March 3, 2025
The Drama around Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed
Obsidian Entertainment, a gaming development studio known for narrative-heavy games like Fallout: New Vegas and Outer Worlds has released a new title that has the opportunity to bring their name back into the public eye and save them from gradual marginalization. Avowed is the newest first-person RPG from Obsidian Entertainment.
To understand the situation, let’s first put Avowed into context. Avowed is based in the world of Eora, an IP created for Obsidian’s real-time strategy series Pillars of Eternity. Pillars met its success because of its generous Kickstarter contributors allowing the continued development of the games beyond normal budget constraints caused by the falling out of a deal with Microsoft. Obsidian would get back on its feet later after finding a publisher in Private Division for the sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds, lauded by many as a spiritual successor to Fallout: New Vegas due to its narrative focus. All was not right, however, as The Outer Worlds had many criticisms, including its shorter-than-average story and the fact that it lacked game world outside of main story paths. There simply was not enough of a world for the player base of games like Pillars to become immersed, and the narrative focus bored the broader audience Obsidian had wished to attract to make up for this. Avowed comes at the tail end of this, starting development around when The Outer Worlds was released. The title is drawing inspiration from both major releases since the Studio’s financial crisis. Many believe it has the opportunity to make up for the shortcomings in Pillars’ less than stellar gameplay and graphics while keeping the identity players of the game had become attached to in the world of Eora.
All in all, Avowed has an opportunity to put Obsidian Entertainment back on the map for AAAgames. I personally am looking forward to seeing if the success of this title can fuel more titles for the series’ while still allowing their developers to avoid falling into a “use this IP or we’ll all go bankrupt” mindset. One of the greatest virtues of Obsidian Entertainment is its willingness to experiment, as any casual consumer of their games can attest, and losing that would be catastrophic when the current gamingindustry is so taken over by an overwhelming monotony of live service “free-to-plays.”
—Aiden Gervais