In 2022 Obsidian Entertainment was the only Xbox studio of the first provider that sent a new game. Pentiment. And in 2025 the Microsoft studio already started a large RPG. Confessibleand should publish a second, the external worlds 2Later in the year. If it was not clear before, it is now: Obsidian has become one of the most important and most valuable studios in the Xbox.
Let us flash behind on E3 2018. While Microsoft's big show case this year Xbox Boss Phil Spencer announced that the company bought four different independent game studios: Playground games, Ninja theory, forced games and undead laboratories. Spencer also confirmed that a new studio called the initiative had been created, which, as we would later find out, was charged because of restart Perfect darkness. Later in 2018, Xbox announced to buy two more studios: Inxile and Obsidian. Finally, Xbox 2019 bought a double fine. After the studio shopping of the Xbox Maker, it had one Massive stable for internal developers.
To this day, almost seven years later, Flash Forward, and while all of these studios still stay, they have not published that much. Here you will be here from February 2025:
- The initiative – has released another game. Work on Perfect darkness.
- Twice – Published the last game: Psychonauts 2 (2021) – Production started before the Xbox acquisition.
- Forced games – Published the last game: We have only a few happy (2018) – Production started before the Xbox acquisition. South of midnight Comes this year.
- Undead of laboratories – Published the last game: Condition of decay 2 (2018) – Published by Xbox Studios.
- Inxile entertainment – Published the last game: Frostpoint VR (2020) – A VR shooter that lasted barely four months. Not published by Xbox.
- Playground games – Published the last game: Forza Horizon 5 (2021) – Published by Xbox. fable Restart set for this year.
- Ninja theory – Published the last game: Lightblade 2 (2024) – also published Bleeding EDGe in 2020 under Xbox.
- Obsidian entertainment – Published the last game: Confessible (2025) – Start set Outer worlds 2 this year. Previously started under Xbox Grounded In 2020 and Pentiment in 2022.
With the list mentioned above it is clear that Obsidian is the outlier. Most studios that were bought or created around 2018 have only delivered one game, and some of them were in development before the Xbox deal. Other studios, such as compulsion, Finally publish something after seven years of Xbox ownership. And if you look at other Xbox studios, things are not much better.
The coalition did not start a new one Gear Game since Gears 5 In 2019 and rare has not played a new game since 2020 Battletoads. (Although the studio makes a lot of support Sea of thieves.))
In the meantime, Obsidian has sent three games under Xbox since 2018 and later another large RPG landing this year. And it published External worlds In 2019, a game started in front of the Xbox deal with production and was not published by Microsoft, but a large RPG of the company in a relatively short time. And there are rumors about the company that is already working on a new project. How did the studio achieve this point?
How obsidian to Xbox became the most valuable good
So, During a lecture on the Dice Summit early this weekObsidian Entertainment Vice President of Operations Marcus Morgan and VP from Development Justin Britch talked about the company's philosophy of staying slim and making intelligent investments in medium -sized games, the production of which does not take a decade. The studio heads also emphasized that the employees kept low and that as little sales were sought to help the studio gain more institutional knowledge.
The goal: the duo wants Obsidian to last 100 years. Really. When asked about the goal of keeping the studio for 100 years, long after they are dead, they said: “Are we serious? … yes. ”
And frankly, I think obsidian can do it. There is clearly a team of people who understand how to build well -tiered games with relatively small teams and at the same time manage several projects at the same time.
In an industry in which some studios Put people off all the time And Spend five to seven years in one gameObsidian has taken another way. And the end result is one of the most productive and successful studios. I bet Microsoft is glad that you broke the place in 2018.
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