This week, as part of Xbox’s ongoing, franchise-focused “reset,” Microsoft laid off 268 more workers and reorganized its studios, with multiple teams getting folded into Bethesda and Activision. Among these was Obsidian, the role-playing powerhouse behind Avowed, Outer Worlds, and Fallout: New Vegas, which will be part of Bethesda going forward. This, in addition to layoffs that eliminated around 25 percent of the studio in July, have some worried that Obsidian will soon function as little more than a wing of the Fallout factory. Bethesda president Jill Braff, however, is trying to assure employees that Obsidian is in good hands.
In an email to employees viewed by Aftermath, Braff downplayed the significance of Obsidian’s new status, calling it “primarily a change in reporting structure.”
"The creative identity and strengths that make Obsidian distinct will remain at the core of their studio and work,” Braff wrote. "[CEO] Feargus [Urquhart] and the Obsidian leadership team will continue to lead Obsidian, with the studio reporting to me. Bethesda Game Studios will continue to lead the Fallout franchise. Together, the teams will build on their longstanding relationship and the early work already underway on a new Fallout project, with more to share in the months ahead. This structure supports the franchise-led model we've been strengthening while keeping accountability for both the studio and the franchise clear."
In July, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft’s restructuring forced Obsidian to cancel multiple projects—including a sequel to first-person fantasy RPG Avowed—to work on a new game set in the Fallout universe. In the years prior, Obsidian had really managed to hit its stride, emerging from the shadow of its work on preexisting IP like Fallout: New Vegas and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II to blaze its own trail with games like Pillars of Eternity, Outer Worlds, Avowed, Grounded, and Pentiment. But many continued to view it as the studio that did Fallout better than Bethesda, especially considering its founders’ connections to Black Isle, which worked on the pre-Bethesda Fallout games. Now, in a manner of speaking, Obsidian is back where it began.
"I've had the opportunity to get to know Feargus Urquhart and his team over the past six years, and I have great respect for what they've built,” Braff wrote. “Obsidian has extraordinary creative talent, deep expertise, and a long history of creating memorable games and experiences. I'm looking forward to working more closely with them."
The question now is whether Obsidian will actually get to exist as an individual entity in anything other than name. Management at studios like id Software has sworn up and down that everything is business as usual even following brutal layoffs and reorgs that are beginning to resemble musical chairs, but employees have repeatedly expressed skepticism. Moreover, a renewed obsession with franchises and a willingness to treat series and studios like tradeable sports teams would not, at first glance, seem to gel with the idea of creative autonomy. Microsoft and Bethesda can offer all the reassurances they want; ultimately they’re going to have to prove that they care about games and the people who make them if they want to regain any measure of trust. On that front, they've got a long road ahead of them.
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Riley MacLeod
