Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting

[La vie sexuelle]

Maybe Fergus thinks this way - people like Skyrim, but Skyrim is long. Most of customers collect games, not spend a lot time with. Solution? Short Skyrim, just like Outer Words were short New Vegas.

If they can sell you Outer Worlds for 69.99.. Why invest the time to make Skyrim for 69.99 ??

Isn't I said something similar?

It has nothing to do with Fergus thinking "Oh.. People only play skyrim for a few hours, maybe they won't notice"

It's more - "We failed to make Skyrim - fuck it ship anyways"

But I guess in a way yes.

No matter how big were their ambitions, everything ended in budget-Skyrim for less sophisticated players.

 

[Infinitron]

So they didn't learn from Pillars 2 and decided again to scrap the classic environments and go exotic with the weird world and biome.

Meanwhile Baldur's Gate 3 sells millions copies with the classic forests and meadows and so will do the Witcher 4 and Elder Scrolls 6.

But hey, let's find an original setting nobody cares, the one with alien vegetation and strange colors!

It's kind of obvious from its description in the Pillars of Eternity lorebook that The Living Lands was conceived intentionally for use in some future title. At the time I thought Josh Sawyer was thinking of putting some Icewind Dale tactical spinoff there where we would traverse through a bunch of wacky environments and fight all sorts of weird monsters.

But it'll probably have some classic forests and meadows biomes too.

 

[Roguey]

That's true, and for what it's worth Inxile at least made clear what game they are actually making. Seems like half of the reveals were cutscenes with no connection to gameplay or even genre.

Fargo did have to elaborate on twitter that it was a real RPG with full character creation and NPCs to talk to and a lot of reactivity since the trailer made it look like a Bioshock game.

Who are the gameplay designers on this game? Roguey enlighten me.
So that maybe it will single-handily save this game from the bottomless pit.

I don't know. Not Sawyer. https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...rnity-setting-coming-2024.134122/post-6867500 has a list of devs who were working on it in 2020.

Maxwell Matzenbacher - Senior Combat Designer

Martin Smith - Senior System Designer
Kevin M. Lee - Senior System Designer (I'm not completely sure on this one)
Kyle Koenig - System Designer

Of these guys, apparently Matzenbacher is still there, Smith and Lee are gone, Koenig is on Outer Worlds 2.

Jorge Salgado - Lead Area Designer (?)
Kayd Hendricks - Senior Area Designer
Seth May - Area Designer

Of these guys, Salagdo quit, Hendricks is apparently still there, and May quit in August 2021, worked for Blizzard for 8 months, and then came back to Avowed in March 2022 (?!) Must have really hated Blizzard culture if he came crawling back to the dumpsterfire.


Edit: Carter Thomas claims he's been working on Avowed since January 2017, over six years. https://www.linkedin.com/in/carter-thomas-84726757 So uh, they were planning this before Microsoft bought them?

 

[Delterius]

Fargo did have to elaborate on twitter that it was a real RPG with full character creation and NPCs to talk to and a lot of reactivity since the trailer made it look like a Bioshock game.

oh good to know. i even thought the game had a set protagonist.

 

[Infinitron]

Edit: Carter Thomas claims he's been working on Avowed since January 2017, over six years. https://www.linkedin.com/in/carter-thomas-84726757 So uh, they were planning this before Microsoft bought them?

More likely there's another project he's not listing there.

The Outer Worlds: https://www.mobygames.com/person/608394/carter-thomas/

 

[Zombra]

Ask yourself what sounds more exciting: a Bioshock Infinite clone or a medieval version of The Outer Worlds. Then it should be obvious which game deserves more hype.

I honestly have no idea which you're tying to say sounds good.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Is brennecke not in obsidian anymore?

 

[santino27]

Is brennecke not in obsidian anymore?

AFAIK, he is. He's the Director of Grounded.

 

[FreeKaner]

Is brennecke not in obsidian anymore?

AFAIK, he is. He's the Director of Grounded.

It makes sense he is on their best release.

 

[axedice]

Edit: Carter Thomas claims he's been working on Avowed since January 2017, over six years. https://www.linkedin.com/in/carter-thomas-84726757 So uh, they were planning this before Microsoft bought them?

IIRC, Avowed was the "secret project" they showcased to Microsoft in hopes of selling the company. The publishing deal for Outer Worlds was already spoken for at the time, so it must have been another game.

I also bet that what they marketed to MS back in 2018 is way better looking than the current state of Avowed, but MS seems to be beyond caring at this stage. They just want a steady stream of acceptable games being churned out every year.

 

[whydoibother]

MS seems to be beyond caring at this stage

Valve missed out on MINECRAFT, by being too exclusionary with their platform. Overcompensating, they started letting all sorts of trash on Steam.
Microsoft missed out on the most important console generation, the one recruiting people unto online services. Overcompensating, they started buying out studios and funding all sorts of projects to draw people in (that Red vampire game from Arkane being a recent expensive flop).

 

[Lord_Potato]

Awavered and clockwork imitation. That's what Obsidian and inXile are doing now, just releasing games into a hole left empty by Bethesda and 2K, as basically knockoffs.

To be fair, its in Obsidian's niche to do that: New Vegas and Neverwinter Nights 2 are mercenary sequels.

KOTOR2 too. Still, better than Bioware/Bethesda originals. Not sure about NVN though, didn't manage to complete original campaings in neither 1 or 2, but I heard good stuff about Mask of the Betrayer.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Ask yourself what sounds more exciting: a Bioshock Infinite clone or a medieval version of The Outer Worlds. Then it should be obvious which game deserves more hype.

They ended up with "medieval version of TOW" but their pitch was Skyrim clone, which shoulda been more appealing premise for MS; Skyrim was a much more successful game than Bloomshock. Also Obs had made high budget games before so it shoulda been more of a shot in the dark trusting InXile more but it seems to the case somehow.

Yes, but in the meantime Microsoft acquired Bethesda, so Skyrim Clone stopped being so appealing when you can have the real shit.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

I've been waking up every night with my pajama pants all sticky after dreaming about Avowed ever since the trailer was shown. Is this healthy?

 

[Lord_Potato]

So they didn't learn from Pillars 2 and decided again to scrap the classic environments and go exotic with the weird world and biome.

Meanwhile Baldur's Gate 3 sells millions copies with the classic forests and meadows and so will do the Witcher 4 and Elder Scrolls 6.

But hey, let's find an original setting nobody cares, the one with alien vegetation and strange colors!

Morrowind with its exotic setting sold pretty well (not Oblivion/Skyrim well, but probably on a level fully acceptable for AA studio like Obsidian). Skyrim wasn't also only about classic forests - with lots of map having arctic climate.

 

[Turn_BASED]

Monomyth is going to shit all over Avowed

 

[whydoibother]

People reposting my Codex posts on 4chan again.

 

[ferratilis]

Salagdo quit

Shame. He designed two of my favorite maps in both PoE games, Raedric's Hold and Fort Deadlight. Now his talent is wasted on Call of Duty.

 

[DeepOcean]

I'm not that concerned about a lower scale, never seen an open world game that kept consistent quality and good graphix is always an excuse for shit gameplay but the comparisons with Outer Worlds are concerning not in terms of size but in the assumption that the Outer Worlds is a good game.

If I said "You look like Outer Worlds, Greta.", she would probably say: "How dare you?!"

 

[Kem0sabe]

Indeed, any reference to Outer Worlds by Obsidian is a massive red flag. It's their worst rpg by a wide margin.

Obsidian being the grifters that they are, they sold Microsoft on next gen Skyrim, got bought out on that promise, will fail to deliver it in a spectacular way, because as soon as they started development they realized that they are not Bethesda.

 

[hayst]

Indeed, any reference to Outer Worlds by Obsidian is a massive red flag. It's their worst rpg by a wide margin.

Obsidian being the grifters that they are, they sold Microsoft on next gen Skyrim, got bought out on that promise, will fail to deliver it in a spectacular way, because as soon as they started development they realized that they are not Bethesda.

Microsoft is really building up their reputation as the bane of gaming again.

 

[0sacred]

Indeed, any reference to Outer Worlds by Obsidian is a massive red flag. It's their worst rpg by a wide margin.

Obsidian being the grifters that they are, they sold Microsoft on next gen Skyrim, got bought out on that promise, will fail to deliver it in a spectacular way, because as soon as they started development they realized that they are not Bethesda.

Microsoft is really building up their reputation as the bane of gaming again.

I call it corporate gaming. 9 to 5 mentality of churning out games, games as political vehicles and a woke/ESG mindset. It means only shit will come out of those studios.

 

[gabe1010]

I think they probably started out wanting to do a genuine open world comparable in scope to Skyrim, but they got a ways into the project, realized they were over their heads, and that they also didn't want to start over on their quest/LOD/optimization/level/lighting/AI etc...tech they built out for the semi-open hub world of separate levels in TOW, and just decided instead to make a medieval mod of TOW. Maybe after a reboot they decided that anyway.

It's a shame, but from a tech perspective it's understandable. There is a significant gulf between even quite large levels connected with loading screens, and a genuine open world that cleverly hides all the loading in and out in a seamless and performant way.

There are a few AA-AAA quality, Unreal engine, open world (and sometimes content-dense) Unreal Engine games that have released and done well:

Ark
Hogwarts Legacy
PUBG
Sea of Thieves
Days Gone
Conan Exiles
Fortnite

And more in development, so Unreal is not the limitation. I suspect those studios just had/have more experience with AAA, 3D, open world dev. Obsidian's claim to fame is mostly using either the Creation Engine to make what amounts to a mod of an existing game (ie FNV) where they could just focus on the writing + making a few new assets, or in using Unity for 2D/Isometric games (POE/Tyranny/Pentiment) where, again, the writing is front, and center and all the minutiae of 3D animations and graphics, and gameplay in first person up close, were not relevant. They did of course also make Grounded, but it seems like that game has a cartoony art style, restricted vistas, not that large or open of a world, is not an RPG, does not have complex combat, is AA at most in its production values (14 person team?), and was also not made by the same TOW/Avowed team anyway.

Honestly, it's a bit strange that this studio tried to make TOW, and that they are now trying to make a game like Avowed. It would have made more sense for Microsoft to have founded or purchased an existing studio with experience in AAA, 3D, First Person, Unreal, Open World Games, and just sent them a few of Obsidian's writers (they could have even still called it an Obsidian game for marketing purposes if they wanted to I guess?). There's not really that much overlap in skillset between Unity/C#/2D/writing/narrative focused games and Unreal/C++/3D action/combat focused games.

That is to say, TOW wasn't, and Avowed won't be, a genuine open world game, because Obsidian couldn't figure it out. They just aren't capable of making Skyrim.

Oh well, I guess the gap in the market for a non-TES Skyrim-like game remains empty.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Indeed, any reference to Outer Worlds by Obsidian is a massive red flag. It's their worst rpg by a wide margin.

Obsidian being the grifters that they are, they sold Microsoft on next gen Skyrim, got bought out on that promise, will fail to deliver it in a spectacular way, because as soon as they started development they realized that they are not Bethesda.

And then Microsoft will fire Feargus!

 

[Immortal]

Honestly, it's a bit strange that this studio tried to make TOW, and that they are now trying to make a game like Avowed. It would have made more sense for Microsoft to have founded or purchased an existing studio with experience in AAA, 3D, First Person, Unreal, Open World Games, and just sent them a few of Obsidian's writers (they could have even still called it an Obsidian game for marketing purposes if they wanted to I guess?). There's not really that much overlap in skillset between Unity/C#/2D/writing/narrative focused games and Unreal/C++/3D action/combat focused games.

Obsidian developed their own in house game engine, with it's own state machine, renderer, input system, etc, AFAIK.

It was called Onyx.. and it was only used for two games.. Stick of Truth and Dungeon Seige III

This company knows how to burn cash / waste velocity on worthless blackholes of nothing.. but unless they fired their entire engine development team I assume they have at least 2 or 3 people who can write optimized C++ code.

Alpha Protocol was also done in Unreal. (Unreal 3 though)