Obsidian CEO reveals it's just half the size of many triple-A studios, even as it prepares to launch its 4th game in 5 years
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. Obsidian's games don't push the envelope in terms of graphics or simulation tech, but instead impress through design, writing, and art direction. In a recent Bloomberg interview, Avowed lead Carrie Patel quoted the team as consisting of 80 people in 2021, or about a third of the studio.
The sober, restrained sense of scope Obsidian's opted for in recent years stands in contrast with its wildly ambitious early games like Knights of the Old Republic 2 or New Vegas, which attempted to deliver on visionary promises in plus or minus one-year development cycles. They were
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