One major Obsidian project is actually already accessible. Grounded went into early access in July 2020 , and Obsidian has been supporting it aggressively ever since. Grounded is a new take on a familiar premise: the player characters are children who’ve mysteriously been shrunken down, and now have to fight insects much larger than them to survive. Although Grounded looked strong from the beginning, Obsidian consistently comes up with good additions to the game, like new buildings for players to create and a koi pond offering a tense and beautiful new way to engage with the microscopic wo
When Obsidian returned to CRPGs with released like Pillars of Eternity and its sequel, the hope was likely to help revive and occupy a large portion of the CRPG market following the success of games like Wasteland 2 . Although the Pillars of Eternity games were critically successful, however, the studio was still struggling commercia
If Avowed Story Guide takes place during Woedica’s reign , the Engwithan machine controlling The Wheel will be in full effect. Pillars of Eternity players will have insight into many of the world’s phenomena that may not be discovered at the time of Avowed . If players have the opportunity to play as a Pale Elf, for example, this would be long before they learned that they were always reincarnated as a Pale
Now that it’s under Microsoft’s wing, it’s in a good window of time to experiment and get the most of Microsoft’s support. These years of trying new ideas will inform what Obsidian creates in the future and give Microsoft a better picture of what to expect out of this new working relations
Obsidian could just as easily come up with something even more surprising. A recent job listing from Obsidian revealed that it’s starting work on an unannounced project supposedly set in an open world, which could mean The Outer Worlds 2 , or it could mean something completely different. In fact, since Obsidian has been establishing quite a few new IPs in the form of Grounded and The Outer Worlds lately, it seems pretty likely that the studio has another big idea that it wants to expl
Obsidian’s status recently underwent a pretty major change. Although it was once an independent studio, Microsoft acquired it in 2018 , right in the middle of the development of The Outer Worlds. Obsidian hasn’t lost any momentum thanks to this change of ownership, though; if anything, it seems like Obsidian is ramping up development. Fans of the studio have a lot to look forward to over the next couple years, between Avowed and Grounded. Based on how many projects Obsidian is stacking up, it’s also possible that it’s planning even more new games with the help of its new parent comp
Grounded is Obsidian’s big potential release for 2021, but the studio’s next step is public too. In the same showcase that Grounded was revealed, Obsidian and Microsoft announced Avowed, a new RPG set in the Pillars of Eternity universe. Although Obsidian has said next to nothing about Avowed since then, knowing the setting of the game has gone a long way in helping fans get an image of the game. There’s tons of Pillars of Eternity lore already in place that’ll surely inform the game, no matter what the story is or how the gameplay differs from the games that precede
There are a few reasons why Obsidian’s situation may not be as bad as it sounds, however. Not only has Microsoft given the studio some much-needed stability, but The Outer Worlds ‘ commercial success exceeded the financial expectations of publisher Private Divisions . The Outer Worlds is not without its flaws, but with Bethesda otherwise dominating the first-person RPG market, it provided a respite from Bethesda’s two main franchises and the long wait for their next installments. While Obsidian’s CRPGs sometimes struggled commercially, the studio’s penchant for more traditional RPG design also stood out in contrast to games like Fallout 4 , which has often been described as a better shooter than an RPG, even by fans of the Fallout franch
Although Grounded is a solid game, people are excited for Avowed because it’s much closer to the genre of game that people know Obsidian is best at. Fallout: New Vegas is frequently held up as one of the best entries in the Fallout franchise, but the RPG wasn’t developed internally at Bethesda — Obsidian made it. That’s only the most famous of Obsidian’s credits, too. Microsoft is poised to talk a lot about its internally developed games over the summer, so it’s getting likelier and likelier that Avowed won’t be such a mystery for l
The risk is that by setting Avowed in an earlier period of Eora’s history, the game will resemble the more standard fantasy worlds of games like Skyrim rather than Pillars of Eternity ‘s more distinct setting. Fortunately, there are a few ways the Living Lands could still feel very different from the settings of other fantasy ga
Obsidian fans should get excited about the state of the studio. It’s determined to push out a lot of new projects, and experimental ones like that. The Outer Worlds ‘ incredible claim that no NPC has to live for players to beat the game proves that Obsidian wants to try bold new things. Obsidian’s future isn’t just packed with new games; it’s packed with new ideas that’ll help Obsidian grow as a stu