Obsidian Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Irvine, California and part of Xbox Game Studios. It was founded in June 2003, shortly before the closure of Black Isle Studios, by ex-Black Isle employees Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, Chris Parker, Darren Monahan, and Chris Jones.
Although it has created original intellectual property, many of its games are sequels based on licensed properties. Early projects included Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and Neverwinter Nights 2, both sequels to BioWare-developed games. The team then developed its first original game, Alpha Protocol, in 2010. Other notable works from Obsidian include Fallout: New Vegas, Dungeon Siege III, and South Park: The Stick of Truth, all of which are also licensed properties.
Throughout the studio's history, many projects—including Futureblight, Dwarfs, Aliens: Crucible, and Stormlands—were canceled. Due to having so many projects canceled, the company entered a severe financial crisis in 2012. As a result, Obsidian decided to crowdfund its next game, Pillars of Eternity, a role-playing game played from an isometric perspective, which ultimately became a success and saved the studio from closure. The team's focus then changed from developing licensed titles to creating original games based on the studio's own intellectual property, including a sequel to Pillars of Eternity and The Outer Worlds.
In November 2018, Obsidian Entertainment was acquired by Microsoft and became part of Microsoft Studios (now known as Xbox Game Studios). Under Microsoft, the company continued to work on triple-A role-playing games Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, and started developing games that are smaller in scope, such as Pentiment, Grounded, and its sequel.
History
2003: Founding
Obsidian Entertainment was founded by Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, Chris Parker, Darren Monahan and Chris Jones on June 12, 2003.[3][4] Prior to the establishment of Obsidian, they worked for Interplay Entertainment's subsidiary Black Isle Studios. At Black Isle they created several role-playing games including Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, and Fallout 2, and collaborated with BioWare on Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, and Baldur's Gate II. Most of these games were critically and commercially successful, but Interplay's financial situation was poor and the studio lost its license to produce Dungeons & Dragons
Philosophy
Obsidian built its reputation making sequels in well-established franchises including Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, Fallout, South Park, and Dungeon Siege. Urquhart has stated that the company is fine with developing sequels, as they are often fun to make since the studio can "get to go play in someone else's world" and further explore and expand upon the original games' ideas.[82] The studio also believes that such licensed projects are easier to develop.[83] Obsidian considered the making of these sequels as stepping stones towards eventually making original games based on its own intellectual property.[82] The studio's focus did later shift towards developing their own games, which allowed Obsidian to maximize their creative freedom and escape the constraints imposed by publishers.[84] The studio has used the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter as an indicator to see whether a game or genre is popular or not.
As an independent company prior to their 2018 acquisition by Microsoft, Obsidian believed that they must act and react quickly to market changes and not stagnate on any certain point.
Games
Cancelled
External links
References
- Mark Mueller. Game Companies Taking Office Space at Faster Clip Orange County Business Journal, August 11, 2008^
- Samuel Tolbert. Obsidian Entertainment CEO says the developer has grown significantly under Xbox Game Studios Windows Central, February 21, 2025^
- Richard Costa. From Shadow to Fire – 15 Years of Obsidian Entertainment