2025 was a huge year for Obsidian, with three big releases including two huge and great RPGs, alongside the sequel to surprise hit, Grounded. Despite being a big year for releases, Obsidian have revealed in a new interview with Jason Schreier at Bloomberg that the year didn’t go to plan financially, or to plan in general.
For a studio to release three games in a year is some feat, let alone when they’re all rather big packages in their own right. However, we now know it was never the original plan to release all these games in one year, but with development hurdles it’s just the way things played out. Despite being a relatively large studio with c280 staff, resource to push games to the finish line stretched them thin. In the interview, Studio Director Josh Sawyer said; “Spacing those releases helps the company manage its resources and not burn everybody out,” Sawyer added; “It’s not good to release three games in the same year. It’s the result of things going wrong.”
Avowed kicked off the year with a great campaign on PC and Xbox but ultimately underachieved Obsidian’s financial expectations, despite strong critical praise. In our GSC Avowed Review we said the “there really is so much to love here” and that we could “feel the love, hard work, and polish that Obsidian put in making this game.”.
Regardless of the critical admiration for the game, the game didn’t deliver sales goals. The studio will now be looking to secure some extra revenue from Avowed as it arrives on PlayStation 5 this month, alongside it’s meaty Anniversary Update. In the interview, Obsidian have confirmed that they still have plenty in store for the new IP including new games in the RPG franchise.
Obsidian’s other 2025 RPG, light-hearted sci-fi space adventure The Outer Worlds 2 also failed to achieve sales expectations despite releasing on multiple platforms and to an established fan base. Like Avowed, The Outer Worlds 2 was a very accomplished game. In our review, we said: “If you love a universe that isn’t afraid to poke fun at itself and want to get stuck into tough choices, you’ll find plenty to enjoy.”
Much has been made of Xbox’s internal target for their studios to achieve 30% profit on all titles, with a big part of that requiring multiplatform releases like The Outer Worlds 2. During the run up to launch, Microsoft too made the decision to drop the retail price for the game, from being an $80 USD game to a $70 USD one. Sadly, even with a larger audience net cast and a lower price of admission, sales still fell short of what the studio thought they could achieve. Obsidian are planning more content for the game, yet no further full games are planned.
Despite this, arguably the smallest of the three ‘Year of Obsidian’ games, Grounded 2 was a success for Obsidian. The original was a surprise hit across all platforms and the sequel too launched without any Xbox exclusivity. There are big plans for Grounded 2 content this year, so it seems Obsidian will be sticking with this franchise for some time to come. Only green lit in 2023, the game came out in just 2 years, much less time than the six-year costly cycles Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 endured. Much shorter development time naturally led to Grounded 2 being a much more profitable product for the studio.
Following a sensational year from the studio, they are now looking to reduce their production times and optimise ROI. Legendary Obsidian Head, Fergus Urquhart says their plans are to “think a lot about how much we put into the games, how much we spend on them, how long they take,”. With spiraling development time, money and energy needed to ship a game – particularly an Obsidian-scale RPG – Urquhart’s words will echo many studio heads from around the industry.
What’s your favourite Obsidian game? Will you be coming to Avowed for the first time on PS5? Let us know in the comments below or join the friendly and active Gamer Social Club Discord to chat about all your favourite Obsidian games.
