An enigmatic countdown appeared on Obsidian Entertainment’s website today. It’s the first thing visitors to the site see upon their arrival, and clicking past it leads to an in-universe ad for “Aunt Cleo’s” products featuring the tagline “better than nature. Alternatively, visitors can also run into an ad for “Spacer’s Choice” weapons. That’s it. There are no other hints as to what this could be at the moment. Those who want more concrete information are going to have to wait until the Game Awards on December 6th. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t make some educated guesses based on these ads.

Given the content and aesthetic of this artwork, its probably safe to say that this new game will follow a retro-futuristic theme. The styling and font-choices for these ads look like something straight out of the early 1900’s, but the content speaks of space exploration and even genetic engineering; one can’t sell yeast that’s “better than nature” without some genetic tampering, after all.

It can also be surmised that these technologies will be well-established rather than new and emerging. It generally takes awhile for cutting-edge technology to become widely accepted by the general populace. As such, the fact that products are advertised as “better than nature” and “spacer’s choice” in this world would have to indicate that they’ve been around long enough for people to be used to the underlying technologies.

If things like space travel and genetic engineering are indeed established technologies, then this could very well be a story of how it finally all goes wrong. Alternatively, maybe these wonders will help the protagonist(s) fend-off some sort of new threat from beyond the stars. The ship looks like something out of the old 1930’s serials after all, and those films featured all sorts of outlandish events, technologies, and creatures. Given that side arms are being openly advertised as a space travel necessity, it really wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

Unfortunately, none of this helps narrow-down the kind of game this could be. Obsidian Entertainment has produced games belonging to all manner of genres over the years, so there aren’t any particular tendencies to build theories on. Of course, all of this is mere supposition. We’re not going to get anything real to go off of until this project is finally revealed at the Game Awards next week.

- This article was updated on:November 28th, 2018