels about the gaming industry and trying out a bunch of Aussie indies. I remember after lunch, I spotted Tim walking by himself and encouraged Lee to speak to him, but they were a little starstruck and lost for words. Understandable, I would be too! So I approached him first and mentioned that Lee was a huge fan of the Fallout series, especially 1 and 2, and I was here to admire his efforts. Lee eventually worked the confidence to speak up and began sputtering out nonsense, but that was the start of a uniquely beautiful friendship! A few days later, Tim came into the Good Game office to do an interview and he mentioned that he was genuinely happy to meet us. He said was about to retire, but after our encounter at GX Australia, he could make one more game. Sometimes I like to joke that Lee was the one that stopped him from retiring- ha!
My tired face with my namesake, Comdt. Sanita!
We kept in touch over email until we met up again at the second and last GX Australia in 2017- which GGSP also covered. At the time, Tim had banded together with old mate Leonard Boyarsky and was trucking along with this new game. They couldn’t say much, but we were happy to know that things were in motion. In late 2018, the game incognito was revealed as The Outer Worlds, a first-person science fiction action-adventure RPG set in a universe far from Earth. We screamed when Tim and Leonard walked onto the stage at the Game Awards, then we screamed again when the trailer was played to the entire world and the release date was slated for October 2019. It was a proud moment, as Lee and I had kept this a secret for almost four years and now it was something we could talk about with everyone. The icing on the cake? There were two characters with our names. All that we knew at the time was that Tim tested the game (numerous times) and admitted he had to pickpocket Lee’s character for resources. He later mentioned that I gave out a quest at some point. We couldn’t wait for October!
When we arrived in Anaheim, we had an awesome early lunch at Los Cotijas Taco Shop to pass the time. We also couldn’t check in until 3 pm, so we spent a good two hours laughing in the car from exhaustion and stupidity. Once we finally settled into our home away from home, Lee excitedly hopped onto Uber Eats in awe of the variety of options in comparison to our hometown. We munched away on Popeyes before crashing hard as soon as it hit nightfall.
All the way from The Groundbreaker to sunny California!
The next day, Tim asked us to come to Obsidian around 3ish, so I thought it would be a good idea to check out Balboa Pier & Beach first and become familiar with Californian driving and their drivers. It was about a 30-minute trip, plus extra with traffic, and parking was very easy to find. Keep in mind, we did go on a Friday morning in Winter and I can’t imagine what Summer is like!
Pvt. Lee Flores just hanging out at Obsidian Entertainment
It’s not the best choice, it’s Spacer’s Choice!
After lunch, we drove to Irvine and obviously got stuck in traffic then also got lost driving around the Spectrum Centre. Tim thought we were never going to make it at one point. We were greeted by an excited Bonnie, the amazing receptionist and our international pen pal. She often sends us stuff on behalf of Tim, and we send them back Australian treats as well. Tim met us at reception and we posed with the Spacer’s Choice helmet before he took us through the lobby and the hallways decorated with gaming memorabilia. We met other Obsidian employees along the way as we snapped pics of their developer walls and many props then nestled into the warmth of his office. Tim often mentions his chocolate queue (he has a chocolate blog if you didn’t know) so I added two Aussie-made chocolates for him: Malterers and Hey Tiger Co’s rum-soaked currants in milk chocolate. I originally had more to bring over, but the shipping was delayed due to the bushfires in NSW and VIC.
So I’ll have to send them later! ;)
The Outer Worlds awards wall
We also chatted with Leonard, who told us that Lee’s character was already named Flores during development. So when Tim asked for two characters to be named Lee and Sanita in the game, it was easy enough to change it to Pvt. Lee Flores. Also, since there was another character standing next to them, it was fitting to place Comdt. Sanita there. Hearing that little easter egg was hilarious, as Lee and I have been friends for a long time, we often joke how the universe has uncanny ways of making us stay friends and now our friendship is cemented in the digital realm.
Abby patiently waiting for a bite
Later in the evening, we left Obsidian and headed to Tim’s place to walk Abby, who has the energy of 4000 puppies, before heading off to dinner where we were given free waffle fries from Lazy Dog! Thankfully that wasn’t the last time we would see him, as we also planned to catch up for brunch on our last day in California. He kindly let us leave our luggage in his home and our flight wasn’t until 11 pm so we were just relieved to have somewhere to chill for a few hours. Though, when we said our goodbyes to him and Abby, Lee and I got emotional in the car. We both had that weird empty feeling in your heart and stomach. So I asked Lee if they could continue their Spotify playlist so we wouldn’t have to drive back to LAX quietly. Oddly enough, it had to be Hamilton’s “Take A Break” - a song that I frequently get emotional over - when Alexander Hamilton & Angelica Schuyler sing to each other “And there you are an ocean away / Do you have to be an ocean away…” and that got me right in the heart and gut!
Thank you Tim for making our trip a thousand times better than anyone could ask for!
2020 - Now with completely different styles and lengths of hair!