Obsidian plans to avoid releasing multiple games in a year from now on.
In 2025, game developer Obsidian Entertainment made a name for itself by releasing three video games back-to-back within the span of a single year: Avowed, Grounded 2, and The Outer Worlds 2. This week, however, a Bloomberg report noted that the company is moving away from such a tight release schedule, following the financial underperformance of both Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2.
The Outer Worlds 3 is also not in development, following the sequel’s failure to meet expectations at Xbox Game Studios.
The Outer Worlds 3 is not happening, Obsidian shifts gears after multiple games fail to perform
In a recent Bloomberg report, Obsidian Entertainment head Feargus Urquhart confirmed that two out of three games it released in 2025 underperformed by Microsoft’s standards: Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2. Urquhart said of both games’ performance:
“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?’”
In sharp contrast to both games’ performance, the multiplayer survival game Grounded 2 has proven to be “a big hit,” despite being less ambitious in both scope and graphical fidelity. This has caused Obsidian to “think a lot about how much we put into the games, how much we spend on them, how long they take,” Urquhart says.
Both of the former action-RPGS, Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, had been in development at the studio for over six years. Now, the studio is looking to shorten its development times and cut down on costs. It’s also looking to avoid releasing three games in a year again, a feat which reportedly had “Obsidian’s support teams were stretched thin, with frazzled staff leaping frantically from one game to the next.”
Now, Obsidian is planning to work on “projects big and small,” and while there’s good news for Avowed fans, there is likewise bad news for The Outer Worlds fans. A third The Outer Worlds game is not in development, though the developer is working on “added content” for The Outer Worlds 2 and Grounded 2.
However, the report states that Obsidian is still looking to make more games in the Avowed universe. This universe, of course, belongs to the Pillars of Eternity RPG series, of which Avowed spins out from. Whether that means a second Avowed game is in development, or Obsidian is going back to the drawing board for another Pillars of Eternity game, is currently unknown.
