The Avowed teaser trailer created a lot of excitement for Obsidian’s next first-person RPG after the critical success of The Outer Worlds. With many fans already hoping that Obsidian's next game could be the Skyrim of the upcoming next generation of consoles, interest is very high despite what little information fans have been given about the game so far.
Avowed is currently coming to PC and Xbox Series X, which could help to tip some buyers in favor in the new Xbox over the PS5. Not only that, but with Skyrim's historic sales and impatience growing over the slow development of The Elder Scrolls 6, Avowed could stand to be the new system’s biggest seller.
Avowed's Development
Avowed will be set in Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity setting. The previous games had an isometric top-down perspective, and while both Pillars of Eternity and Pillars of Eternity2: Deadfire received critical acclaim, Obsidian began looking at more profitable ways to use the setting it had already developed. Isometric RPGs are not the most popular genre, after all.
Many of Obsidian’s developers worked on Fallout 2 at Black Isle Studios and saw its transition to first-person first-hand when Bethesda outsourced the development of Fallout: New Vegas to Obsidian. The developer also showed its ability to develop first-person RPGs for its own IPs with The Outer Worlds, a Fallout-style space opera RPG which sold over 2.5m copies despite being an entirely new IP.
Comparing Skyrim’s Sales
In 2014, Bethesda confirmed that Skyrim sold over 20 million copies worldwide since its release in November 2011, making it one of the best-selling RPGs of all time. Since then, however, the first-person RPG genre has been unable to replicate that joined critical and commercial success.
While Fallout 4 also had great sales numbers, with 12 million sales on launch day in 2015, the game did not receive the same critical acclaim from fans or the media as Skyrim. As a result, when The Outer Worlds released its first trailer many hoped that Obsidian would be able to provide the RPG experience that Fallout 4 had been unable to deliver.
It is likely that Obsidian’s association with Bethesda and hopes that the smaller developer could breathe new life into the first-person RPG genre were behind the surprisingly high number of sales that The Outer Worlds achieved. As fans of The Elder Scrolls approach Skyrim’s 10-year anniversary next November, there has been no news about The Elder Scrolls 6 since its teaser trailer was announced, which already showed less indication of the gameplay than the Avowed trailer.
Avowed’s Future
If fans continue to build excitement for Avowed as the Skyrim for the next generation, the game could attract even broader interest than The Outer Worlds. Many gamers are turning to the PS5 for exclusives like God of War, Spiderman, and Horizon: Zero Dawn sequels, but none of those scratch this particular itch on PS5.
Avowed has already drawn the most attention out of any Xbox Series X exclusive aside from Fable. With fans hankering for their Elder Scrolls fix, not only could the game stand to be one of Obsidian’s highest selling games, it is likely that it could be both the Xbox Series X’s biggest seller.
Avowed is in development for PC and Xbox Series X.