This week, Xbox announced a sweeping overhaul of its business that will see the company cutting 3,200 total jobs by next summer. That decision has already led to catastrophic results for studios under Xbox that have reportedly been gutted, including Doom developer Id Software. Obsidian Entertainment especially took a hit as part of the first layoff wave, losing 25% of its staff amid a major shake-up in the studio’s direction. According to a Bloomberg report, the remaining team has been tasked with making a new Fallout game as Xbox tightens its focus on its biggest IP. As a result, that directive reportedly means the team will be pushing aside some projects it was working on, including a sequel to 2025’s Avowed.
As with everything surrounding Xbox at the moment, the details are hazy. Some reports note that the team intends to keep tinkering with the project in the background with hopes of re-pitching it eventually, but all signs indicate that it’s not a priority for Microsoft right now. It’s disappointing to think that the team may not get a shot at Avowed 2 after building such a sturdy foundation that begged to be reinforced. Even more frustrating, though, is that Xbox seems all too ready to squander the world Avowed is built on at the worst possible moment.
Though Avowed was the start of a new series in 2025, the RPG actually exists within Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity universe. Introduced in 2015’s Pillars of Eternity, the series centers around the fictional world of Eora. In many ways, Eora is a standard high-fantasy realm, but one plagued with supernatural phenomena and religious conflict. The most fascinating detail of the universe is that it doesn’t have true gods. Rather, it has artificial ones created by an ancient race to engineer a sense of moral order. That juicy idea sets it apart from your typical Dungeons and Dragons universe.
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