LogInOver time, however, the developers decided to focus more on storytelling.
Following the release of Avowed's 2020 CGI trailer and the recent gameplay trailer unveiled at Xbox Games Showcase 2023, numerous individuals began drawing comparisons between Obsidian Entertainment's upcoming first-person RPG and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, with the assessment stemming from the fact that the combat mechanics in both games look extremely similar to one another.
Feargus Urquhart, the CEO of Obsidian, has recently confirmed these rumors by acknowledging that Avowed was initially conceived as the studio's version of Skyrim. In an interview with PC Gamer, Urquhart disclosed that their original pitch revolved around creating a game akin to Skyrim.
"Originally we were pitching, in essence, our Skyrim," commented Urquhart. "I think over the course of time as we worked on it… Bethesda makes an awesome Skyrim. Mojang makes an awesome Minecraft, and Turn10 makes awesome racing games. What we do is we make our awesome RPGs, right?"
However, as time progressed, they reevaluated their approach and opted to concentrate on their core strength – storytelling.
"That's when we backed up and said again: What are we good at? What's our lane? Outer Worlds is the greatest, latest example of that, and even Pillars. Pillars is less linear than Outer Worlds, but it's still a game that has you go through a story. And [Pillars of Eternity] 2 was even less linear, but still again, you have this core story as you're going."
The CEO also noted that the upcoming RPG will most likely be relatively smaller in scale compared to Skyrim, focusing more on narrative, companions, and story.
"We could go off and create an 8km x 8km open world and then deal with all the consequences of that – because that makes it a different style game. But we want to tell more confined stories that the player can experience with their companions, and then move from part of the world to part of the world. And, like I said, in the end, that's us."
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