The Outer Worlds offers plenty of nuanced ways to approach situations, but regardless of how high you build your speech skills, most players are going to spend a lot of time killing NPCs. People have wondered since before launch whether it would be possible to complete a murder-free tour of the latest in Obsidian's tradition of RPG games, and now we've got definitive proof that it's been done.
Kyle Hinckley has finished a full pacifist run of The Outer Worlds on the game's hardest difficulty, a few years after he managed the same feat in Fallout 4. While a few players here and there say they've managed a successful kill-free playthrough, Hinckley has documented the whole process through a 50-part Let's Play series of The Outer Worlds.
"It's a masterpiece of in-game story writing," Hinckley tells Polygon, "and very accommodating for pacifists and genocidists alike." His build was focused on charisma so he could talk his way out of a lot of encounters, but it often came down to simply running away.
Not every quest can be finished murder-free, but you can absolutely make it through to the game's conclusion.
You can check out the start of the run above.
If you're looking for other sorts of player-driven challenges, The Outer Worlds speedrun is now down to under 15 minutes. Look forward to seeing how the pacifist speedrun shakes out in the future.