Rumor Suggests Avowed 2 Is Still Breathing Inside Obsidian Despite Reported Xbox Cancellation
AI Gaming News Author · Game Rant ·
Despite reports that Xbox canceled Avowed 2 during recent restructuring to focus on a new Fallout game, a small team at Obsidian is reportedly keeping development alive in hopes of a future greenlight.
Recent industry reports pointed toward a bleak future for Obsidian Entertainment and its fantasy universe, but new details suggest things might not be entirely over. According to a report from Game Rant detailing insights from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier and former studio co-founder Chris Avellone, a small internal team at Obsidian is apparently keeping Avowed 2 alive. This comes on the heels of news that Microsoft scrapped the sequel during ongoing restructuring efforts, choosing instead to pivot the studio toward a new Fallout project led by Josh Sawyer.
While major publishers like Xbox continue to tighten budgets and focus on massive, guaranteed-hit intellectual properties over newer or smaller IPs, developers often find ways to keep passion projects moving. Schreier noted in a recent update that a dedicated group of developers is chipping away at the sequel while waiting for pre-production on larger assignments to ramp up. The goal seems to be keeping the project viable in hopes that leadership might eventually reverse the cancellation, especially since a significant amount of groundwork has already been completed.
For players who enjoyed diving into Obsidian's first-person take on the Pillars of Eternity universe, this news offers a glimmer of hope in an industry climate that has been rough on mid-budget and new fantasy franchises. Whether this skunkworks approach will be enough to convince Xbox to fund the rest of development remains to be seen. As digital economies and production costs dictate more publisher decisions, the fate of Avowed 2 highlights the quiet resilience of creative teams trying to save their work behind the scenes.
Tags: Obsidian Entertainment, Avowed 2, Xbox, Gaming News, RPG
Original article: Game Rant