This has led some fans to worry that Obsidian may be biting off more than it can chew. While those fears are not unfounded given the company’s history, there is also some evidence to suggest that the studio may be in a stronger position to take on ambitious projects like Avowed and The Outer Worlds seq
Obsidian is currently developing two major first-person RPGs, Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 . When looked at alongside smaller projects like Grounded , it certainly seems like the studio is busier than ever bef
This is particularly noticeable in the second game, Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire . The sequel let players get behind the wheel of a galleon and fire cannons, though the first game also had a clear early-modern slant to its technology. In the original Pillars of Eternity , players witnessed the creation of a powerful weapon known as the Godhammer Bomb which combined magical know-how with the expertise of artillery specialists to make an explosive powerful enough to kill a god’s ava
For a game centered on the return of the dragons to Tamriel , Skyrim ‘s version of the creatures left much to be desired. For a start, Skyrim ‘s dragons weren’t very big. Aside from a few minor differences there wasn’t much aesthetic variation between the kinds of dragon players could encounter across Tamriel’s most northern province. There was also a big gap between the description of dragons in the game’s dialog and in the lore compared to their appearances and behavior in-g
For a time this made Obsidian’s position particularly precarious. Back in 2010 when Fallout: New Vegas got an 84 on Metacritic , Bethesda denied Obsidian a bonus contingent on the game receiving an 85 on the review aggregator. This led Obsidian CEO Francis Urquhart to announce the cancellation of a planned project codenamed “North Carolina.” While bigger studios like Bethesda can weather less successful releases like Fallout 76 , for a time it seemed like Obsidian was just one flop away from falling ap
The Outer Worlds saw Obsidian Entertainment dive into the world of first-person RPGs for the first time since Fallout: New Vegas released back in 2010. Many fans of the developer saw the release of a first-person satirical sci-fi game as a direct aim at Bethesda and Fallout ‘s spot in the RPG market. With Obsidian’s first-person fantasy game Avowed on the way, many now see the studio making a similar move to fulfill the desire Bethesda fans have for a new Elder Scrolls g
Todd Howard recently announced that The Elder Scrolls 6 is still “in the design phase” over three years after its initial reveal, with the studio focusing primarily on Starfield , its first new IP in over 25 years. It’s likely that, similar to Bethesda, most of Obsidian’s resources are currently focused on Avowed Character Builds . The Outer Worlds 2 ‘s trailer may have poked fun at games announced long before their development had begun in earnest, but it’s also likely a self-confessed culprit of exactly t
Although these features mostly add extra opportunities for immersion, sometimes the lack of them directly detracts from player immersion in the game. In Skyrim a player can kill an enemy then drag their corpse out of sight to prevent another enemy from going on the alert. This doesn’t come with any special animation like players will find in Dishonored or recent Far Cry games. In fact, the bodies in Skyrim will ragdoll, making them look more than a little silly. Nonetheless, there is an underlying logic, and players are given the ability to engage with their environment in less traditional ways than just combat or dialo
Avowed has the potential to both benefit from and fall victim to close comparisons with other fantasy games. When the trailer for Obsidian’s upcoming first-person RPG dropped, Bethesda fans were quick to notice surface-level similarities with The Elder Scrolls , with many hoping the game could fill the gap left by the long wait for The Elder Scrolls
In Pillars of Eternity , Woedica is the deposed queen of the gods. She is the goddess of justice, oaths, and rightful rule, with a strictly authoritarian streak. Like all the gods in Eora, she was actually created by the long-extinct Engwithan civilization from a single ideal using the souls of the Engwithan populat
Eora’s dragons also come to reflect the environment around them in a way that could inspire far more interesting lair encounters than the Word Wall dragons found in Skyrim . Their coloration and even their body structure morphs to reflect the environment in which they choose to live. The player character of Avowed could find themselves scaling a mountain, for example, before part of it appear to break away, revealing itself to be a recently-dormant dra
With Obsidian moving its CRPG Pillars of Eternity setting to a first-person RPG, it seems likely that the studio has mainstream accessibility in mind. This could make a non-restrictive class system the best option, giving players a bit of initial direction and a sense of specialization without cutting them off from changing that direction later in the g
