So, who exactly is waiting for the game? Who is it aimed at?
It's like back in PS3/360 era where a lot of FPS were trying to copy CoD because they want a share of that money, but didn't work because people that liked CoD wanted to play CoD, not a clone of it.
The people that like Skyrim will keep playing Skyrim.
Skyrim will be 10 years old by the time Avowed is released, and there hasn't been any game like Skyrim released in the meantime. If Obsidian can nail the Bethesda formula with Avowed it will be a massive hit.
lul.
There have been several games that tried to replicate Skyrim. But you must first understand what that means.
Skyrim is about two things: Hype and Size. The hype you can not replicate. The size you can.
The first big one that tried was Dragon age Inquisition.
The second Witcher 3.
The third was Kingdome come.
The fourth was Ass Creed: something
There are more, but not worth mentioning. All the games listed above were actually Skyrim+ in the sense that they tried to do more than just a sandbox with depthless quests. However, they did not have the most important aforementioned ingredient: hype.
This game has NO chance in hell to be a Skyrim II. At best it will compete with Elex 2, which will absolutely blow it out of the water.
Only an absolute Obsidian fanboy might imagine this even comparing commercially with Skyrim.
There are several factors that hinder it even before being released. It carries the terrible stench of the hollowborn world of PoE. It has none of the "legendary idiots who you think were responsible for that favourite game you liked decades ago" shiny tag. It is running on the fumes of a game that is still, despite a decade of time, going strong and will be unfavourably compared with it.
Obsidian should absolutely have used this chance to make a new world and sell it as a story-rich game. But they didn't. They are operating on too many incorrect assumptions.