Obsidian Reportedly Shifting to New Fallout Game Led by Josh Sawyer - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 6 days ago / 3,470 Views
Bloomberg's Jason Schreier in a new report says Xbox first-party studio Obsidian Entertainment has cancelled multiple projects as it shifts work on a new entry in the popular Fallout video game series. This is according to people familiar with the matter.
This follows the mass layoffs at Xbox that saw around 25 percent of the studio laid off. The studio was previously working on two RPGs, Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, which both launched in 2025. A sequel to Avowed has been cancelled has part of the shift, along with other unannounced projects, according to the sources.
The new plans will see Studio Design Director Josh Sawyer take the lead with the new Fallout title at Obsidian Entertainment.
The last mainline entry in the Fallout series, Fallout 4, released in 2015. The online entry, Fallout 76, released in 2018.
One of the most loved entries in the Fallout franchise, 2010's Fallout: New Vegas, was developed by Obsidian.
The sources also state DLC for The Outer Worlds 2 is still in development and the Grounded 2 team will continue work on the live-service multiplayer survival game. A small team will also reportedly continue work on the sequel to Avowed as they wait for new projects like the new Fallout game to be ready.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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They should have done that ages ago. The hands-off approach of letting devs work on what they want from the previous leadership is nice and all but at some point you gotta work on something that is going to be a return on investments. Avowed 1 flopped, so why work on Avowed 2 when the Fallout IP is just sitting there?
This what we are going to do? MS all forgiven because they allow Obsidian to make a Fallout game?
I hear you. MSFT sucks but we all want good games to get made, especially for these remaining teams that are trying to pick themselves up after this shitstorm.
My takeaway is: selling your studio to MSFT is like giving it the kiss of death.
Also, not to concern troll, but just because Xbox wants to focus on Fallout, Halo, CoD, Elder Scrolls, etc, doesn't mean we'll suddenly get nothing but awesome games from all those franchises.
They could still get cancelled, change direction, sell more studios later, or just plain release broken, unfinished, or bad games. Hopefully not, but Xbox is a terribly run organization. They don't deserve optimism.
Id is an example of the latter. id making Doom, what should be considered one of those safe franchises right? I thought it did well. Still not safe.
Sadly id didn't have a choice, owned by Zenimax so went with the deal, could argue that they shouldn't have sold themselves to Zenimax but I think id and the IPs they owned actually did well with Bethesda, 2 rather successful revivals after all (Just waiting on that Quake relaunch :P).
Then the industry has changed a lot since those revivals. Not sure many could have forseen the sheer impact Fortnite would have.
New video discussing this report is now live - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pQcmisNDZo
I suggest a storyline about negligent corporate overlords.
They already did that with The Outer Worlds
I had a feeling that was Asha's plan to get a Fallout released sooner than Bethesda can.
No way!!!! Did not think Josh would return to AAA development! This is gonna take a while though lol. New Vegas 2 finally!!!
We asked for letting Obsidian get another try at Fallout since Microsoft acquired both Obsidian and Bethesda, and they do it now after gutting a lot of studios?
I don't care who hates my opinion, I really wanted Avowed 2. But yay, some more Fallout I guess
I haven't even played Avowed yet, but with my expectations calibrated appropriately, I'm sure I'll enjoy it eventually and would probably be very interested in a sequel as well. Gotta finish my long-going Pillars of Eternity playthrough first, and maybe play the second game as well so I understand the lore even better... Ah, the joys of a huge backlog!
I highly recommend that you do finish PoE 1 and 2. Fantastic universe with well written lore. Really big blow that Obsidian wont get to further expand upon that.
I know. The only reason I ever left PoE unfinished is because of Cities: Skylines, soon followed by Metal Gear Solid V, and returning to a game you've left unfinished for a long time is hard.
Now we are talking
Meh. I don't really care about Fallout due to its theme and aesthetic, so this is bad news for me. Seeing how Fallout: New Vegas was loved by many, I'm sure this will be appreciated by them though.
I'm right with you. I LOVED The Outer Worlds and Avowed though.
The article says that they canceled the Avowed sequel, but also that a small team will continue to work on the Avowed sequel. So which one is it?
Seeing microsoft buy bethesda and obsidian but NOT rush out elder scrolls and fallout sequels always felt off, especially since those games had elongated development schedules anyways
Excellent news!
