The Obsidian boss, Feargus Urquharttalked about the Team closures occurred at Microsoft recently in an interview with PC Gamer, also reporting on how you feel about your studyfor which he has no intention of worrying about the future.
The interviewer raised the question in the aftermath of the triumphant presentation at the Xbox Games Showcase 2024, in which there was also a section dedicated to Avowed, the new action RPG from Obsidian arriving this year on PC and Xbox, asking how the team has experienced the recent wave of layoffs which involved numerous people especially in Activision Blizzard and Bethesda, the latter in particular with the closing of Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin.
Considering that even receiving great praise from critics does not make developers safe, the position of Obsidian, which often creates highly appreciated but not exactly mainstream titles, could be seen as “at risk”, so to speak.
Obsidian doesn’t look back, but forward
However, Urquhart demonstrated some confidence on the subject, claiming not to worry about it and to focus on current and future projects.
On the other hand, as pointed out by the developer, even when it was an indie team Obsidian has went through extremely difficult timesso these are situations they know well.
“It’s horrible,” Urquhart said of the layoffs, “at Obsidian we went through three waves of layoffs before we were acquired, I put them right behind the loss of my parents as some of the worst days I’ve had, so these are terrible things.”
“Everything that has happened over the last six months with the layoffs and culminating with what happened at Tango and Arkane and other studios has left people really worried and shaken,” explained the Obsidian CEO, “what we can what we can do, however, is try to concentrate on what we are doing and believe in these projects.”
“We’re working on Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 and it’s probably no surprise but we also have other projects going on.” Despite this, Urquhart answered affirmatively to the question of whether Microsoft could still be considered good support for Teams (although it is difficult to imagine a different answer from an internal Xbox studio).
Ultimately, Obsidian doesn’t spend time looking over its shoulder, in short: “We are saddened by what happened, but as long as we do our job, and try to do it well, we don’t worry about the future“, Urquhart reported. Recently, we learned that Avowed can also be played in third-person view, as well as further details from the deep dive video.
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