Obsidian Entertainment is one of the most influential RPG developers in recent memory and sparked excitement when it released the reveal trailer for Avowed earlier this week. The studio was originally formed by the Black Isle Studios developers who had worked on some of the genre’s most foundational games, including Fallout 2 and Baldur’s Gate, the latter in collaboration with BioWare. It is Obsidian’s relationship with Bethesda, however, that is perhaps one of the most interesting in the gaming industry.
With Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds released last year and Avowed announced this week, it appears the developer is attempting to outdo Bethesda in both the first-person sci-fi and fantasy RPG genres, whose top spots have been held by Bethesda’s Fallout and The Elder Scrolls series respectively for the past decade. It’s a big task, but there are a few key reasons Obsidian might be in the right position to topple one of gaming’s greatest giants.
The History of Obsidian and Bethesda
Bethesda and Obsidian have worked on several of the same IPs, and Bethesda’s worlds were greatly influenced by earlier games that Obsidian’s future founders had worked on. Bethesda took over the Fallout series with Fallout 3 in 2008, but many of the Fallout 2 developers were then able to return to the series to work on Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas. Despite the devs having to work in Bethesda’s new first-person format rather than Fallout 2’s top-down perspective, the game was a huge critical success, and many consider New Vegas one of the best games in the series.
Obsidian’s success with first-person RPGs led to its release of The Outer Worlds in 2019, a sci-fi RPG set in space with much of the satirical anti-capitalist wrappings which defined Fallout’s early years. And the reveal trailer for Avowed, a first-person fantasy game that strongly resembles The Elder Scrolls, shows a first-person view of an adventurer holding a sword in their right hand while preparing a spell with their left, a moment which closely resembles Skyrim’s combat system rendered in next-generation graphics. Obsidian is seemingly making no secrets of which top spot its gunning for.
The Outer Worlds was highly praised for its writing and its focus on conversation and character-development, though some found the game to be a little short, clocking in at about 24 hours. In contrast Fallout 4 was received less favorably, with many finding the main story to be particularly weak, a trend in criticism that has haunted Bethesda since its early games.
A player can sink hundreds of hours into Fallout 4 compared to The Outer Worlds, which, when comparing their reception, suggests many fans now prefer depth over breadth in their RPGs, considered to be one of Obsidian’s greatest strengths compared to Bethesda. Fallout 76 cemented what many considered to be Bethesda’s poor instincts, with the multiplayer game receiving poor reviews and facing a slew of technical issues. As Bethesda flounders, it appears that Obsidian has taken the opportunity to fill in the gaps in the market.
Why Fans are Turning to Obsidian
Not only were Bethesda’s last two games a disappointment to many, but one of its most anticipated releases, The Elder Scrolls 6, hasn’t been seen since a teaser trailer was released on June 10, 2018. Fans don’t even know which part of Tamriel it’s planned to be set in, and it seems like the release of the game could be a long way away. It’s no secret that The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced early due to the expected divisiveness of Fallout 76.
Between Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds, Obsidian has gained a lot of trust from Bethesda fans for delivering a similar format with a more engaging story and a slightly sharper wit, as well rarely appearing to rest on its laurels in the same way as Bethesda, which has avoided new IPs and released increasingly disappointing games over the last nine years.
Furthermore, Obsidian’s worlds tend to fix a lot of the common complaints about Bethesda games. Fallout: New Vegas’ characters from Caesar to Benny to Mr. House have ingrained themselves far further into gaming culture than almost any character from the main Bethesda games. Indeed, the whole concept of New Vegas as a setting proved far more adventurous and interesting than the ruined East Coast cities of Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, which many fans felt were comparatively repetitive, leading some to hope Fallout 5 is more like New Vegas than it is Fallout 4.
The Outer Worlds proved that Obsidian still has the capacity to create new and interesting IPs as well, something Bethesda has not demonstrated for some time. With The Outer Worlds considered to be one of the best games of 2019, the developer’s announcement of Avowed has not only excited fans, but seems directly targeted to seize the opportunity left open by Bethesda’s failure to maintain marketing momentum for The Elder Scrolls 6 and the diminishing faith fans have that the larger developer is still able to deliver the goods.
The Future of First-Person RPGs
Obsidian has a lot going for it. Unlike Bethesda it has maintained the trust of many of its fans, and unlike Bethesda it has been seen to grow and develop over the last few years while the larger company has stagnated and released several critical disappointments. As a result, Avowed’s announcement has been able to get the jump on Bethesda is a way few games could.
The single trailer released for Avowed already shows fans more than The Elder Scrolls 6 has shown them in the last two years. The trailer works not only to get players excited and to take advantage of Bethesda’s slow development speed, but makes Bethesda appear particularly unreliable in comparison to Obsidian. Cyberpunk 2077 is another first-person RPG that has had a particularly long development cycle, and yet unlike Bethesda, CD Projekt Red does not have a relationship with another developer like Obsidian that fans can so easily draw unfavorable comparisons with.
The successes of Obsidian will always be drawn in direct comparison to Bethesda in a relationship very few companies have. Due to their sharing of staff and IPs over the years, when Obsidian succeeds as the smaller developer, it makes Bethesda appear complacent, and the critical success of Obsidian’s releases invites comparison between the company’s design philosophies, especially because Bethesda has a far larger budget.
Bethesda is still a huge company, and it will be a long time before its place in the RPG world is completely replaced. Nonetheless, Obsidian’s announcement of Avowed shows that the smaller developer is coming for Bethesda’s crown, and is ready to take advantage of Bethesda’s failures over the last few years. Time will tell if Obsidian is successful, but if both companies continue their current trajectories, Obsidian may well prove the old mantra true: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Avowed is currently in development for PC and Xbox Series X with no confirmed release date.
