Emerging evidence suggests that the role-playing game veteran at Obsidian Entertainment is currently working on an unannounced game. This is in addition to Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, both of which were previously confirmed to be in development by the Microsoft-owned studio.
While neither Avowed nor The Outer Worlds 2 have confirmed release dates, the former is expected to arrive earlier than the sequel to Obsidian’s 2019 space fairing RPG. Not only because the developer has yet to share any gameplay footage of The Outer Worlds 2, but also because recent rumors have suggested that Avowed is targeting a 2024 release. Both games are powered by Unreal Engine 5, according to previous disclosures from the studio.
Meanwhile, Obsidian is currently looking to add a senior Unity developer to its team, according to a newly published job listing. This suggests that the reason the California-based company is currently working on a third game has to do with the nature of the launch, which clearly marks the opening as a contract. Looking at how all of Obsidian’s upcoming known games use Unreal Engine 5, the project-based opening for Unity developers seems to hint at the existence of at least one unannounced project.
The company’s choice of engine also suggests the mysterious title won’t be a AAA experience. Obsidian has developed five Unity games to date, the most ambitious of which was Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire released in 2018. Since then, the only Unity-powered game from Fallout: New Vegas developer has been the “choose your own adventure” game Melancholy. The overall strength of Unity is also attractive to non-AAA projects. The biggest exception to the rule is HoYoVerse’s 2020 hit Genshin Impact, but that role-playing game’s mobile-first approach makes it an outlier among big-budget titles.
While Obsidian’s genre pedigree suggests the unannounced Unity game is an RPG, it’s still not confirmed. Not least because the company started experimenting with other genres soon after it was acquired by Microsoft in 2018. More recently, the fact that none of its 2022 releases are full-fledged RPGs underscores this. While Pentiment certainly has RPG elements, Grounded offers a unique twist on the survival genre and as such is quite different from Obsidian’s MO.
Given the studio’s track record under its current ownership, it stands to reason that if this upcoming Unity game exists, it’s likely planned for release on PC and Xbox Series X/S. The Xbox One should also be more than capable of running Unity-powered games, making it another potential platform candidate for this mysterious project. However, that’s likely to depend a lot on when the game launches, as the Xbox One is nearly a decade old.