Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[TT1]

Some old news hitting the web

Sources: Fallout creator leading new Obsidian project

Obsidian isn't working on a sequel of Fallout: New Vegas, sources familiar with the matter affirm to TweakTown. The rumor was instigated by FragHero, and this marks the second time the report was debunked.

However, insider sources tell TweakTown that Obsidian may also be working on a secret new project with Fallout creator Tim Cain at the helm. Sources say that Obsidian is pushing towards establishing its own IPs rather than adaptations of publisher-owned franchises such as Fallout so the studio can have full creative control on the projects.

Ex-Diablo 3 developer Leonard Boyarsky may be working on the new Fallout-like project alongside Cain. Boyarsky left Blizzard back in April 2016 to work alongside Cain at Obsidian Entertainment on Tyranny. This is where I suspect the wires got crossed and confusion morphed the secret project into Fallout: New Vegas 2. The only Fallout game we should see at E3 2017 is Fallout 4 VR.

Apparently the favoritism towards Fallout: New Vegas over other Fallout games somewhat strained relations between Obsidian and Bethesda, and Obsidian narrowly missed out on New Vegas royalties by a single Metacritic point.

Obsidian has enjoyed acclaim and success with its original IPs such as Pillars of Eternity, and the studio has successfully raised $4.4 million in funding for a sequel to the beloved cRPG. Sources say Obsidian may reveal the new project at E3 in June.

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/57441/sources-fallout-creator-leading-new-obsidian-project/index.html

 

[Infinitron]

Sources say Obsidian may reveal the new project at E3 in June.

O rly? Feargus said it likely wouldn't be revealed until 2018. Might be old news recycled into clickbait.

 

[TT1]

Sources say Obsidian may reveal the new project at E3 in June.

O rly? Feargus said it likely wouldn't be revealed until 2018. Might be old news recycled into clickbait.

Yeah, its a very strange website, indeed. I found it by google alerts, so IDK...

 

[PlanHex]

That "source" sounds like some rando that just read the info in this thread and then speculated that it might be announced at E3, because that's a big trade expo thing where people announce things.

Where did Feargus say 2018 though?

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

If it is a new game from scratch then it will take a few years, so Feargus' claim that it would be revealed in 2018 is probably correct... he's also the CEO so he should know better than anyone, so who would dare argue against that? It would be nice if it were revealed tomorrow, but realistically there's still a lot of time to go yet, especially considering they're only now posting the job ads to work on this... assuming of course these job ads aren't for a different game?

If this game is on par with Fallout 4 or Skyrim in production then it would probably be on par in terms of development time, so something like 4 years I'd imagine, of course this was probably underway since sometime last year so you can probably shave a year off that; even more, if this game is using some already existent game engine and whatnot. Obsidian was able to make New Vegas in only 18 months by reusing a lot of FO3 assets, but even then corners were cut and it feels somewhat incomplete. Hopefully Tim and Leonard's project can avoid that incompleteness, but the only way it can is with an adequate development time. So as much as it sucks, we're just going to have to wait awhile.

 

[Quillon]

Its a wonder how a publisher trusted Obs to make an AAA RPG after so long time and in the current year But I don't imagine they gave Obs something like 4 years of dev time tho; its a privilege of successful sequels down the line, like Elder Scrolls & Fallout :D Also Tim's been talking about "smaller dev teams = much faster development" for years, so prolly they started small and have been expanding in the past months for this is an AAA game development in the current year

Where did Feargus say 2018 though?

Prolly in fig comments during deadfire campaign.

 

[Infinitron]

Where did Feargus say 2018 though?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10560

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

Its a wonder how a publisher trusted Obs to make an AAA RPG after so long time and in the current year

Because most of their games have been very well received - at least by fans, if not by the gaming media. New Vegas got shat on by the professional game reviewers when it came out, but if you look on steam the user reviews are a lot more positive than FO4's is. And Tim and Leonard were of course the ones who started the whole Fallout franchise to begin with, and now it is selling 20 million+ copies and bringing in a billion dollars. Obviously some competing AAA publisher wanted to replicate that success by getting in on the action, and who better than the two men who started it all to begin with?

$55 million is a lot of money, so if that is the budget this game has then I'm sure its not going to be a rush job. Leonard left Blizzard and joined Obsidian in July of last year, so I'd posit that was about the time when development on this project first began. Because what else has he done at Obsidian since then? They've both been quietly working on this for the past year, and there's still a year or two more to go on it no doubt.

 

[Infinitron]

$55 million is a lot of money, so if that is the budget this game has then I'm sure its not going to be a rush job.

? $55 million is the budget cited for a previously developed Obsidian game: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10578

 

[Alienman]

Is that the highest budget yet so far for Obsidian?

 

[Quillon]

Because most of their games have been very well received - at least by fans, if not by the gaming media. New Vegas got shat on by the professional game reviewers when it came out, but if you look on steam the user reviews are a lot more positive than FO4's is.

And Tim and Leonard were of course the ones who started the whole Fallout franchise to begin with, and now it is selling 20 million+ copies and bringing in a billion dollars. Obviously some competing AAA publisher wanted to replicate that success by getting in on the action, and who better than the two men who started it all to begin with?

They started it but they didn't make it into a 20 million selling mainstream franchise & Obs' last proper AAA rpg was New Vegas, since then a lot has changed; many-many important devs left & some joined but they haven't produced a game of same caliber. I wouldn't blame Obs for NV bugs, F3 was also buggy & NV was pretty much the same game technically but I'd blame Obs for the mess of development that is Alpha Protocol & judge them accordingly if I were a publisher. But that was long ago & apparently Obs has built trust again with smaller projects, maybe having some iconic devs(with 10+ years old buggy gems of games under their belt & have only the publishers to blame for their buggyness) also helped. So what I'm saying is its brave of the publisher to poor (prolly)$40M+ to any developer, especially to one without a recent AAA title.

I'm happy for Obs & excited about the game, Its good that the publisher is brave

 

[Quillon]

Citation for what? Moneh? I'm guesstimating. Feargus spoke about a lot higher numbers in GI show back in November 2015.

From 2:19:00 on:

Spoiler

$200M he says :D

 

[RepHope]

Wonder who the publisher is, it's multi platform right? So not Sony or MS, not EA or Activision because they've got zero interest in these types of games.

Do we know if it's a wholly new IP or a reimagining like Tyranny was of Stormlands?

 

[FreeKaner]

It's probably Bethesda.

 

[Sentinel]

I can't help but wonder if Obsidian was offered to do another Fallout game after 4 but had to refuse because they had no teams available.

 

[Infinitron]

Wonder who the publisher is, it's multi platform right? So not Sony or MS, not EA or Activision because they've got zero interest in these types of games.

I wouldn't assume it'll be a well-known publisher or somebody you've heard of. Think Starbreeze and System Shock 3.

 

[undecaf]

Is it possible that it's CDProject?

I know it's reading too much into it, but I just remembered Josh's random pose with the CDPR logo in some conference. Got me thinking. He seems to like to tweet implications.

 

[Quillon]

Is it possible that it's CDProject?

No way they'd pay for California developer labor...among other reasons.

And my prev guess, Squenix is killing IO Interactive atm...which is not a good sign for them to be the publisher

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

$55 million is a lot of money, so if that is the budget this game has then I'm sure its not going to be a rush job.

? $55 million is the budget cited for a previously developed Obsidian game: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10578

Well, maybe we don't know exactly what the budget for this game is yet, but we do know it is an "AAA" game, so it is a safe assumption the budget is in the 10s of millions. If it is less than that then it wouldn't qualify as "AAA".

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Wonder who the publisher is, it's multi platform right? So not Sony or MS, not EA or Activision because they've got zero interest in these types of games.

I wouldn't assume it'll be a well-known publisher or somebody you've heard of. Think Starbreeze and System Shock 3.

Focus Home Interactive maybe. Large enough to publish multiple mid-sized titles and small titles simultaneously, but not really a household name. They're working with Dontnod, Deck13 and Cyanide currently, Obsidian feels like the size of studio they could fund a game for.

I would have initially guessed Paradox, but that probably wouldn't fit if Obsidian is intent on keeping the IP. Although I maintain that PDox should definitely partner with them to produce a WoD game at some point.

 

[Fry]

Some Russkie money laundering front, no doubt.

 

[TT1]

Tomorrow is the first day of PDXCON. Maybe they'll hint something interesting.

 

[Infinitron]

Tomorrow is the first day of PDXCON. Maybe they'll hint something interesting.

If by "interesting" you mean Tyranny DLC.

 

[Morgoth]

It's gotta be a new White Wolf action-RPG.

 

[TT1]

If by "interesting" you mean Tyranny DLC.

hell yeah, please!