Avowed's original co-op plans were "the wrong decision," Obsidian says

Hopefully means that a third person option is being done instead they can do it as it's in Grounded. I'm not keen on first person only in a RPG as don't see a point in creating a character just never to see.

Glad they cut co op as nobody wants to play a game like Redfail which should have been cancelled.

I don’t know if multiplayer attracts publishers or not, it doesn’t attract gamers, that’s for sure. Unless it’s a COD or BF, everybody else has tried and failed with server closures within a year. Glad it was realised as a mistake and made Avowed as single player. I am sure this will be great final product. Now please consider making a sequel to Alpha Protocol.

I'm starting to get more and more hype for this game, I hope Starfield doesn't kill me lol...

I really hope this is good. Been almost 12 years since Skyrim came out, would really like to have something similar while we wait another 10 years for ES6. I guess we might have Oblivion remastered to toy with for a while in the next 2 years, especially if they give it mod support. But I would rather have something new.

Coop is the best mode in the universe of video games . So disappointed .

Been playing Baldur's Gate 3 in co-op and its amazing. Too bad Avowed ditched it, probably won't even bother playing it now.

We need way more single player RPGs. A step in the right direction.

Good. Stop shoehorning multiplayer where it doesn't fit.

Modern Microsoft is quiet different in compare to the past. The narrative about forcing developers to make games as the Microsoft's people want should be gone, like it was before with Rare and Kinect era or BUNGIE and doing Halo forever instead of new franchise.

Seems like Obsidian wanted to make single-player with Avowed since the idea came up, but they were one of few bigger independent studios, so I guess it was more risky to find publisher and financing. So they tried with co-op/multiplayer idea to approach more companies. Then Microsoft, ironically, gave them what they wanted – financing, safety, creative freedom, and what Feargus Urquhart also wanted – making sure that his people has insurance (that aspect is so tricky in the USA) and payrolls.

Also, worth mentioning. In January 2023, in interview with NMW, Urquhart admitted that Microsoft gave them opportunity to work on Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 simultaneously. Which is a good thing, because when Avowed will be released next year, then we shouldn't wait too long for the next Obsidian's adventure.

And as we can see with Grounded and Pentiment – smaller games, passion projects. That also probably couldn't be possible without Microsoft's support. Yes, maybe Obsidian would find some other publisher for Grounded or maybe they would try to self-publish this, but definitely it wouldn't look that good as it is now. With Pentiment that project probably wouldn't be even released or maybe Obsidian would try to finance it with some crowdfunding. They were already in some phases of development before Microsoft's acquisition, but still – the final effect would much different without them.

Maybe at some point they will have a chance to make a new Fallout game too. Now those things should be more easier.

supkris said:Nice sweeping statement.

It may or may not have been a good fit here, but co-op definitely attracts me in titles. Even F76 had its merits and was good and fun with other players (I only started this year so didn't have all the launch bs).

Finally a game developer realized that co-op games are not a must have, hopefully publishers will realize this as well. Putting money, time, etc. in to MP/Co-op does not equal success or a must have to make a video game popular with gamers.

MP doesn't often interest me, but co-op is definitely a big draw for me personally. It all boils down to personal preference but I much prefer playing alongside friends to playing alone.

Grounded is a great experience, but, for me, much better with friends.

Of course it’s not because they don’t get it work on the series s.

MP is almost always the wrong decision.

Kooky Geezer said:I strongly agree. It's disappointing that with all the big upcoming first party RPGs, only Fable appears to be third person. Avowed, Starfield, Outer Worlds 2, and Clockwork Revolution all seem to be first person only, which I feel like Xbox already has a glut of with the existing Bethesda back catalog.

And the story goes on and on.... that's not a good news for the next MS exclusive.... they cancelled the multiplayer part and decided to develope a singleplayer game. I think its hard work cause you need much more details in a singleplayer game like a brilliant story, interactivity, side quests, hidden dungeons maybe. Don't know... i hope its not the next desaster after Redfall for Microsoft.

Its complicated and hard work to develop a high class AAA RPG.... i'm just saying... there are reasons why we have to wait more than a decade for a new Elder Scrolls, Fallout, a new Fable or Risen. Studios can drop a new Football Game or a new COD, but to build a AAA RPG from the ground up... i dont know.

supkris said:There’s plenty of games friends and I wouldn’t have played were it no for co-op, so no, you’re absolutely wrong in this regard, now please consider you’re not a monolith for the opinions of gamers everywhere

DeathHunts#9248 said:Multiplayer does not make it interesting for me.

Big rant ahead with my own personal views nobody asked for :P

People seem to use multiplayer & coop terminology interchangeably, & frankly its tiring. It may be technically accurate since cooperative play has more than 1 player, but it muddies the waters and leads to poor discussion as you can see even just in this thread. This is frustrating as some of the comments here regarding multiplayer are valid in my opinion, but they don't apply to coop & the dilution of the terms leads to pointless bickering. There's a huge difference between adding multiplayer as I've defined below and adding an optional coop component (not to imply good coop is trivial).

Personally I find it useful to define "multiplayer" as something like quake 3, Fortnite etc. Games you basically have to play with others, usually competitively, usually in large groups, often with little narrative or world immersion concerns.

Coop for me is normally an optional component in games you can play solo, usually 1-4 players only, often in games with more narrative that is never competitive outside of minor just-for-fun minigames. There are plenty of games around that prove optional coop can work just fine & keep solo players (of which I am often one) happy.

In my experience coop as an optional component hurts nobody who wants single player. Let me clarify that this applies to games that do this correctly & that planned it from from the start of development. Nobody wants to play Dead Space 3 for example and be reminded constantly of the coop mode they may not be interested in that keeps kicking them out of their experience, or games that lock out modes or features you can't access solo. Forced coop is just an awful thing.

The best example I can think of regarding this term confusion, that may well have influenced a game, is with Fallout 76. I just don't see people asking for a BGS game with true multiplayer, I'd bet they wanted coop. A Skyrim or Fallout 4 they could optionally play with a friend. This is why mods like Skyrim Together were hitting the news so hard a while back.

As for if a game like Avowed 'should' have coop, I'm personally fine with letting developers make the games they want to make. I don't know what the reason they pivoted away from it was (customers usually get a diluted, corporate-speak reason). I'm less interested in it now personally but that's ok, it will make someone else more interested & that's fine.


As an aside to why we need to wait more than a decade for new BGS games, it's because their team isn't enormous, they are one studio really, & they make one game at a time cycling through their IPs, periodically adding new IPs to the list. Tiny mod teams can create amazing things with their assets and tools (Enderal) & their prior games have all been extremely similar.

BGS could do with (long term) setting up new teams to handle their individual IPs & let staff shuffle about at the end of a dev cycle, or assign small groups to work with external developers to make licensed games. Starfield looks a lot more complex than prior games so the concern now is 10-15 years between games in a series may just be the start for BGS unless they change something. Think about it, 15 years between games. You may only see up to 6 in your lifetime, for millions of customers a lot less. No customer wants that for something they are invested in, & Microsoft doesn't want that for popular material. It's a balancing act between shitting out drivel & taking eons to make a good game in amongst other good games, & right now as I see it the balance is off.

I've often thought too that Microsoft should just decide at some point to create a big pool of their owned IPs & let their studios (or independent external companies) pitch games for them. I don't think clamping a studio down to one IP is healthy unless you allow staff to shuffle between studios as much as possible and make it easy to do so. Studios over there seem like sub companies rather than just one big microsoft game studio.


Thanks for reading this novelisation!