Avowed Was Originally Going to Be a Multiplayer Game

ign.com:

Fallout: New Vegas and Outer Worlds developer Obsidian Entertainment was originally making upcoming RPG Avowed a cooperative multiplayer game before returning to its single player roots.

Speaking in a documentary celebrating Obsidian's 20th anniversary, studio head and founder Feargus Urquhart admitted to being wrong after pushing for Avowed to be multiplayer.

"One of the things where I really pushed was that Avowed was going to be multiplayer, and I kept on that for a long time," he said. "I know in the end it was the wrong decision to keep on pushing on it."

Head of development Justin Britch said earlier in the documentary that Obsidian showed Avowed to Microsoft early on in the acquisition process, and while Urquhart didn't mention Microsoft specifically, he explained that multiplayer added a lot of value.

"When we were still independent and I was selling it, it was a more interesting game to publishers," he said. "And when you're asking for $50, $60, $70 million you've gotta have something interesting to talk about. Multiplayer made it interesting. It was this idea of, it's almost like peanut butter and chocolate, putting it together, like 'wow it must be interesting'."

Forcing a multiplayer project, as a studio famous for single player games, caused too many issues for Obsidian, as it was essentially having to relearn every aspect of game development.

"We were too focused on co-op and we were too focused on changing the way our pipelines work, and the way we write conversations and the way we do quests," Britch said. "We weren't focused on the things we're best at. And so we did make a pivot on the game, basically to refocus and make sure that it was, at the end of the day, an Obsidian game and not something different."

Ob