It’s a 300 person studio that is basically never all allocated to a single project. That’s extremely efficient with the resources they have. And remember that Outer Worlds 2 has also been in ongoing development for the better part of that same 6 years.
Can we please stop pretending Obsidian post acquisition is a dinghy independent studio rather that the real cog in the metastatic tumor that is the Microsoft machine? The game credits ~1.2k people, that’s 4x the studio size. There’s 0 excuses for how mediocre Avowed is, especially when they charge 70€ for it! BG3 in contrast has a bigger professional credit while costing the consumer less 10€ and being an excellent game. Good management is not churning out mediocre shovelware while charging AAA prices.
I think Kojima said it best in the Resetera review, and I think it applies here too. Avowed is basically a shooter with fantasy trappings and it does appeal to a certain demographic. I’m not it.
Of course you have. If you mean picking the mobs one by one from a distance because they reset after x amount of m from origin just like in an MMO (mobs are leashed), I have bad news for you. Already in Far Cry 4’s release that was rightfully pointed out as shit design, several years later is just unacceptable. Again, Kojima was right, pearls to pigs.
Sounds like the author has a skill issue with Stealth.
Mobs are leashed? Cool, that doesn’t matter cause I play the game like a high fantasy battle mage, and don’t run from fights.
Also, mobs are leashed in most games to some extent or another. Avowed is well written, well voice acted, tells an interesting story, and is fun to play through.
Really just feels like people were expecting Skyrim and are upset they got something more focused.
I’m not excusing Avowed for anything, because it’s excellent. BG3 is a better game, true, but it’s a better game than almost every other game ever made too, and it was built reusing a ton of work that the studio had already done over the decade that came before it. There’s a very, very good chance that lots of work on Avowed was done knowing that it would be used in Outer Worlds 2 also, reducing the risk of spending money on both projects. Making great games isn’t a function of how much money was spent on them, or Balatro wouldn’t have been nominated for game of the year. I’m not saying they’re some scrappy indie studio, but it sure seems like they know the answer to the question, “How much money can we spend making this relative to how much money it needs to make?” Spending more money on Avowed wouldn’t have made it more financially successful. It’s why there was that headline about wanting to make a Pillars tactics game and evaluating how big that game could feasibly be for that market. I got more value out of Baldur’s Gate 3, but that doesn’t make Avowed not worth $70 to me.
Good management is getting a working product out the door and keeping your people happy and employed. This game reviewed well; not phenomenally, but well. And Obsidian is spoken of in high regard when it comes to employee satisfaction. All that while getting several other projects moving along too. It’s impressive. And I’m sorry Avowed wasn’t what you wanted to play.
As for Fable, this is a genre that its developer hasn’t built before. Even in a best case scenario, it’s going to take a lot more time for them to build it than it is another racing game. If you want to claim potential mismanagement, it might be the possibility that Microsoft assigned this project to the wrong developer, but we don’t know how this Fable came to be, and maybe they do have the experience to make it work.
It’s a 300 person studio that is basically never all allocated to a single project. That’s extremely efficient with the resources they have. And remember that Outer Worlds 2 has also been in ongoing development for the better part of that same 6 years.
Can we please stop pretending Obsidian post acquisition is a dinghy independent studio rather that the real cog in the metastatic tumor that is the Microsoft machine? The game credits ~1.2k people, that’s 4x the studio size. There’s 0 excuses for how mediocre Avowed is, especially when they charge 70€ for it! BG3 in contrast has a bigger professional credit while costing the consumer less 10€ and being an excellent game. Good management is not churning out mediocre shovelware while charging AAA prices.
Bruh avowed is great, I’ve been loving it.
This sounds like a you problem.
I think Kojima said it best in the Resetera review, and I think it applies here too. Avowed is basically a shooter with fantasy trappings and it does appeal to a certain demographic. I’m not it.
Lmao. Bruh, wtf are you talking about. I’ve basically used nothing but melee or stealth / dialogue the whole time.
It’s a tight, well written game, that doesn’t waste your time with endless auto-generated quests.
Of course you have. If you mean picking the mobs one by one from a distance because they reset after x amount of m from origin just like in an MMO (mobs are leashed), I have bad news for you. Already in Far Cry 4’s release that was rightfully pointed out as shit design, several years later is just unacceptable. Again, Kojima was right, pearls to pigs.
Sounds like the author has a skill issue with Stealth.
Mobs are leashed? Cool, that doesn’t matter cause I play the game like a high fantasy battle mage, and don’t run from fights.
Also, mobs are leashed in most games to some extent or another. Avowed is well written, well voice acted, tells an interesting story, and is fun to play through.
Really just feels like people were expecting Skyrim and are upset they got something more focused.
I’m not excusing Avowed for anything, because it’s excellent. BG3 is a better game, true, but it’s a better game than almost every other game ever made too, and it was built reusing a ton of work that the studio had already done over the decade that came before it. There’s a very, very good chance that lots of work on Avowed was done knowing that it would be used in Outer Worlds 2 also, reducing the risk of spending money on both projects. Making great games isn’t a function of how much money was spent on them, or Balatro wouldn’t have been nominated for game of the year. I’m not saying they’re some scrappy indie studio, but it sure seems like they know the answer to the question, “How much money can we spend making this relative to how much money it needs to make?” Spending more money on Avowed wouldn’t have made it more financially successful. It’s why there was that headline about wanting to make a Pillars tactics game and evaluating how big that game could feasibly be for that market. I got more value out of Baldur’s Gate 3, but that doesn’t make Avowed not worth $70 to me.
Good management is getting a working product out the door and keeping your people happy and employed. This game reviewed well; not phenomenally, but well. And Obsidian is spoken of in high regard when it comes to employee satisfaction. All that while getting several other projects moving along too. It’s impressive. And I’m sorry Avowed wasn’t what you wanted to play.
As for Fable, this is a genre that its developer hasn’t built before. Even in a best case scenario, it’s going to take a lot more time for them to build it than it is another racing game. If you want to claim potential mismanagement, it might be the possibility that Microsoft assigned this project to the wrong developer, but we don’t know how this Fable came to be, and maybe they do have the experience to make it work.