"Let's just cut to the important part first, as Schreier closes out his interview by saying Obsidian "...isn't working on a third Outer Worlds game but does plan to keep making games in the Avowed universe." This is something of a surprise as, of the two games, The Outer Worlds 2 reviewed stronger and seemed to do better with fans overall. However, of the two franchises, it's Avowed that's moving forward, although it's clear that Obsidian isn't saying a third The Outer Worlds title won't ever happen, even if the series' future is up in the air."
"So, how did we end up here? Well, according to Urquhart, neither game really met expectations, although concrete numbers were not given for either of them. "They're not disasters," Urquhart told Schreier. "I'm not going to say this was a kick in the teeth. It was more like: 'That sucks. What are we learning?'""
"Apparently, what they've learned is that they want to reconsider how they make games, as both titles took over 6-years to develop. That's becoming a pretty common thing in today's industry, as triple-A dev times seemingly grow longer and longer. And more expensive. Urquhart wants to bring development time down to 3 or 4 years per title, that way missing sales targets won't be such a massive blow."
Both recent Obsidian releases fell short of internal expectations despite not being disasters. The studio plans to continue work in the Avowed universe while placing The Outer Worlds series on the back burner for now. Long development times — both games took over six years — contributed to financial and resource strain. Leadership wants to shorten future development cycles to three to four years to reduce risk from missed sales targets. Release clustering created operational problems and support-team burnout when three titles launched in a single year. Spacing releases is now a priority to manage resources and staff wellbeing.
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