Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting - coming February 18th

[Gargaune]

January 2025 - after 20 amazing years at Obsidian, Josh Sawyer leaves the studio to pursue new challenges
January 2025 - Jason Schreier unveils troubling development details on Avowed, lack of team cohesion and poor leadership being cited as the main reasons. Microsoft assures players and the press that the studio is in great shape, confirms the game is on track for February release and that Obsidian is one of its most important studios
February 2025 - Avowed releases to mixed reception and poor performance, caused by strong competition from another RPG title released in the same time window
March 2025 - after much deliberation, Outer Worlds 2 is cancelled, followed by layoffs at Obsidian. Microsoft ensures players and the press that this will ensure the long-term success of the studio
May 2025 - Microsoft announces the closure of Obsidian Studios to make sure the business is healthy for the long-term. These decisions are never easy to make, Xbox Game Studios head Phil Spencer says, wishes all the Obsidian developers luck in their future endeavors
June 2025 - former Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart takes his new position as the head of Xbox Game Studios, replacing Phil Spencer. "My greatest triumph? I survived," Urquhart says.

Here's a brain teaser - what if Microsoft instead restructures them into Obsidian Entertainment... a division of inXile? Will Brian's cheeks hurt from all the grinning?

But this is all just theorycrafting, I don't think the game will flop in the end. Sure, it looks like runny shit, but the Obsidian brand's still got plenty of public pull and Microsoft's putting their backs into advertising, so I imagine the mass market will eat it up. The financial stakes are gonna be significantly lower than Failguard and Obsidian don't have the same sort of recent baggage, it's likely that Avoid 2 is... unavoidable.

 

[luj1]

Demiliches have their phylactery, Roguey has Avowed

 

[sosmoflux]

Looks better than expected tbh
Upgraded from 'skip' to' will look at the steam page when it comes out'

 

[Roguey]

Also for the love of god, when you have optional objectives which lead to optional stories, let the player figure it out on his own. That what differentiate games from retards and good games.

They've made it clear from the start this will be a game for retards.

 

[HoboForEternity]

The state of that fucking UI.
Looks like one of those joke photoshopped Ubisoft game UIs you see sometimes.

Avowed ui

Kcd 2 UI if obsidian designed them:

 

[Deadyawn]

 

[ERYFKRAD]

It? Pennywise

More like Poundfoolish amirite

 

[Beans00]

Also for the love of god, when you have optional objectives which lead to optional stories, let the player figure it out on his own. That what differentiate games from retards and good games.

They've made it clear from the start this will be a game for retards.

Ryzer should like it then, since he's algerian.

 

[DemonKing]

More than 30 minutes, but not more than 30 fps.

Starfield apparently runs at 60FPS now on Series X so don't give up hope!

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

why do game developers INSIST on trying to re-invent the wheel when it comes to wizard robes and fantasy clothes. It always ends up looking like a star trek outfit

Dragon's Dogma (Codex GotY 2016) managed quality reinventions of wizardly robes:

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Man the game looks really awful in the latest deep dive.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

This aged very well...

I don’t have an issue with how the game looks. Of the terrible triumvirate (shitguard, shitlines 2, and this), Avowed looks the best.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

The HUD leaves me speechless. I'm alternating between laughter and honest disbelief.

I mean... look at this shit. There's barely any empty space left. What the fuck are all those arrows? Who needs so many arrows?! WHY WOULD YOU KEEP YOUR QUEST OBJECTIVES ON THE LEFT WHEN THERE'S ALREADY ALL THIS SHIT CLUTTERING THE SCREEN???!!!! I don't know why this is bothering me so much...

Listen, for some gamers it may hard to figure out that huge glowing skeleton in center of the screen is a potential point of interest. So just in case they've added huge glowing arrows pointing at the huge glowing skeleton.

 

[Nano]

Why do every single one of these articles that praise the game sound like it was the journo's first RPG?

In Avowed, I'm being absolutely bombarded by a group of skeletons. Some fire arrows at me from their bows, while others slash and bash me with their swords and shields. When a priest enters the fray who continually heals every enemy I try to take out of the picture, I quickly realize I'm going to have to do some very quick crowd control to get out of this unscathed.

View attachment 54175

Why did you waste words on this? I'm convinced nobody reads these but LLMs.

Reads like an AI wrote this, but OTOH people these days are so blatant about bullshitting their way through their jobs that you never know.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Also, is it just me or with every showcase it looks more and more like Grounded in terms of art, the color and overall feel. It's like, Grounded become a huge hit at some point during development, so they're gonna make everything look similar? WTF.

 

[processdaemon]

It's minor relative to the other issues, but it made me laugh that your blade gets covered in blood from killing skeletons

 

[Igge]

The game looks like cheap indie shit, no way they can bump it up to not suck as much before Feb

 

[Thalstarion]

It's very unfortunate. I enjoyed the first Pillars of Eternity game. It had some cool story world building and horror elements. Heritage Hill was a great place to explore and I love RPG's that combine medieval aesthetics with the horror of the undead.

Everything I am seeing about Avowed makes it look heavily sanitised by comparison. I despise Marvel style humour and quips. There's nothing more immersion breaking to me than a character cracking jokes when the atmosphere would be better suited to being somber.

 

[ArchAngel]

The game looks like cheap indie shit, no way they can bump it up to not suck as much before Feb

You seem to be confused, who releases finished AAA or AA games nowadays?
Give it 1 year after release and it might be playable.

 

[Ryzer]

Also for the love of god, when you have optional objectives which lead to optional stories, let the player figure it out on his own. That what differentiate games from retards and good games.

They've made it clear from the start this will be a game for retards.

Ryzer should like it then, since he's algerian.

Tag is inaccurate, it should be "village idiot".

 

[Roguey]

Also, is it just me or with every showcase it looks more and more like Grounded in terms of art, the color and overall feel. It's like, Grounded become a huge hit at some point during development, so they're gonna make everything look similar? WTF.

It's how Deadfire would look if the camera was much closer https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...ting-coming-february-18th.134122/post-9022869

 

[Quillon]

Also, is it just me or with every showcase it looks more and more like Grounded in terms of art, the color and overall feel. It's like, Grounded become a huge hit at some point during development, so they're gonna make everything look similar? WTF.

It's how Deadfire would look if the camera was much closer https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...ting-coming-february-18th.134122/post-9022869

It still feels way different; they probably made some stuff bigger etc for them to stand out in ISO view which apparently doesn't translate well when transitioned to first person view 1 on 1 scale. It looks like they only touched aumauas(made them way smaller race) in terms of proportions with the perspective change.

 

[Ryzer]

Roguey, do you know the budget for this game? Genuinely curious about how much Microsoft poured into this.

 

[Roguey]

Roguey, do you know the budget for this game? Genuinely curious about how much Microsoft poured into this.

They're calling it an AA game but it has a core team of 100 and total development would be a little over 6 years. I'd say upwards of 60 million, twice as much as The Outer Worlds (which had a core team of 80 working for 3 years).

 

[luj1]

If one guy with a passion can produce Underrail then the budget doesn't matter really. You see all these million dollar budgets and big teams produce trash.