Avowed Was Originally Obsidian’s Skyrim, Now Focuses on “More Confined Stories,” Says Studio’s CEO

gamingbolt.com:

Among the many titles that received updates at the Xbox Games Showcase was Avowed, Obsidian Entertainment’s first-person fantasy RPG. Announced in 2020 and set in the world ofPillars of Eternity, the recent look showcased combat and the various environments players would traverse. While it looked intriguing, the scale wasn’t “much larger than Skyrim,” as previous reports indicated.

That’s because Obsidian decided to go with a different approach. Speaking to PC Gamer, CEO Feargus Urquhart said, “Originally we were pitching, in essence, our Skyrim. I think over time, as we worked on it… Bethesda makes an awesome Skyrim. Mojang makes an awesome Minecraft, and Turn10 makes awesome racing games. What we do is make our awesome RPGs, right? That’s when we backed up and said again: What are we good at? What’s our lane?”

The answer, for Urquhart, is story-telling. “Outer Worlds is the greatest, latest example of that, and even Pillars. Pillars is less linear than Outer Worlds, but it’s still a game that has you go through a story. And [Pillars of Eternity] 2 was even less linear, but still, again, you have this core story as you’re going.”

Instead of scope, Avowed is now about your companions and their impact on the core story. One of those companions is Kai, who also narrated the recent trailer and plays a “major” role.

“We could go off and create an 8km x 8km open world and then deal with all the consequences – because that makes it a different style game. But we want to tell more confined stories that the player can experience with their companions, and then move from part of the world to part of the world. And, as I said, in the end, that’s us,” said Urquhart.

This change reportedly led to reboots and leadership changes.