The Outer Worlds and Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment has another secret project in development, it has been confirmed. Obsidian announced new fantasy RPG Avowed as part of the Xbox Games Showcase last month, but it seems that the developer is planning beyond that.
On Twitter, Josh Sawyer, Obsidian Entertainment's studio design director, made a post on Tumblr revealing how he oversees all of the projects at the developer. Sawyer said that he plays a team's game "when they have important milestone builds or when someone on the team specifically wants my feedback on some new feature or piece of content." When a follower said that they were sad to see that Sawyer isn't making his own project, Sawyer tweeted to confirm that "I am directing my own project now" and that it's not Avowed.
This is the second time that Obsidian or one of its developers have teased the company's secret projects. In November 2019, Grounded game director and programmer Adam Brennecke revealed that Obsidian has several "big RPGs" in development while studio head Feargus Urquhart teased that the developer has more than one but fewer than 40 games in development. While it seems unlikely that all 40 of these games will make it to launch, it does suggest that the game Sawyer is working on has moved further along in production.
It's unclear when fans will get to see the game. Obsidian seems to have a lot on its hands now, having just released Grounded in early access. The developer is planning to release monthly updates for the title as it works towards its 1.0 release. Any technical issues with the game or if fans ask for much more content could also lengthen the Grounded development time.
In 48 hours after released, Obsidian announced that Grounded had hit one million players. This is great news for the development team but could give the developers another reason to widen the scope of the title. These plans have not been officially confirmed, but this has been known to happen with other, popular games released in early access.
Then there's Avowed. Obsidian has only offered a very small teaser trailer for the game, but a leak revealed that Avowed could be much larger than The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. If that is the plan for the game then the developer may be putting most of its resources into Avowed, before announcing Sawyer's title.
Source: Tumblr - Josh Sawyer