Avowed Originally Had Multiplayer Co-Op

Obsidian Entertainment revealed that its upcoming RPG, Avowed, originally had multiplayer co-op before the studio pivoted to make it a single-player game.

In the fifth and final part of Obsidian's 20th-anniversary documentary, founder Feargus Urquhart explained that he pushed for multiplayer co-op in Avowed back when the studio was still independent. "It was a more interesting game to publishers," he said. "When you're asking for $50, $60, $70, or $80 million, you got to have something interesting to talk about, and multiplayer made it interesting."

Obsidian talks about Avowed:
• Avowed had a co-op focus early in development, now changed to a traditional Obsidian singleplayer RPG
• Avowed is Obsidian's version of what a fantasy first-person RPG is
• Finding the right balance between taking things from Pillars of Eternity… pic.twitter.com/SAbWQiUOVe
— Klobrille (@klobrille) August 8, 2023

Head of development Justin Birch added, "We were too focused on co-op, too focused on changing how our pipelines worked, the way we write conversations, the way we write quests, and everything else."

Obsidian realized that it wasn't working on the gameplay aspects the studio was best at. So the team pivoted to make sure that Avowed felt more like a game that Obsidian would create. It'd have features such as incredible character-focused storytelling and intricate systems.

Avowed was recently shown off at the Xbox Games Showcase back in June and is set to be released sometime in 2024. It'll launch for both PC and Xbox Series X|S, including Game Pass.