“Good enough for game pass”
Laura brings up some excellent points
- Obsidian shipped on time, after being acquired
- Obsidian already has outer worlds 2 in the works
- Obsidian gets the OW team back together
Avowed may not be a win on its own, but in the context of a MS studio it’s a win, and they cleared their plate to focus on OW2.
As per interviews Awoved pivoted in 2021 from dark multiplayer to what it is now. What that tells us is that it could’ve been something like Suicide Squad/Gotham Knights/Veilguard, but they successfully pivoted in the end.
That’s 4y after the pivot and completely ignores the fact eora has been crafted, a lot of lore and worldbuilding already exists. They had 2y of production leading up to the pivot (assets et all) and, again, they are supported by one of the richest companies in the world. It’s not a bad game, it most certainly isn’t a good game, it’s just mediocre. Fine for gamepass I guess but 70€ for such a poor delivery is asking too much. 15-30€ would be more appropriate. Probably will give it another shot at that price in less than half a year.
Edit: lol, just saw the massive amount of outlets bringing that point of the pivot, NOW, that the game had a terrible reception… Even a blind man can see a marketing agency behind that attempt at shifting the narrative.
Actually I don’t disagree with your premise. I definitely think US studios have either sat on their laurels or have had troubled development.
The pivot changed art style, scope and even lore and vibe of the game as per Carrie Patel. The lore exists for the world but living lands from what I nice l know were never fully detailed.
Regardless, the game’s developement definitely went through trouble despite Microsoft’s funding.
I was just mentioning that while it took 7 years since conception but the single player version is rather new. And pointing that out isn’t some save, just an acknowledgement that the game did go through some crisis in development.
My point after the edit was one cannot and should not take Patel’s words at face value, that story is a marketing campaign to deal with the poor reception for the game. I only realised that when I went looking for the story you mentioned and found nearly identical headlines from over 20 outlets at the same time. That’s the same pattern as an AP or Reuters story so it’s highly likely it was a distributed press brief as part of an MS campaign to recover the image of the game on the face of the underwhelming reception. It has dropped from the top 100 and now sits squarely in the Grounded or New Vegas corner less than a month after release.
It “Is” an Obsidian game and yet completely lacks any staying power…