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From the outside, Obsidian Entertainment seemed to have a great 2025, shipping no less than three games: Avowed, The Outer Worlds 2, and Grounded 2 in early access. But as sales of the first two apparently underwhelmed parent company Microsoft, the studio's boss thinks going so hard over such a short stretch of time wasn't the best decision.
Feargus Urquhart, CEO and co-founder of Obsidian, reflects on the year that was for Bloomberg. "They're not disasters. I'm not going to say this was a kick in the teeth," he states, referring to The Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed. "It was more like: 'That sucks. What are we learning?'"
Indeed, Grounded 2 provided a sharp contrast, immediately trouncing the predecessor's records on Steam and attracting three million players in its first two weeks. Those numbers compelled Obsidian to "think a lot about how much we put into the games, how much we spend on them, how long they take."
Being in development for six years each, fantasy adventure Avowed and spacefaring sci-fi jaunt The Outer Worlds 2 absorbed a lot of resources and attention, and Urquhart now wants to shave the time per game down to between three and four years. By the same token, he'd like to have a more spread out the company's output moving forward, conceding the strategy wasn't ideal.
"Spacing those releases helps the company manage its resources and not burn everybody out," Sawyer adds. "It's not good to release three games in the same year. It's the result of things going wrong."
Despite Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 being on opposing sides in terms of backdrop and aesthetic, there's a sense that the devs were competing with themselves, putting both out in the space of a year. That's before factoring in all the other games they're up against, including Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Borderlands 4, and Final Fantasy Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles.
The RPG market doesn't offer a lot of space right now, and these are projects that deserve proper time for you to soak into their narratives. Obsidian seems to be learning the right lessons from this situation, and with any luck, these games will find their audiences in due time.
