Chris Avellone: Obsidian made multiple proposals to develop spin-offs for Fallout and The Elder Scrolls which were turned down by Bethesda

[Gerrard]

letting an indie or lesser known studio take a shot at your IP is a risky proposition.

Games Workshop has entered the chat

 

[Beastro]

Todd always comes across as decent and genuinely interested in the projects he works on, even if they often tend to go horribly wrong. He doesn't really seem to have much of an ego either. I can easily believe he'd be very open to the idea of other people working on spinoff games for series that Bethesda owns the rights to.

The problem with Todd has always been his terrible taste/views around games and gameplay, never got any vibe of him about his ego.

It's not him thinking he's the greatest thing ever that's the issue, it's him progressively dumbing down/removing things game by game while looking for the next FusRoDah to popularize as the new lulzy cool thing for people to talk about.

 

[Beastro]

He didn't like the post-post apocalypse status quo, which is why he wanted to be in charge of it.

I love Chris, we all love Chris, but I've always hated this take of his. Opinions will vary but I find the post-post apocalypse, rising states, politics of FO2 and NV much more engaging than the post-apocalypse of FO1. Still, I'm curious exactly what direction he wanted to go in. We know he wanted to nuke the Mojave and reset civilization again, but... then what?

Wait, I took that as him arguing for that you just laid out.

The status quo is the problem. While it had a lot of nonesense places like New Reno, Fallout 2 took a large step in breaking that by showing the NRC forming a proper, budding state which led to New Vegas then taking the next step from that.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

Avowed's troubled development proved that Bethesda was right, Obsidian can't be trusted even to make a B grade Oblivion. They had to work with Obsidian and probably had first hand experience on what a shitshow that studio is behind the scenes.

Is there some information I don't know about? The game was seemingly announced in 2020 and is supposed to come out in 2nd half of 2024 which doesn't seem particularly toubled as in 2020 they were still working on TOW DLC(s?). 3-4 years dev cycle for an open world RPG isn't that rough.

 

[turkishronin]

Please stop promoting rapists on rpgcodex

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

All the twats are down. Where's my juicy gossip?

 

[turkishronin]

Made the mistake of going to reddit to see if the general audience is dissapointed they didn't get Elder Scrolls made by Avellone. Big mistake. I want to whack these motherfucking morons!

https://www.reddit.com/r/ElderScrol...thesda_denied_obsidian_to_make_tes_spin_offs/

Bunch of absolute dumb fucks circlejerking.. fucking wow!
Probably the type of wankers who thinks Skyrim and Fallout 3/4 has good writing.

You couldn't refute them on their site so you run away to your safe space in codex?
How are they wrong? Sawyer had more to do with FNV being great than MCA.
Kreia and Ulysses are not even characters, they're merely mouthpieces of him to rant about why he doesn't like the setting.
What are his contributions to FNV? He didn't want Legion to be a playable faction (probably due to his guilty conscience about being a rapist)
And he made the worst DLCs like Old World Reddit(haha small penises) and Lonesome Road. Dead Money was decent but it was a chore to play.
Meanwhile the most memorable character in Fallout New Vegas is Joshua Graham, which is written by Sawyer.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Bethesda is terrible, but Avellone is so overrated here lately.

The man was great in PST days, has done next to nothing since. The games he had a major role in AFTER PST, were all pretty underwhelming or just bad: KotOR 2, Alpha Protocol, etc. And his characters after PST were also generally overwritten or overly emo or some other bs that happens to washed up pissed off writers. Kreia, Durance, Ulysses, all just whiny bitches that talk too much while having very little to say of actual substance.

 

[Vyvian]

Phil needs to put the big boy pants on and tell Toddler that Sawyer is getting another crack at a Fallout game and that's that.

 

[Roguey]

Is there some information I don't know about? The game was seemingly announced in 2020 and is supposed to come out in 2nd half of 2024 which doesn't seem particularly toubled as in 2020 they were still working on TOW DLC(s?). 3-4 years dev cycle for an open world RPG isn't that rough.

They've been working on Avowed since 2018 and it had one restart and multiple leads leave.

I may be getting some times wrong, but back in January 2021 the project was so screwed up that Chris Parker was pulled off as project director and replaced with Carrie Patel, Bobby Null was pulled off as creative lead, and Dan Platt was replaced by Matt Hansen as art director. In April 2021 the lead writer Lucien Soulban quit and was replaced by Kate Dollarhyde. In May 2021 Jorge Salgado quit as lead area designer. In May 2022 Dollarhyde quit and was replaced by Robert Lo.

The announcement trailer was in 2020. Then nearly three years of nothing until earlier this year.

 

[JarlFrank]

letting an indie or lesser known studio take a shot at your IP is a risky proposition.

Games Workshop has entered the chat

Yeah, Warhammer games show that saturating the market with games set in your IP can be very effective. It helps that the games are often different from each other. All you need is a cool idea, ask GW "pls gib WH license", then they readily give it to you because more WH games = more money and more brand recognition.

 

[Yosharian]

Phil needs to put the big boy pants on and tell Toddler that Sawyer is getting another crack at a Fallout game and that's that.

Fabulous optimism

 

[Immortal]

Phil needs to put the big boy pants on and tell Toddler that Sawyer is getting another crack at a Fallout game and that's that.

Fabulous optimism

Do you really think Sawyer -today- could guide a team to a New Vegas?

That thought alone is optimistic in my opinion.

 

[Abu Antar]

GW don't make games, so them giving it out to others makes sense. It is in more recent time that they have been whoring out the license (for better or worse). If I was a studio like Bethesda, I honestly wouldn't be very tempted to give out my IP to other companies, especially not the original that was created from scratch. Fallout made some sense. But now that they have their own thing with FO76, they don't need anyone else for that. We'll see what Microsoft thinks.

 

[9ted6]

Avowed's troubled development proved that Bethesda was right, Obsidian can't be trusted even to make a B grade Oblivion. They had to work with Obsidian and probably had first hand experience on what a shitshow that studio is behind the scenes.

you can't judge FNV era obs with today's wokesidian, if bethesda wasn't butthurt from FNV MCA's proposal woulda worked very well

Even when Obsidian supposedly was good and not woke they gave us majority gay companions who talk about how gay they are, and Old World Blues and Lonesome Road are as stupid and poorly written as anything from Fallout 4. Avellone was the only decent writer on the team and even he had his fuckups.

There is a degree of logic in the stagnation of the Capital Wasteland. Super mutants have been terrorising the city for centuries. It makes less sense in the safer rural fringes. Megaton doesn't really strike me as a 200 year project.

If I remember FO3 was originally supposed to be set a few years after the war. A lot of its dumb moments make more sense with that in mind. They moved the timeline up but almost nothing went with it.

 

[scytheavatar]

Avowed's troubled development proved that Bethesda was right, Obsidian can't be trusted even to make a B grade Oblivion. They had to work with Obsidian and probably had first hand experience on what a shitshow that studio is behind the scenes.

Is there some information I don't know about? The game was seemingly announced in 2020 and is supposed to come out in 2nd half of 2024 which doesn't seem particularly toubled as in 2020 they were still working on TOW DLC(s?). 3-4 years dev cycle for an open world RPG isn't that rough.

Game was used by Obsidian to pitch to Microsoft as to why they should be brought, and that was in 2018. It already received at least 2 downgrades, first away from its multi-player focus and then Obsidian gave up on even making a B grade Oblivion (compare their first teaser to what we are getting now) . They basically spent at least 6 years to produce what that looks like a medieval Outer Worlds, and The Outer Worlds took 4 years to make.

 

[REhorror]

I don't trust in either Obsidian NOR Bethesda.

Luckily Iron Towers exist so....

 

[SharkClub]

You know... all the complaints Avellone has about the setting being post-post-apocalyptic, set too far in the future from the event itself and needing another few nukes to reset it could easily be remedied by just throwing Bethesda's retarded obsession with only having the timeline advance forward linearly out the window.

Bethesda decided Fallout 3 had to take place after 2 despite the fact that 3 feels like it would take place closer to 1. Bethesda decided New Vegas had to take place after 3. Bethesda decided 4 had to take place after New Vegas. It was only finally with 76 that they relented and set a game closer to the apocalypse, but I doubt they'd do that to a mainline game, Fallout 5 will be set after Fallout 4 and have people living in the same bombed out buildings with a 300 year old skeleton next to their bed.

Just set the game somewhere in the US that hasn't been featured yet, add some new factions and regional conflicts that aren't world ending lore shit, that's all you have to do to be able to set the game closer to the apocalypse and still be in the Fallout setting. Unfortunately this will never happen because Bethesda is creatively bankrupt and just want to bring the BoS back in every game, as shown by their absolutely nonsensical inclusion in 76, so it will always make more sense for them to keep advancing the timeline and having the BoS hopping around the country on airships, because that's easier to handwave than a retarded expedition to West Virginia from California at the outset of nuclear war.

 

[EtcEtcEtc]

GW don't make games, so them giving it out to others makes sense. It is in more recent time that they have been whoring out the license (for better or worse). If I was a studio like Bethesda, I honestly wouldn't be very tempted to give out my IP to other companies, especially not the original that was created from scratch. Fallout made some sense. But now that they have their own thing with FO76, they don't need anyone else for that. We'll see what Microsoft thinks.

It's not their IP anymore though - it's Microsoft's.

 

[Abu Antar]

GW don't make games, so them giving it out to others makes sense. It is in more recent time that they have been whoring out the license (for better or worse). If I was a studio like Bethesda, I honestly wouldn't be very tempted to give out my IP to other companies, especially not the original that was created from scratch. Fallout made some sense. But now that they have their own thing with FO76, they don't need anyone else for that. We'll see what Microsoft thinks.

It's not their IP anymore though - it's Microsoft's.

Hence the last sentence.

 

[Roguey]

Even when Obsidian supposedly was good and not woke they gave us majority gay companions who talk about how gay they are, and Old World Blues and Lonesome Road are as stupid and poorly written as anything from Fallout 4. Avellone was the only decent writer on the team and even he had his fuckups.

Avellone's been writing gay people since he was in college. The only reason Torment, Sith Lords, and NWN 2 didn't have any is because the IP-owners didn't allow it. At the time, Arcade Gannon was help up as an example of a gay character done right because his sexuality is 1% of his character.

Also a bit of a disservice to John Gonzalez, Travis Stout, Eric Fenstermaker, Josh Sawyer, and George Ziets who did all some fine work on New Vegas. To say that Avellone was the only decent one is incredibly reductive.

 

[9ted6]

Even when Obsidian supposedly was good and not woke they gave us majority gay companions who talk about how gay they are, and Old World Blues and Lonesome Road are as stupid and poorly written as anything from Fallout 4. Avellone was the only decent writer on the team and even he had his fuckups.

Avellone's been writing gay people since he was in college. The only reason Torment, Sith Lords, and NWN 2 didn't have any is because the IP-owners didn't allow it. At the time, Arcade Gannon was help up as an example of a gay character done right because his sexuality is 1% of his character.

Also a bit of a disservice to John Gonzalez, Travis Stout, Eric Fenstermaker, Josh Sawyer, and George Ziets who did all some fine work on New Vegas. To say that Avellone was the only decent one is incredibly reductive.

FNV did it better than more aggressively woke games, Veronica and Arcade don't bring up how gay they are in every chat, but the fact all but one human companion is gay or bi stands out as unrealistic pandering. And while the writing on an individual comparative basis is better than 3, on the whole it's not great.

The story is obviously rushed once you hit Novac and everything can be blitzed in about two hours no matter who you side with and none of the DLCs are particularly well written. OWB is a waste of disk space. A chunk of the touted tons of sidequests are the talk to person A, go to person B, get reward variety too. The C&C is good though.

That's not to say 3 is any better in any way, though I think it was less woke, but NV wasn't a work of art. It shines by not being as bland and shit as FO3, not because it's shiny on its own. What sucks is that while 3 had much weaker writing, it had a more interesting and lively open world.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

letting an indie or lesser known studio take a shot at your IP is a risky proposition.

Games Workshop has entered the chat

Paradox is even worse about this.

 

[luj1]

Infinitron and Roguey will kiss the ass of Obsidian until the heat death of the universe. Yes, yes, we missed out, sure

Youre talking about a company that never made anything better than average (except SWKotOR 2)

FNV is a plebeian mockery of Fallout

 

[The Wall]

Some website rediscovered an old tweet by Chris Avellone:



I was told about this at the time. Obsidian really wanted to become Bethesda's designated "B-team" studio but they were rejected. We lost out on good games because of Bethesda's idiotic inferiority complex towards FO:NV.

Avowed's troubled development proved that Bethesda was right, Obsidian can't be trusted even to make a B grade Oblivion. They had to work with Obsidian and probably had first hand experience on what a shitshow that studio is behind the scenes.

Firstly let's turn: ON our brainz. Ok, feels much better. Secondly and lastly: Bethesda and Obsidian in 2020s have nothing, let me repeat: NOTHING, one more time for all the midwits in back seats: N O T H I N G to do with Bethesda and Obsidian from early 2010s. Only one thing survived: Todd Howard's colossal butthurt