Obsidian’s Outer Worlds has a melee weapon that literally rearranges faces

The epitome of ‘It’s not a bug, it’s a feature’

Obsidian Entertainment wasn’t about to sap the fun out of an Outer Worlds bug it found. Instead, the developer flipped the script and created a new melee weapon that prominently spotlights the bug’s unintended effects.

During its PAX East panel, Obsidian debuted the Mandibular Rearranger — a science melee weapon that’s “not quite normal.” When enemies (or innocent bystanders) are hit, their facial properties rearrange. Here’s an example of a pre-rearranged face:

And here’s the same unlucky bastard after he’s been thwomped with a spiky electric nightstick:

According to VG247, this stems from a bug that was adding random values to NPCs’ heads upon contact. Lead designer Charles Staples says “There was a bug where the NPC faces were getting pushed to the extremes in some of the builds, and it was making us laugh. We thought we should use this because it was making us laugh, and humor is a big part of this game.”

That’s the tale of how one of The Outer Worlds‘ most unique weapons was born. It was all a mistake.

The Outer Worlds’ best weapon started out as a bug — watch the new gameplay here [VG247]