Latest news with #ObsidianEntertainment
The Verge
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
The Outer Worlds 2 will no longer be one of Microsoft's first $80 Xbox games
Microsoft-owned developer Obsidian Entertainment is announcing a price drop for the The Outer Worlds 2 today. The game was originally supposed to debut at $79.99 in October, but it's now going back to the regular $69.99 Xbox game price. Microsoft announced earlier this year that it would be raising the price of new Xbox first-party games from $69.99 to $79.99, alongside increases to its consoles and controllers. The move to suddenly drop the price of The Outer Worlds 2 is a clear sign that preorders haven't gone too well and that gamers are rejecting Microsoft's initial move to $79.99 Xbox games. If you've already purchased the game then refunds will be handled by the Microsoft Store, Steam, PlayStation store or wherever you preordered The Outer Worlds 2. It will be interesting to see whether Microsoft continues to push its new Xbox game pricing, or whether this is a sign that it's rethinking the increase to $79.99. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Tom Warren Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Microsoft Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Xbox
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Grounded 2 and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers lead the charge of new Xbox Game Pass titles
Microsoft has finally unveiled all the games that will come to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service across PC, console, and cloud throughout the rest of July. Between now and August 1, we can expect nine different games to be added to the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate catalog. It's shaping up to be a solid second half of the month for the service, as many games are launching on Game Pass the same day as their release on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. Additionally, three games will be leaving the service this month. The first-party headliner of that bunch is Grounded 2. Developed by Obsidian Entertainment, it's a survival game where players control shrunk-down kids trying to survive in a public park, fighting and even taming bugs along the way. It's technically in Game Preview, which is what Xbox calls early access, but it's available from day one to Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, like all first-party Xbox games. Games coming to Xbox Game Pass in July Grounded 2, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, and more While some enjoyable older games, such as High on Life and RoboCop: Rogue City, are coming to the service, this month is truly defined by its day-one additions that will be available to the subscribers of Games Pass' most expensive Ultimate tier. In addition to Grounded 2, the Soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, cycling game Wheel World, and cooperative survival game Abiotic Factor will all be added to Game Pass the same day they become available on consoles. You can see the full list of games coming to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate soon below, noting the day on which it'll be added to the catalog. High On Life - July 15 RoboCop: Rogue City - July 17 My Friendly Neighborhood - July 17 Back to the Dawn - July 18 Abiotic Factor - July 22 Wheel World - July 23 Wuchang: Fallen Feathers - July 24 Grounded 2 - July 29 Farming Simulator 25 - August 1 Games leaving Xbox Game Pass in July Say goodbye to Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess and more Every fifteen days or so, several games leave Xbox Game Pass as the deals keeping them on the service expire. Today, the following six games are leaving the service: Flock Mafia: Definitive Edition Magical Delicacy Tchia The Callisto Protocol The Case of the Golden Idol On July 31, three more games will be removed from the service. Those games are competitive shooter Gigantic: Rampage Edition, Capcom's underrated action-strategy game Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, and comedic indie game Turnip Boy Robs a Bank. While those losses are unfortunate, it has otherwise been a really solid month of new additions to Xbox Game Pass. Xbox Microsoft Corporation ENTERTAINMENT Price: Free 4.5 Download
Forbes
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition—Everything You Need To Know
Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition is out now for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch complete with all four campaigns and cross-platform multiplayer features. The four campaigns are the original storyline, Mask of the Betrayer, Storm of Zehir, and Mysteries of Westgate. You don't have to necessarily play them in that order, but it's definitely what I'd recommend. You can read my review here for my thoughts on the game as a whole, but I also wanted to publish a separate article answering a lot of the specific questions I've seen raised about this game. This new Enhanced Edition was developed and published by Aspyr, but the original game from 2006 was originally developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Atari exclusively on PC. Neverwinter Nights 2—What Is It And Why Care? 'Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition brings players back to the rich, story-driven world of Dungeons & Dragons with updated visuals, improved UI, and full mod support," Aspyr product manager Jordan Reese said in an email. Set in the iconic region around Neverwinter and the Sword Coast, it's a deep, choice-driven RPG that modern players—especially fans of Baldur's Gate 3—will love. Whether you're returning or diving in for the first time, this edition delivers classic D&D adventure reimagined for today.' Even though this is a numbered entry in a series, you don't need to play the original Neverwinter Nights at all previously if you don't want to. As I mentioned, there are four total campaigns included in Neverwinter Nights 2 and you can technically play them in any order, but I definitely recommend playing them in the order they're presented at the main menu. 'You don't have to start with the base game, but it can be a helpful introduction—especially for players new to the classic ruleset of D&D 3.5e,' Reese said. 'The base campaign gives you a solid grounding in the world and mechanics, and if you do complete it, you can carry your character into Mask of the Betrayer. That said, MotB also lets you create a new level 18 character, so you can jump right in if you prefer. Storm of Zehir and Mysteries of Westgate are standalone adventures with their own stories, so no prior progress is required—they're great options whether you're continuing your journey or looking for something fresh.' Neverwinter Nights 2—What's The D&D 3.5e Ruleset? Dungeons & Dragons has been around for many decades and directly influenced and laid the groundwork for, essentially, the entire RPG genre in video games. You can trace a direct line from D&D, to Ultima, and everything else that followed. As a result, it's seen many iterations and updates over those years. Right now, D&D 5e is the current version most people play and it's the version games like Baldur's Gate 3 are based on. But since Neverwinter Nights 2 is a nearly 20-year old game, that version didn't exist when it was released. Instead, NWN2 is based on D&D 3.5e. '5e is a ruleset that has been built upon the foundation set by 3.5e,' Reese said. 'Neverwinter Nights 2 is based on the 3.5e which, to some, may feel more complex however it translates so well into the classic D&D game where the computer handles all the behind the scenes math. Players will have a lot of freedom in character customization, classes, and overall experience. Players looking for a deep and original D&D experience will feel right at home in Neverwinter Nights 2. I deeply enjoy playing with the 3.5e ruleset.' Plus, as I mentioned in my review, the game has 'packages' you can use during character creation to align with a certain playstyle you want to follow. Additionally, you can even have the game recommend stat points and feats when leveling up for you and any of your companions. There's a lot to digest in this game, but it doesn't have to be overwhelming if you don't want it to be. Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition—What's New? As you can surmise from the title of the game, it's not a remake and not even really a remaster. This is, more or less, a cleaned up port with restored functionality, better performance, more platforms supported, and slightly improved textures. 'We've made several adjustments to gameplay including controller support, with a new controller specific UI, updates to the visuals with improved textures and assets,' Reese said. 'We're adding in cross-platform multiplayer, so players are able to play with friends regardless of the platform they own. We're also including all four enhanced campaigns, which includes the expansions, Mask of the Betrayer, Storm of Zehir, and Mysteries of Westgate. There are some additional minor updates being made and we'll leave those to players to uncover and experience on their own.' So if you were hoping for sweeping changes and updates to the game, this may leave you a little disappointed. But if you play primarily on Steam Deck, consoles, or had trouble getting the original game to run on your PC like a lot of folks, this is a very faithful and smooth way to play Neverwinter Nights 2. In fact, I'd say if you haven't played the game before, this is definitely the version to get regardless of platform since all of the existing mods and player-made campaigns still work on PC. 'Most of the console updates center around visual enhancements and playability,' Reese said. 'We've reworked menus, updated the controls scheme, and polished the experience so that players feel more comfortable navigating the world and game using a controller. Along with controller support we've targeted Verified status on Steam Deck. It comes down to personal preference how and when someone wants to play games. If that's on a console or on the go with something like the Steam Deck, we want the player to be able to make that choice.' Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition—Physical Release? If you've followed my work here on Forbes, on social media, or anything I've done over the years then you probably know I'm a huge proponent of physical media, specifically in the game industry. I buy physically almost always when given the chance and have a large collection of nearly 800 games stretching back to Atari consoles, NES, Genesis, and far beyond. Naturally, I was hoping for a physical release of Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition, but it doesn't seem like that was the plan for initial release—but we don't need to rule it out entirely just yet. 'Physical is something we're always thinking about,' Reese said. 'There is a certain type of value that comes from having the physical version, plus it opens the doors to do all kind of cool things with collector's editions. I can't confirm anything right now but know it's something we think about with all of our titles.' Fingers crossed. Since I received a PS5 code for the review, I'd immediately buy a physical edition on Switch to play on Switch 2. I'd love to see cross-save support added at some point in the future as well. 'If you have experience playing any D&D based game, or D&D adjacent game, you'll pick up pretty quickly on how the mechanics work,' Reese said. "Much like Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and the Pillars of Eternity games, this game is a real time combat system simulating turn based gameplay. New players that are inexperienced with D&D will find that the learning curve isn't so steep that they will have a bad time. It's an exceptional game that veterans of the D&D world, and newcomers, can enjoy. 'Take your time, get into the story and the world, experiment with different characters, races, and classes, and above all else—have fun. My personal favorite is a lawful good Paladin on a traditional hero's journey smiting evil from the land. That might be a good place for people to start.' Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition is available now from Aspyr for PC, Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Forbes
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition PS5 Review: A Classic D&D RPG
Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition is far from being classified as a remake and I wouldn't even call it a remaster, either. This is functionally the same game as it already existed, but it's optimized to run better on modern hardware along with some bug fixes and perhaps upgrades to things like enhanced resolution support. Fundamentally, what this does is bring one of PC gaming's most beloved classic RPGs to consoles (and modern machines) for the very first time in a way that's highly enjoyable and that's worth commending in and of itself. I was only given access to the PS5 version of the game for this coverage and I didn't have anyone to test multiplayer with, but fortunately the single-player experience of the four included campaigns is pretty fantastic from what I've played so far. Neverwinter Nights 2 was originally developed by Obsidian Entertainment, a studio that somehow found itself making sequels to other studio's RPGs fairly often for several years. Between this game, Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout: New Vegas, and Dungeon Siege III it's remarkable how adept they became at adopting an existing game world and just running with it. This Enhanced Edition is in the hands on Aspyr, the same folks behind the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remaster, as well as the Tomb Raider 1-3 Remaster collection, and many others including multiple Star Wars games. Let me be perfectly clear up front that prior to playing the game for this coverage, I had not played it before. Well, not really. I tried to once upon a time back in college over a decade ago, but it didn't really run very well on my PC at the time so I shelved it and never tried again. I think something similar happened to a lot of people, especially after the original game was removed from Steam. All these years later, I can happily report that not only does it run well on PS5 via the new Enhanced Edition, but the story, characters, and gameplay are as rich and engaging as ever. I did not have the bandwidth to complete any of the campaigns during my time with the game, but I tried them all out for a bit and fully intend on continuing to adventure my way through each story. Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition While all four campaigns are technically standalone endeavors, I'd highly recommend playing them in the order you see them listed in the main menu. Start with the original main campaign (The Wailing Death) storyline because it's designed to be your introduction to the game and its systems as it will take you from a brand-new character all the way up to around level 20—which is basically endgame in Dungeons & Dragons terms. After that, you should go into Mask of the Betrayer, which is an excellent story in and of itself but it does seem to function best as a sort of epilogue to the main campaign. To this day, that storyline is still regarded as one of the best of any RPG. After that, the final two (Storm of Zehir and Mysteries of Westgate) are pretty much entirely separate so the order doesn't matter as much. If you're completely unfamiliar with Neverwinter Nights 2, something of note to be aware of is that the game's gameplay and ruleset are based on Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition. This is important to keep in mind because it's quite different from 5th edition, which is what Baldur's Gate 3 is based on. Without getting into the nitty gritty details too much, 3.5 is a more complex system with a lot more nuance and detailed rules for situations, whereas 5 is generally a more accessible and streamlined format. That being said, they've done a nice job of easing you into things with Neverwinter Nights 2. For me personally, I started playing tabletop D&D with 4th edition, but have since moved on to 5th edition which is what I'm most familiar with. However, over the years, I've played a wide assortment of D&D video games ranging from Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, to Eye of the Beholder, Warriors of the Eternal Sun, Pool of Radiance, and even Dungeons & Dragons Online. All that's to say I know my halflings from my gnomes. Despite my lack of direct knowledge of 3.5 as it exists in video game form, I didn't find the game that overwhelming. During character creation, there are some great options to select 'packages' for your chosen class, which streamlines some of the options so you can neatly fit into a bucket that sounds appealing for how you want to play your character. Since this is a relatively crunchy RPG full of stats and character sheets, it's important to think in terms of roleplaying and possibilities not just within combat, but in the larger world as a whole. For example, even just in the first few hours my Paladin was able to persuade and diplomatic resolve multiple conversations and even violent encounters. There were several instances in which I had to leave a locked door or locked chest behind before I had a reliable rogue in my party. Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition For the main campaign, it starts off pretty slow. I really enjoyed the small town harvest festival event that teaches you how to play the game and introduces a bunch of side characters, but in general the first several hours move quite slow. Once you actually reach Neverwinter and get into the thick of things more it picks up quite a bit, so don't get put off if you feel like things aren't moving very quickly at first. In many ways, the world feels very alive and reactive here. Perhaps it's my nostalgia for the era and willingness to look past shortcomings in favor of ambitious design, but something about the way this game presents itself is just so charming and appealing on a core level. Maybe it's just the strength of the source material. From what I've seen so far, the characters and writing are phenomenal. Despite playing this game nearly two decades late, I really feel like some of these companions are going to stick with me for quite a while. They feel so multi-faceted and interesting in ways that characters rarely do in modern games and I think it's a testament to the quality of Obsidian's writing with this game. They've continued that with games like Pentiment, Avowed, The Outer Worlds, and more. As a package, Neverwinter Nights 2 is dense and cumbersome. Once I had the hang of the basics I wasn't overwhelmed, but I did find some aspects of playing with a controller a bit wonky. For example, it seems like it takes more button presses than it should to navigate some of the manus. A lot of the sifting involves pressing triggers to cycle through sub-menus within a specific screen and toggling between characters within those sub-menus. It's not too different from something like Baldur's Gate 3, admittedly, and they've done a good job of making these menus feel like they were definitely designed for controller and console players. But I can't help but feel like there could have been some better ways to approach some of it. It's tough to remember which hot keys and menus have the right sub-menu you're looking for, but the onscreen tool tips fortunately do a nice job of guiding you when you get lost in the weeds of it all. Neverwinter Nights 2 utilizes a real-time-with-pause combat system, very similar to Pillars of Eternity, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and the original Neverwinter Nights. What this means is that while you're in combat everything is happening in real-time under the hood. Dices are being rolled and stat modifiers are being applied, you just don't necessarily see the math happening on a table, you just see the outcomes. But at any time you can pause the game by pressing the touchpad on PS5, to more specifically issue commands to individual characters. This is most important for large battles and boss battles in which you want to orchestrate specific chains of actions or manage crows of smaller enemies throughout the battlefield. It doesn't take long to get the hang of things and for fans of the actual tabletop game, it can be really satisfying to position your characters, queue up abilities, and then just watch it all play out like a ballet of blood and battle. Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Unsurprisingly, I found the combat in Neverwinter Nights 2 to be absolutely captivating. Each class is so varied and unique and the steady flow of quality loot and interesting areas to explore kept me highly engaged. You can roll through rounds in combat fast enough that you don't ever really run into that tedious lull found in some other similar games. What's nifty about Neverwinter Nights 2 is that there are two wildly different camera perspectives. The default, at least on console, was a more character-focused third-person camera angle. This looks and feels like something you might see in a Dragon Age game, for example, and puts you right up in the middle of the action all the time. I actually played this way most of the time since I could still zoom in and out using the d-pad. The other camera mode, which I imagine will be more intuitive and useful for PC players using a mouse, is an isometric tactical camera angle. You can select characters, click where you want them to move, and more readily access hot bars and things like that during gameplay. It just didn't feel right on a controller for me, but it's great they included this as an option. I will say that a few times my characters would get stuck on some of the environmental geometry, like branches and twigs on the ground, and the only way to move them off would be to switch to the tactical camera and click for them to move. The third-person camera wouldn't let me move at all. Other than that little quirk and a couple of conversations that either didn't show my character model at all or positioned some NPCs in front of the speaking character inexplicably, it actually didn't have any performance or stability problems. It never crashed on my PS5 Pro even once. Despite the fact that the game releases today at the same time as this review embargo, there are still lots of open questions, such as what exactly is enhanced in this Enhanced Edition and how does the mod support work for the PC version. Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Revives an RPG Classic Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition is an excellent game for fans of classical high-fantasy D&D. While it's absolutely a product of its time and is showing its age in a lot of ways, the folks at Aspyr did an admirable job of updating things like the UI to work well on a controller for consoles. That being said, you can ultimately still tell this is a nearly 20-year old PC RPG at its core. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is worth keeping in mind. The quality of the four campaigns varies a bit with the core storyline and Mask of the Betrayer most worthy of your time, while the other two are more traditional extra side stories worth looking at if you're still hungry for more. Baldur's Gate 3 fans will likely find plenty to love here as long as they approach it with an open-mind and willingness to unlearn or re-learn things they thought they knew from D&D 5e since Neverwinter Nights 2 is actually based on D&D 3.5e. All in all, if you love games with absolutely deep character customization and roleplaying features, tactical combat systems, vast worlds, and interesting characters to meet, then Neverwinter Nights 2 is absolutely a game for you. There's plenty of content to keep you busy for well over 100 hours—and that's before you start replaying campaigns and trying out new build options. Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Platform: PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PC Developer: Aspyr (Originally Obsidian Entertainment) Publisher: Aspyr (Originally Atari) Release Date: July 15th, 2025 Price: $29.99 Score: 8/10 Disclosure: A representative on behalf of Aspyr sent me a download code for an NA digital copy of Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition on PlayStation 5 for the purposes of this review.
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Obsidian became Xbox's most prolific studio: "There's not a lot of studios at Microsoft that have an entire external developer making the whole game for them"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. 2025 is the year of Obsidian Entertainment. Formed 22 years ago, the legendary RPG maker responsible for Pillars of Eternity, Fallout: New Vegas, Alpha Protocol and countless other video games is on something of a hot streak. Microsoft Gaming purchased Obsidian in 2018, folding the team into the Xbox Game Studios group. Since then it has wrapped production of The Outer Worlds; released Grounded, supporting it through years of early access and regular content drops; released Pentiment in 2022, and Avowed in 2025 following a short delay; and managed to bring Grounded and Pentiment to PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch as part of Microsoft's multiplatform initiative. If that weren't enough, it also has The Outer Worlds 2 and Grounded 2 set to release this year. It's a lot, particularly for a first-party studio operating within the Xbox ecosystem. I was keen to understand how the studio has managed this flood of new releases, and thankfully the teams at Obsidian Entertainment were only too happy to answer. When Xbox revealed Grounded 2 at the Xbox Showcase, it announced that "Obsidian and Eidos Montréal have joined forces to bring you the next chapter with even more depth, danger, and discovery to experience." The way development responsibilities have been split between the two award-winning teams says a lot about the flexibility Obsidian has been afforded by Xbox Game Studios. "Grounded 2 is actually a good example of our growth as a developer. We could not do what we're doing right now if we didn't have great development partners and co-dev partners," says Feargus Urquhart, studio head and CEO at Obsidian. "That's one of the big transitions for us" Urquhart says that it has long been his ambition for Obsidian to scale beyond the boundaries of a traditional studio, simply shifting from one project to the next. "With Pillars of Eternity 2, we signed up a publisher late because we really wanted to start publishing games ourselves. We didn't really have the people internally, so we hired some people in but it didn't really work out. So unlike CD Projekt RED, BioWare, and others who were on the cusp of becoming publishers we weren't getting there." "We wound up talking to Eidos about some other stuff and it turned out that they had a small team who absolutely loved Grounded" Chris Parker, game director "This isn't me saying that Microsoft is allowing us to become a publisher," he laughs. "It's more that the acquisition has allowed us to become a more multi-faceted developer, which is what I've always wanted to do." This is a key component behind how Obsidian has been able to scale so quickly, and maintain such a rapid-fire release schedule. Urquhart adds: "It's allowed us to sign up external teams. There's not a lot of studios at Microsoft that have an entire external developer making the whole game for them." Grounded 2 has been in development for just under two years, meaning it entered production around a year after the release of Grounded 1.0 and a year before the survival-adventure made its way to PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. Around this same time, Obsidian was juggling development of Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2. Grounded attracted over 25 million players into the backyard, it's popular and there were demands for more; but how could Obsidian have possibly squeezed in a sequel? "The Grounded team was relatively small, it maxed out in the 20s," says Chris Parker, Obsidian co-founder and Grounded 2 game director. "When we started thinking about doing Grounded 2 it was fortuitous how it worked out, actually, because we wound up talking to Eidos about some other stuff and it turned out that they had a small team who absolutely loved Grounded. They were almost pitching us on the sequel." From there a "significant team up at Eidos" and a "relatively large group at Obsidian" came together to push Grounded 2 through production. Grounded 1's game director Adam Brennecke, its lead programmer Roby Atadero, art director Kazunori Aruga, along with six other principal leads and a small internal steering group at Obsidian joined Parker to collaborate closely with Eidos. "We are constantly at each other's offices. We're talking about stuff daily. It's a really healthy relationship. And because they actually love the game at Eidos, it's not like this dispassionate contractor that we've hired. They are bringing all their own stuff to the table," says Parker. Grounded 2 producer Miles Winzeler adds: "Obsidian and Eidos have similar design goals as studios. We mesh really well together. It's also the difference between the two of them that's been a big strength. It means Grounded 2 will feel like its own piece, as they are able to flex what they're best at, too." Urquhart uses Voltron as his point of reference to describe how external teams join together with Obsidian to create something bigger, more powerful. He tells me that before the 2018 acquisition into the Xbox Game Studios group, Obsidian largely handled work in-house outside of VO, QA, and localization departments. But support from Xbox has allowed the studio to expand here in all areas of design, and reconnect with friends and former developers from across the years. Obsidian is collaborating with Aspiring Unicorn, UI and UX experts working across The Outer Worlds 2. There's a relationship with Digimancy Entertainment, founded by Obsidian veteran George Ziets, and with Beamdog – co-founded by Trent Oster of BioWare, who Urquhart first encountered while working on Shattered Steel at Interplay two decades ago. Urquhart is quick to shout about these relationships (and plenty more of them). Both as an example of the ensuring legacy of Obsidian and how the studio is able to grow the scope of its projects without growing the studio too quickly. "The idea is not to be doing way more than what we're doing right now" Feargus Urquhart, studio head and CEO Still, I wonder whether an increasing reliance on co-dev and outsourcing risks diminishing the identity of an Obsidian game. Urquhart says it's better to think of it as augmenting. With the right people in place, scaling this way is only to the benefit of the games coming out of the studio. "The person in charge of the day-to-day collaboration with Eidos Montreal is Chris Parker, right. He was the producer on Baldur's Gate 2 and he has this length of experience working with external developers. It comes back to this question of, 'What are our strengths?' 'Do we have the people who do these things?'" "The idea is not to be doing way more than what we're doing right now, but I think we've hit a really good size and a really good amount of things we can do. I can still be involved in all of it too, and not lose my mind – at least no more than I already have," he laughs. "You know, Obsidian was founded by three producers, a designer, and a programmer. The intent was always to do this with our projects. Back then it was a little bit more for survival, now it's because I think it makes us better game makers." Working with external development partners is one piece of the puzzle, but not the entire picture. One way Obsidian is able to unleash Avowed, Grounded 2, and The Outer Worlds 2 within a single year is partly because of its ethos as a group: "Perfect is the enemy of the good," says Urquhart. "Our job is to make amazing games, not perfect games." In a world where six-to-eight years is threatening to become the standard timeframe for AAA, first-party game development, seeing Obsidian become so prolific has been great to watch from a distance. Taken at an individual level, the studio is delivering exceptionally fun titles that share a consistent quality – they aren't necessarily changing the video game industry in a fundamental way, but then I suspect that they aren't supposed to. "We've made sure to never lose the muscle memory of having multiple teams, and of having the teams build off of each other" Justin Britch, executive producer "There was a big push for a long time of everything needing to be bigger, better, and perfect, and 'ahhhh'," screams Urquhart, before chuckling: "hey, you know what 'ahhhh' means." What he's saying here is that this need for first-party studios to be operating on a level above the rest of the industry "can lead to trying to move on too many fronts at once." He adds: "That's the biggest thing for us, identifying what we are good at, what we can do with the time that we have, and then just focus on the content that we're creating – because that's what the player actually plays!" The sentiment that "our job is to make amazing games, not perfect games" feels like a healthy outlook to have. The industry is in a bit of a difficult position right now. The cost of video game development is spiralling, with some of that cost starting to come back on the consumer – The Outer Worlds 2 will be Xbox's first game priced at $80. The playerbase is increasing, albeit focused on a smaller selection of titles thanks in no small part to the live-service explosion in 2017. And it seems like we're barely able to go a month without some prominent, legendary development studio suffering layoffs (something the Xbox Game Studios group hasn't been immune to either). Is there not a pressure to deliver "perfect" in this environment? "Nobody at Xbox is putting that pressure on us," says Marcus Morgan, executive producer of Grounded 2. "But it's there in the back of our minds, right? It's something we think about, and something we talked a lot about early on. There were even some moments of like, teenage years, growing through becoming a first-party studio where we wrestled with that pressure." "In one of the first meetings that we had with [Matt Booty, president of game content and studios] and the rest of Xbox after the acquisition, they asked us to continue being true to who we are and they have given us the space to do that. We've made sure to never lose the muscle memory of having multiple teams, and of having the teams build off of each other. We haven't lost that rhythm post-acquisition," adds Justin Britch, executive producer of The Outer Worlds 2. "Every studio has its own role to play in the industry, and its own role to play within the organization that it's in… We want to make games that we're really proud of and get them out into the world. That's our role, and we've been really fortunate to be able to do that within the Xbox ecosystem." Both Morgan and Britch point to Obsidian operating with multiple teams shifting between projects as a point of pride. "We've always been a multi-project studio," says Morgan. "We always have multiple teams working on multiple games, which is somewhat unique – especially in the first-party ecosystem." This way of operating, Britch tells me, intersects directly with another focus for Obsidian: "We have a principal at the studio about building on past success. Some of the studios who I really admire have this iterative approach and keep building on a formula. We try to do the same. We try to keep pushing things forward while recognizing what really worked well; we don't need to reinvent the things that really matter." "That's a component of how we're able to ship multiple games and keep shipping them, because we're so focused on building on our past successes, making them better while making sure that we aren't throwing everything out and starting over every time, because that can make it take a really long time to bring out new games," he adds. "We're just becoming what we've always wanted to become" Feargus Urquhart, studio head and CEO at Obsidian "Another major thing is that you learn when you ship," says Urquhart, speaking to Obsidian's dedication to shorter development cycles. "Not only do you learn because you actually finish a project, but you learn because your game goes out there and people tell you what they really think of it. The longer you go between those cycles, the less you're learning." At this point Urquhart points to Baldur's Gate 3 as an example, something that happens countless times during our conversation – clearly the Larian RPG is on the veteran RPG maker's mind. "The only reason Baldur's Gate 3 can exist is because Divinity Original Sin 2 existed. If Larian took 10 years to develop Original Sin and then 10 years to develop Original Sin 2, then there's no Baldur's gate 3. That's what's super important to me. The idea is that when we ship, we learn; the pursuit of perfection leads to not shipping." A phrase that Urquhart likes to wheel out is "constraints breed creativity." What's interesting here is that, for Obsidian, the constraints seem self-imposed. There's a strong impulse to continue iterating on its foundations, rather than rip them up to try and build something more audacious. A desire to work with external developers and partners rather than grow too quickly, a mind-share of expertise internally and across the industry. And it's in the combination of all of these things which has allowed Obsidian to become the most prolific studio within the Xbox Game Studios group. "Remember, even the work that's done outside of Obsidian comes back inside the building, and that builds on what we're doing" says Urquhart. "There's technology from Grounded that's in Avowed, technology from Avowed that's in Grounded 2, and so on. I'm super thankful that Microsoft has allowed us to build out this group of developers and support networks, and that it just lets us be… Obsidian. We're just becoming what we've always wanted to become, which is this more well-rounded group who is able to take on a lot more of the stuff that we've always wanted to do." The upcoming Xbox Series X games lineup includes Grounded 2, which launches into Game Preview, Game Pass, and Steam Early Access on July 29, 2025. It is followed by upcoming Obsidian game The Outer Worlds 2 on October 29, 2025 where it will release for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Game Pass. Avowed launched on PC and Xbox Series X on February 13, 2025. Exclusive | Inside Xbox Play Anywhere: As Xbox Play Anywhere takes center stage, the future of Xbox has never been clearer. To learn more about the initiative, we spoke to leaders from across Xbox Game Studios: "Our plan is to keep making amazing games and have them reach as many players as we can"Gears of War: Reloaded campaign preview: If playing this classic campaign co-op with one player on a PS5 and the other on an Xbox Series X is wrong, then we don't want to be right. This is shaping up to be the terrific and loving re-release that builds on the success of Gears' 2015 Ultimate of War: Reloaded multiplayer preview: Both the best and worst thing we can say about returning to the multiplayer mode that once defined our lives is – it's still Gears of War. Chunky, uneven, and punishing. It's a tricky proposition in 2025, but we're so glad Gears is back in Gaiden 4 hands-on preview: It's clear from slicing and dicing waves of enemies that, yes, the joys of the best 3D games in this series are back (and yes, we did manage to beat the boss fight). Talking to the devs, we reflect on the evolution of the action game genre over the last Gaiden 4 interview: Team Ninja and PlatinumGames say that "Soulslikes have kind of taken center stage" since the last installment to the Ninja Gaiden series, but the devs promise that "we are going against the trend in that way" with the upcoming 2025 release of Ninja Gaiden 2 hands-on preview: 30 minutes with a survival game like Grounded 2 is just scratching the surface, but we are already hooked. Talking with the devs, they explain why now was the right time to jump into a full, numbered Grounded 2 an Xbox exclusive? Obsidian won't rule out bringing Grounded 2 to PS5 and other platforms in the future (just as its predecessor did in 2024), but says that this initial release is "all about being in Game Preview and Early Access"Grounded 2 player count: Everything is bigger in Grounded 2, but Obsidian never considered stretching beyond four-players. Speaking to GR+, the studio says doing so "would have undermined what Grounded was really about."Grounded 2 roadmap: Obsidian is targeting updates every "four to five months" after the studio learned the hard way: "When we started with Grounded 1 in early access we were trying to do monthly updates – that was a hassle and it didn't work"ROG Xbox Ally X hands-on preview: With its first handheld, Xbox's 'Play Anywhere' strategy is coming into sharper focus. And I'm not saying I regret buying a Nintendo Switch 2 at launch... but the ROG Xbox Ally X is almost everything I want from a new Xbox Outer Worlds 2 hands-on preview: This sequel feels like one of our favorite RPG devs (they also made Fallout: New Vegas and Avowed) finally got the resources to make a new sci-fi adventure with the scope they deserve. Full of details, choices, and great action, this is shaping up to be Outer Worlds 2 exclusive interview: With The Outer Worlds 2, Obsidian Entertainment is dedicated to making sneaky playstyles truly viable in its upcoming sequel: "We have a strike team going room-by-room to see if we can stealth properly through each location"The rising cost of video games: The Xbox Showcase confirmed that The Outer Worlds 2 will be the first video game out of Xbox Game Studios in 2025 to cost $80. Obsidian Entertainment says we don't set the prices for our games" and wishes "everybody could play" its new RPG.
