As reported by Windows Central, Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart revealed the extent of the studio's expansion since it was acquired by Microsoft in a recent interview with IGN.
Since 2018, Obsidian has grown to nearly 300 employees, which is still pretty lean in the triple-A space. «When we came on with XGS and Xbox, we were about 170, 180 people,» Urquhart told IGN. «And through the course of the last five or six years, we've not only grown the studio to about 285 people, but we also have a lot of really good co-dev partners with Heavy Iron and Beamdog.» For comparison, here's how large some other major developers are: Looking at those numbers, I'd put Obsidian at the lighter end of «midsize,» a welterweight studio.
That's something that makes its incredible productivity in recent years all the more surprising. As game budgets increase and five-plus-year development cycles become the norm, Obsidian has released three games since 2020—Grounded, Pentiment, and now Avowed—with a fourth, The Outer Worlds 2, due by the end of the year.
We're not talking Valve levels of exerting more industry influence than 10,000-person conglomerates like Ubisoft or EA, but Obsidian's still a studio punching above its weight.
Clearly, there's something to be said for the developer's "100-year plan:" Assume each game will be a «mild success» and not a sales record-breaker, and allocate time, money, and staff accordingly.