LectureMaster
Has Man Musk
Sorry, Fallout fans, but Obsidian isn't really interested in making New Vegas 2: After years of working on other people's games, the studio is finding 'joy' in doing its own thing
Obsidian released three games in 2025, and all of them were original Obsidian IP.
2025 was a very big year for Obsidian, which released not just one but two major RPGs, Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, plus the backyard survival adventure Grounded 2 in early access. An awful lot of fans are eager for something else, though, and it's no secret what that is: Alpha Protocol 2.
And, I suppose, some of you might also have your fingers crossed for Fallout: New Vegas 2.
You probably shouldn't hold your breath waiting for it to happen, though. In an interview with The Game Business, Obsidian vice president of operations Marcus Morgan and vice president of development Justin Britch said they know lots of people want followups to the studio's greatest hits, but the developers who work there are more interested in doing other things.
The hangup is that after years of making games based on other people's properties—KOTOR 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Dungeon Siege 3, South Park: The Stick of Truth—Obsidian is apparently having a pretty good time doing its own thing.
"I know everyone on the internet, on every game we ever announce, will constantly reference back to, when's the next New Vegas? When's the next whatever?" Morgan said.
"But this year, in addition to it being a celebration of shipping three games, all three of the games are IP that we've created, that are Obsidian IP. Our history prior to Microsoft surrounded working on others' IP. And this is the joy that we get of, 'How do we start to define our own do we build our own IP?' And we've got to the part where we have sequels to all of them. All of them are IP we've created."
Microsoft acquired Obsidian in 2018, after the studio had already started doing its own thing in Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny. But both Pillars of Eternity games were dependent on crowdfunding, while Tyranny was backed by Paradox, at least in part because of the success of the first Pillars game. The Microsoft acquisition changed all that: The big upside of corporate overlords is that they bring corporate cash to the table. As The Notorious B.I.G. once observed, that sort of sudden, massive infusion of funding can lead to unexpected downsides, but Morgan repeated a sentiment he and Britch expressed earlier this year: That Obsidian will continue to do its own thing, at its own scale.
"The journey around The Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed put [our approach] to the test quite a bit," Morgan said. "There was a little bit of self-doubt or self-questioning of, 'Should we be chasing after these aspects, this component of triple-A?' And as we went through that journey, the lesson we learned and what we took away was, stay true to our roots and keep building the games we make, as opposed to chasing after whoever else. We are always inspired by and we love all of the RPGs that exist, but we also have our style of RPG.
"When I look at Larian's RPGs, and then I look at Bethesda's RPGs, or CD Projekt's RPGs, they are compared, but they're all very different. I want a different experience when I go play Baldur's Gate than I do when I go play Cyberpunk. We've worked on Neverwinter Nights, we've worked on Fallout, so it can't help but be somewhat like, 'Are we just trying to be like that?' Our goal with The Outer Worlds and Avowed is to more clearly define, what is it to be Obsidian as a standalone [studio] as opposed to it always being a chase after what already exists."
There's no doubt that The Outer Worlds is in many ways more that a little similar to Bethesda's take on Fallout, which includes New Vegas, and that's one of the reasons it never did much for me: It felt imitative, but also less, somehow, than the games it imitates.
At the same time, nothing succeeds like success, and Obsidian's certainly found that, and I can't find it in myself to complain too much about its cautious approach to RPG development when that success enables genuinely innovative games like Pentiment, which is objectively the best thing it's done since at least Pillars 2.
Besides, there's always hope: Obsidian might be enjoying its deserved moment in the sun, but CEO Feargus Urquhart said just a few years ago that he wants one more crack at Fallout before he rides off into the sunset—and that he'd be "surprised" if a new Fallout isn't on the list of possible projects once Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 are out.
