Putting an end to all the rumours, Microsoft has finally announced the acquisition of two of the most prolific western RPG studios, Obsidian and InXile Entertainment. Obsidian is best known for their work in Role Playing Games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Alpha Protocol, Fallout: New Vegas and the Pillars of Eternity series, while InXile is best known for developing Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera and The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep. These are the latest in the spate of Xbox acquisitions, which have also seen the likes of Ninja Theory join the team
This acquisition also means that both studios won’t be making any games for the Playstation platform and instead, will focus on PC and Xbox One. However, since PS4 Ports of both Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire and InXile’s Wasteland 3 is in the pipelines, it can be assumed that Microsoft will allow the development of these titles for the Playstation platform.
Brian Fargo, the head of InXile who had announced his retirement from the industry after the release of Wasteland 3 has stated via Twitter that he’ll be postponing the retirement and said that “the best and most important part of this news is that we get to continue making the kind of RPGs you love!”.
Both Obsidian and InXile, has released announcement videos detailing what this acquisition means to them and the studios’ plans for the future. What it means for Obsidian’s still-unannounced game with Take-Two Interactive is still unclear.
Any RPG fan who has been following the scene for a while know what this news means for forums like RPG Watch and RPG Codex. As one would expect, both are up in flames especially with the whole Chris Avellone controversy still up in the air.
Despite what you think of both studios, it’s hard to deny that this acquisition obviously saves the two companies from any imminent bankruptcy or financial problems, as well as allowing the development of big budget AAA RPGs and better QA support. However, it is worth noting that both Obsidian and InXile hasn’t fared well in the past with a publisher breathing down their necks. Let’s hope for the better and maybe we’ll see some top-of-the-line AAA RPGs in the Windows device family.
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