Obsidian Entertainment, the studio behind Avowed, The Outer Worlds, Pentiment, and Grounded, has reportedly been impacted by Xbox's latest round of layoffs.
Several Obsidian developers took to social media to share the news that they too had been let go as part of Xbox's brand "reset" that cut 1,600 jobs today and will ultimately result in 3,200 cut jobs by the end of fiscal year 2027, according to CEO Asha Sharma.
"I and a good number of very talented game devs were laid off by Obsidian as part of the Microsoft sacrificial rituals this morning," reads a Bluesky post from narrative designer Jay Turner, who has credits on Avowed as well as older BioWare classics like Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2. "If you or anyone you know is looking for a Senior Writer/ND with more than two decades' experience in titles like Dragon Age and Mass Effect, please let me know!"
Prior to Xbox's announcement, there were rumors and unconfirmed reports that Obsidian was actually one of several Xbox Game Studios negotiating with Microsoft to avoid full-on closure. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier debunked those rumors last week, but unfortunately it seems the beloved RPG studio wasn't able to escape Microsoft's wrath completely unscathed. The exact number of laid-off developers isn't clear, but reporting from Kotaku indicates that around 60-70 people, or roughly 25% of the studio, was cut.
Kate Dollarhyde, a narrative lead at Obsidian who's written for Avowed, Pentiment, The Outer Worlds, and Pillars of Eternity, said on Bluesky that "many excellent developers" at Obsidian lost their jobs today."
An animator at Obsidian said on Bluesky that they were among "dozens" of developers who had lost their jobs. "Incredibly privileged to have landed my dream job right after school. Obsidian was an amazing place to work," they said.
Up until now, Obsidian had been among the more resilient studios under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella, but as layoffs hit tentpole developers like Bethesda and Zenimax Online, it seems no one's safe right now.
