Acquired in November 2018 by Microsoft, the Californian studio Obsidian Entertainment has been doing particularly well for a few years and despite the preconceived ideas that takeovers of this type can cause, it is an Obsidian veteran who speaks today on the studio projects and in particular on the advantages conferred by this acquisition which recently celebrated its 4th anniversary.
Additional impact power, security and increased creative freedom
Feargus Urquhart is one of the pillars of Obsidian, present since the beginnings of the studio. It was in 1997 that the Scottish developer founded Black Isle, a studio that was part of Interplay Entertainment. The rest of the story, you probably know it since Obsidian was founded in 2003 by several experienced developers, including this dear Feargus Urquhart. The latter has notably worked on three Fallout games, the Dungeons and Dragons license or the RPG South Park.
It is during a long – and very interesting – interview with NME journalists that Feargus Urquhart returned to Obsidian’s latest successes with Grounded and Pentiment in his sights. The CEO of Obsidian also returned to the takeover by Microsoft which took place in 2018 and his opinion on this transaction is rather positive with 4 years of hindsight.
“We probably would have ended up working on The Outer Worlds 2 anyway – the original has sold over 4 million copies so far – we wouldn’t be developing Avowed simultaneously and we wouldn’t have not 90 additional employees. »
Known for its RPG skills, Obsidian has taken new risks since the takeover with Grounded and Pentiment which were big hits of Xbox 2022 against all odds. For Feargus Urquhart, Microsoft is providing additional security, support allowing them to develop The Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed simultaneously through larger teams.
Nevertheless, the studio CEO still assures that this takeover always implied Obsidian’s independence in its artistic choices and projects, but also that Grounded and Pentiment were already in reflection before Microsoft bought the studio.
These remarks are clearly in line with those that Josh Sawyer made last November and these are arguments that stand for this type of takeover. Be that as it may, Obsidian has perhaps never done so well and while waiting to see what will be presented to us this evening, the Californian studio remains to this day one of Xbox’s greatest prides on the past year.
