Obsidian Dev: Avowed Trailer “Fails As A Trailer”, Unfair To Compare It To The Outer Worlds

An Obsidian developer has stated that the Avowed trailer shown at the recent Xbox Showcase “fails as a trailer”, and that it is unfair to compare the game to The Outer Worlds.

Speaking on the RPG Codex forums, Obsidian developer Briar Diem stated that the Avowed trailer failed to show much in its 2 minute run time, which, according to him, also meant that it “fails as a trailer”. He added that many other developers at the studio shared his sentiment. Though, he later edited out a portion of his aforementioned statement.

Diem tried to clear up misconceptions about Avowed by saying that the game is big and open, and that it is unfair to compare it to Obsidian’s previous role-playing game, The Outer Worlds. He added that the two games are “nothing alike”.

He shared some insight regarding the trailer shown at the recent Xbox Showcase, stating that that the studio that put it together did some compression of colors and image editing. He said that the screenshots that have been released are much more representative of what the game looks like. Though he added that they appeared to be totally random shots from the game, and he wasn’t sure why they were chosen out all the things. As per him, the likely explanation is that the apparently random selection of screenshots may be to avoid spoilers.

He said that a lot of the game is being kept hidden right now, and that fans will have to wait until the next trailer or some sort of presentation to see the actual game in action. He assured that it’s safe for fans to assume that Avowed is very much Obsidian’s work. He said that the entire game isn’t all bright and “happy town”, nor is it all so indistinct, visually. As per him, there are lots of characters, quests, conversations, various game mechanics, a major storyline, etc.

Diem concluded his post by saying that development is going well right now, and that Microsoft has given Obsidian a free license to do as it will, and, whether it succeeds or fails, it will be on the studio’s own terms. In his subsequent post, the developer stated that the development of Avowed had not ye entered its Alpha phase, as art will get refined in various ways and the lighting will also change. Though, he added that designs will not change.