The latest milestone in Xbox’s ongoing brutal reset consisted in part of studios being reassigned within the sprawling gaming division’s internal org chart. One of the biggest moves was putting Obsidian Entertainment under Bethesda. The maker of Avowed and The Outer Worlds had previously operated independently within Xbox. Will that still be the case, or could the renowned RPG maker become more of a support-style studio in service of a Fallout-first development model? Jill Braff, Microsoft’s president of Bethesda and Casual Games, spoke to some of these concerns in a recent email to the studio.

“The creative identity and strengths that make Obsidian distinct will remain at the core of their studio and work,” Braff wrote, according to a copy obtained by Aftermath. “[CEO] Feargus [Urquhart] and the Obsidian leadership team will continue to lead Obsidian, with the studio reporting to me. Bethesda Game Studios will continue to lead the Fallout franchise. Together, the teams will build on their longstanding relationship and the early work already underway on a new Fallout project, with more to share in the months ahead. This structure supports the franchise-led model we’ve been strengthening while keeping accountability for both the studio and the franchise clear.”

The “franchise-led model” mentioned here seems significant. Prior Xbox leadership made a lot of noise about remaining unusually hands-off toward its studios, allowing them a wide berth when it came to what games they’d make and how the visions for them were defined. This is the model that led Obsidian Entertainment in particular to ship not just Avowed , a first-person fantasy RPG with shades of The Elder Scrolls , and The Outer Worlds 2 , a shooter RPG in the mold of Fallout , but also Pentiment , a completely original story-driven detective game presented in the visual style of late medieval–period manuscripts and woodcut prints.

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