Defining Duke, Episode 266 | Obsidian Opens Up On Their Future... (Patreon)

Xbox's marketing beat for 2025 was "The Year Of Obsidian Entertainment." Frankly, it made sense. No matter how you feel about the quality of these games, the fact that this team shipped Avowed, Outer Worlds 2, and Grounded 2 all within a calendar year (while many other teams within the first party fold continue to stumble around) was worthy of all the praise. Well, Obsidian has some thoughts on that marketing tagline. Indeed of it being a rallying cry, Obsidian's own Josh Sawyer defined as a "sign that something went wrong." Both Avowed and Outer Worlds 2 were in development for over six years and the result is that both these games failed to meet financial expectations. What lessons can they learn after shipping so many games? What can they do to cut development costs? What games should they make to meet Xbox's new profit margins? Part of the solution to the team at Obsidian is Avowed 2, but it's anyone's guess what lies beyond that. Thanks to a transparent conversation with Obsidian, the Dukes now dig into the company with this new perspective.

Timestamps:
0:00:00 - Intro

0:06:36 - Reading Recs

0:14:58 - Ashes Of Creation is the latest scam in gaming

0:28:31 - The suspicious Dispatch censorship situation

0:36:02 - Is Nioh finally coming to Xbox?

0:45:17 - Tekken Season 3 revealed

0:51:03 - Forza Horizon 6 supports cross save

0:54:24 - Highguard moves up to Mixed on Steam as it gets 5v5 mode

0:57:26 - Ex Bethesda dev talks Morrowind Remaster

1:14:06 - The Amazon Fallout countdown ends

1:21:29 - Epic Games plans to take on Steam

1:26:59 - AI surveys conducted at GDC

1:34:33 - Ubisoft says volunteer to get fired or get fired

1:39:39 - The Division: Definitive Edition isn’t what we expected

1:42:10 - Beyond Good & Evil 2 officially has a pulse

1:43:58 - RIP Comcept

1:48:04 - Cairn passes 200K copies sold

1:50:49 - Nintendo sales update

1:56:53 - What We’re Playing

2:22:05 - The Year Of Obsidian isn’t quite what we made it out to be

2:55:22 - AMD hints at next gen launch plans

3:04:39 - Xbox is the least desired console to develop for