While 2026 is somewhat the year of Playground Games, with the British developer expected to debut both Forza Horizon 6 and Fable, 2025 was all about Obsidian. The Californian developer began the year with Avowed, then dropped Grounded 2 in the summer in an Early Access format, before concluding the year with The Outer Worlds 2. Now that a few months have passed since each game launched, it has been revealed how these games have fared.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Obsidian boss Feargus Urquhart explained that both Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 did not meet the sales expectations put in place by Microsoft. In full, the developer expresses: "They're not disasters. I'm not going to say this was a kick in the teeth. It was more like: 'That sucks. What are we learning?'"
Urquhart then adds a tad more about this situation and how it has caused Obsidian to re-evaluate its production schedule and timeline, as both Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 took around six years to make. The studio aims to reduce this to around three or four years per title.
It's not all doom and gloom however, as Obsidian does note that Grounded 2 was a pretty big success in the summer, noted simply as a "big hit". The project was also regarded as a better example of how to make video games, as it only really started taking shape in 2023 when Eidos Interactive pitched the idea while looking for outsourcing work. This led to a game that was mostly made out-of-house, with just a few senior staff members overseeing the project that was being constructed in Montreal by the Canadian developer.
Do all of these learnings mean that Obsidian will scale back? Apparently not, as the interview concludes by explaining that Obsidian will continue supporting The Outer Worlds 2 and Grounded 2, while also making "projects big and small" over the next few years.