The Outer Worlds is Obsidian's next RPG, and it's pretty much a given that the expectations are atmospherically high at this point. According to a recent interview, stifling them in some regards might be necessary, however.
According to Obsidian, players will not have the option to romance companions in The Outer Worlds, though they will be able to take more than one of them along for the ride at the same time.
Speaking with Game Informer while showcasing a gameplay demo, Obsidian revealed that there will be no option to romance companions in The Outer Worlds simply due to the fact that it is a massive amount of work for little payoff. The feature was discussed among Obsidian staff, but it was decided that it wasn't worth pursuing.
The Outer Worlds party system, mind, has been mentioned as a more robust feature than what we've seen in New Vegas, and will allow for multiple companion characters to join the players in active combat and exploration, which was the more sensible thing to focus development on.
One more thing that's only tangentially related to the given matter is that Game Watcher predicted that Obsidian would be working on The Outer Worlds in February 2018! Granted, everything aside from the title is wrong, but no one could've known that way back then. Intellectual property is hard.
