“That deal was the largest contract we ever signed.”
Earlier this week,I got the chance to talk to Obsidian about its brand new role-playing game Avowed.
But it’s not the first big RPG Obsidian has made for Microsoft and Xbox.
I wonder if any will ever resurface.
That is what was proposed to us."
Nothing that was standard or typically accepted in video games should be taken as acceptable.
Microsoft was even already talking about a sequel.
“They wanted to invest in a developer and IP over the long-term,” Urquhart says.
“That deal was the largest contract we signed.”
The game was Stormlands, codenamed North Carolina, and it would never see the light of day.
But Obsidian wasn’t under any illusions of success.
“We had no expectations,” says Urquhart.
“There’s no way they’re going to sign us,” they thought.
“We started talking pretty soon after that.”
Don’t you say I never do anything for you, you rotters!
We eventually come across a female character who was to be one of your companions.
A classic dialogue screen of choices appears and the characters interact, fully voiced.
“That was the pitch that got us the project,” says Urquhart as it ends.
These companions and these special partner moves were to be a fundamental cornerstone of the Stormlands experience.
Clearly a lot of work had been done.
What, then, went wrong?
“We look at something like that and it’s like, ‘Holy Jesus!'”
“This happens with everything,” he says.
“We do this when we’re talking to our people, we give them crazy ideas.
and in doing so triggering the creation of the iconic Walkman.
Nevertheless the demands from Microsoft to reinvent the wheel were high.
Throw more resources at it.
“It’s actually just going to be more complicated, more people running down the wrong path.”
We can make RPGs, it’s been shown.
The second challenge is we’ve not done a lot of multiplayer stuff before.
How do we now make a game that is realistic within all those challenges?
In March 2012, Feargus Urquhart got a phone call and it was Microsoft cancelling the game.
“You get a call, it’s always a call,” he says.
“People need to know there’s leadership and moving forward.
“Then we dealt with the people we were laying off to try and get them all sorted.”
Obsidian had South Park in development but THQ was crumbling away.
“Everybody is on point with, ‘What are we doing now?
[The layoff] was yesterday, yesterday sucked.
We’re done with it.
“We pitched Ubisoft, we pitched 2K, we pitched everybody.”
It makes sense - why pick up a game that another publisher cancelled?”
It became Tyranny, which received the expansion Bastard’s Wound this week.
As for Obsidian and Microsoft, whatever bridges were burned now sound repaired, and Urquhart maintains contact.
And I’ll tell you a bit more about that next week as well.
Disclaimer: Travel and accommodation for this trip was provided by Paradox Interactive.
