Why Obsidian Entertainment Might Embrace Shorter Games After Grounded's Success

The reception to Obsidian Entertainment’s recent portfolio highlights a fascinating tension in modern player appetites. On one hand, Grounded, the studio’s co-operative survival game, emerged from early access as a definitive critical and commercial hit. On the other, the highly anticipated blockbuster RPGs Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 have navigated a complex and demanding preview landscape, facing immense pressure from legacy titles and towering fan expectations. This contrast prompts a pivotal question for one of gaming’s most revered RPG studios: does Grounded’s triumph reveal a more sustainable path forward? As player habits evolve, Obsidian’s legacy of deep, narrative-rich worlds may find its strongest future in a strategy that balances epic sagas with shorter, more agile creative cycles.

The Grounded Success Story

Grounded’s journey from a novel pitch to a 1.0 success story is a masterclass in modern, community-driven development. Its concept—a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-inspired survival adventure—was immediately accessible, and its scope was clearly defined from the outset. This clarity of vision was amplified by its highly successful Early Access model, launched in July 2020.

The game spent over two years in Early Access, a period that was integral to its development. Player feedback directly shaped everything from creature behavior and crafting balance to major features like the upper yard and the final story chapters. This iterative process, facilitated by a shorter feedback loop, ensured the final product was finely tuned to its audience’s desires. From a resource perspective, Grounded likely operated with a smaller, more focused team compared to Obsidian’s AAA endeavors, allowing for efficient development without the overwhelming bloat that can plague larger projects. The result was a game that felt complete, cohesive, and passionately supported—a standout success in an era of rocky mega-budget launches.

The Inherent Pressure of Big-Budget RPGs

This brings us to the immense challenge of Obsidian’s flagship RPG projects. Avowed, set in the beloved Pillars of Eternity universe, entered a preview cycle facing inevitable comparisons to genre titans like The Elder Scrolls, with discussions often focusing on its place in a crowded fantasy landscape. Similarly, The Outer Worlds 2 has been met with cautious optimism; its announcement trailer brilliantly mocked generic sequel tropes, but the community eagerly awaits details on how it will evolve beyond the first game’s solid foundation.

These scenarios underscore the pressure cooker of modern AAA RPG development. Such projects demand budgets in the tens or hundreds of millions, development cycles stretching five to seven years or more, and must satisfy a fanbase with incredibly high expectations. The markets for first-person fantasy RPGs and satirical sci-fi RPGs are also fiercely competitive. Announcing a game like Avowed means competing not just with new releases, but with players’ nostalgic memories of Skyrim and their current time in Baldur’s Gate 3. The financial risk is monumental, and the extended timeline leaves studios vulnerable to shifting market trends.

The Strategic Shift: What Shorter Cycles Could Unlock

In this context, the success of Grounded isn’t just a happy accident; it’s a compelling business case. Shifting resources towards games with shorter, 3-4 year development cycles could unlock several key advantages for Obsidian:

• Lower Financial Risk: Smaller-scale projects require smaller budgets. This mitigates the catastrophic impact a commercial failure can have on a studio, ensuring stability.
• Faster Iteration & Creative Agility: Teams can prototype ideas, respond to playtest data, and incorporate trends more rapidly. This agility fosters innovation, allowing the studio to experiment with genres—like survival (Grounded) or the historical narrative of Pentiment—without betting the company.
• Quicker Response to Market Trends: The gaming landscape changes quickly. A shorter cycle allows a studio to identify a growing niche and serve it before the trend passes.
• Consistent Audience Engagement: Releasing quality, smaller titles between major RPG pillars keeps the studio in the public conversation and revenue flowing, rather than facing multi-year silences.

This aligns with a broader industry trend where “AA” or “mid-tier” games have found passionate, dedicated audiences. Studios under publishers like Focus Entertainment or Devolver Digital, and even Larian Studios before Baldur’s Gate 3, built their reputations and financial health on this model. For Obsidian, this could mean a portfolio where a new Grounded-like experiment or a focused narrative title arrives every few years, sustaining the studio while the behemoth RPGs cook in the oven.

Balancing Legacy with Innovation

Of course, any pivot must be measured. Obsidian’s core identity and fanbase are built on expansive, choice-driven RPGs like Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity. Abandoning that legacy would be commercial and creative folly. The most likely—and wisest—path forward is a deliberate dual-track strategy.

Imagine a rhythm where a major RPG like Avowed or The Outer Worlds 2 serves as a tentpole release every 4-6 years. In the intervals between, the studio leverages its talent to produce 1-2 shorter-cycle projects. These could be new IP experiments, spiritual successors to cult classics, or narrative-driven games in the vein of Pentiment—another Obsidian title praised for its focused scope and proof that this model works. Crucially, the lessons learned from these tighter developments—the necessity of clear vision, disciplined pacing, and direct player feedback—can be fed back into the larger RPGs, preventing feature creep and ensuring their core loops are as polished as possible.

The contrasting receptions of Grounded and Obsidian’s upcoming RPGs signal a clear opportunity. Grounded stands as proof that success isn’t solely defined by budget and scale, but by clear vision, agile development, and community partnership. For Obsidian, the future likely isn’t an either-or choice but a synthesis. Embracing a hybrid model that honors their RPG mastery while making space for shorter, innovative cycles may be the key to navigating an increasingly competitive and risk-averse industry. For a studio famed for offering meaningful choices to players, embracing this strategic flexibility could be the most impactful decision they make.

Tags: Obsidian Entertainment, Game Development, Avowed, The Outer Worlds 2, Grounded