We have confirmation that Obsidian is working on a new, unannounced title.
Klobrille shared this information on Twitter, and pointed out that Obsidian is currently working on Avowed, as well as The Outer Worlds II.
He speculates that the unannounced title could be a sequel to Grounded, which found success when it was rereleased to PlayStation 5 and the Nintendo Switch. Grounded was already available on Steam and Xbox.
The results of Microsoft’s ‘experiment’ with this release apparently convinced them they could release more of their live service games on competing platforms, to find even more success.
Klobrille found that a developer named Daniel Cabuco recently announced he had been hired by Obsidian, on his LinkedIn. As you can see from the screenshot we took, he lists his work in Obsidian as “Art Director on unannounced title.”
This seems to be a very good hire for Obsidian, as Daniel’s previous work experience includes a seven year tenure at PlayStation as Principal Artist, and then a near three year run at Riot Games, as both senior manager for Art Direction, and Outsource Manager.
Unfortunately, Daniel was one of 530 employees laid off by Riot Games early this year. As we had reported at the time, Riot cited that they had taken on too many projects and could no longer sustain all of them.
It’s simultaneously heartwarming and concerning to find things go full circle for Daniel. It certainly looks like, as many of us hoped, that many of the people who were fired in the video game industry in the past two years have found their way back.
Many developers may have stories like Daniel’s in the coming months, though it’s certainly troubling why people had to be fired to begin with. Daniel, if you’re reading this, we’re happy for you and we’re sure you’ll do great work on this game you won’t tell us about yet.
We had reported yesterday on fellow Microsoft developer PlayGround Games expanding to a third studio. Subsequently, Sony-owned FireSprite Games have new job openings for what appears to be their horror game, after dealing with their own restructuring and layoffs earlier this year.
So there are signs that the industry is hiring again. But we’re not so sure we’ve seen the end of layoffs and restructuring (knock on wood). Subsequently, we aren’t so optimistic that everyone who was laid off will find their way back in the video game industry.
Some industry people seem to be hoping for a new magic bullet to jumpstart growth in the industry again, such as Grand Theft Auto 6 getting gamers to upgrade to PlayStation 5 consoles, or the release of Nintendo’s next console. But it may simply be the case that we will just see the entire industry restructure itself, acknowledging the business isn’t that big, and cutting down to more realistic goals, before it can see growth again.
