80%
Probable
Chris Avellone, a revered RPG game designer legend and former co-founder of Obsidian Entertainment, was the first to report last November that the Californian studio would work on Avowed 2 while dropping The Outer Worlds franchise.
This info was confirmed yesterday, albeit as part of Xbox's big reset, led by new CEO Asha Sharma, who mandated from above that the studio cancel the sequel while greenlighting a new Fallout game. That, at least, was Bloomberg's report, penned by Jason Schreier.
However, Avellone maintained on X that Avowed 2 has not been fully canceled, with Obsidian folks still hoping to pitch it to Xbox again in the future because a lot of pre-production work has already gone into it. He also wrote that every other project was indeed paused, including the new project that John Gonzalez was working on, which apparently was based on the Shadowrun IP.
Aside from other news, Obsidian employees appear to have been told all the company’s projects were “re-evaluated” today. It seems Grounded is still going (mostly out-sourced in Eidos Montreal anyway, so no surprise), Outer Worlds 2 expansions still planned for now (1st one is Sept), and uh, despite reports, Avowed 2 is STILL being worked on (for now) in the hopes of being “re-pitched” (whatever that means). They're still working on Avowed 2 as of today, according to folks at Obsidian. They're trying to "re-pitch" it when the dust settles, probably because so much work was already put into it.
All other projects at the studio, including the rumored Shadowrun game John Gonzalez was on, were put on pause. No mention of any Pillars of Eternity games, so if Avowed 2 doesn't get a buyer/approval, looks like may be some time (or never) before another Pillars game or PoE3.
This follows a hint from Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart, who mentioned in August 2024 that he'd love for the studio to make a Shadowrun game. I absolutely agree: it's a criminally underrated setting ripe for RPG developers to tackle. I wrote a few years ago that I'd love for Microsoft to fund a BG3-style Shadowrun game by Harebrained Schemes, but the studio is already working on its own thing. Obsidian could have done a great game, too, of course. Hopefully, the studio can return to it at some point in the future.
At the same time, it's hard not to see the potential for a new Fallout game from the staff currently at Obsidian. Josh Sawyer, the director of Fallout: New Vegas, is reportedly on it; Gonzalez himself was the lead writer on FNV and is now likely to join him on that team; moreover, there are two veterans from classic Fallout games, Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain, who would certainly be very helpful.
As for Avowed 2, I would be very happy if it turned out to be salvageable, as I loved the previous game. However, given Xbox's new strategy of investing only in the biggest franchises, I wouldn't be surprised if whatever preliminary work they had done on the sequel was eventually repurposed into a new Elder Scrolls game, especially with The Elder Scrolls VI still allegedly far from launch.
As for Avellone himself, he joined developer Republic Games last year to work on a new dark fantasy RPG that is still currently under wraps.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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