Obsidian 'Thrilled' As Xbox First-Party Game Pentiment Wins Award

Now that this has won an award, hopefully Microsoft won't go and close this studio as well.

Yes...I'm still crying over Hifi-Rush

They shouldn't be celebrating too much as Tango found out that winning an award wasn't good enough to stop the studio being destroyed by the bean counters at Microsoft.

Tango was also apparently closed for being Japanese and having a different culture. So team green are racists.

I much preferred Hi-Fi RUSH and Ghostwire to the stuff Obsidian made but they get a free pass for being located in the US

@Gamer_X i think the award confirms they will shut it down. Just look at tango and all those awards showing they may be a curse

Award winning Xbox game?! Studio closure incoming!

@Kooky_Geezer Hi Fi Rush and Ghostwire are completely different than Pentiment made by a really small group inside Obsidian. But just like Hi Fi Rush Pentiment was critically acclaimed and was a breath of fresh air. I'm still sad that Tango got closed not so much for Arkane Austin. As much I love their previous titles it seems the team were no longer there that made Prey such a wonderful title. So it was better they got shuttered and talented people might have moved to Arkane Lyon now probably will be known as Arkane Studio. Tango on the other hand should have been made a AA studio that boasts creative and passionate devs to create another wonder like Hi Fi Rush. And there's nothing to worry if Obsidian makes one hit with either Avowed or Outer Worlds 2 as in the present Xbox Lineup it seems Obsidian and Bethesda Softworks are carrying the torch for first party input. So I'm glad Pentiment got the award and hope the very best for Xbox in the coming years. And do hope Microsoft doesn't go all in on COD like Activision because that would kill what made Xbox unique in the first place to me and many others.

Damn that sucks. Looks like they're next to get shutdown then. Can't have teams with good games. We don't want another Hi-Fi Rush problem on our hands. F**k Xbox.

Just cancelled my Game Pass. Microsoft has some work to do.

@Kooky_Geezer

Tango was also apparently closed for being Japanese and having a different culture. So team green are racists

Was that just a throwaway comment or is it based in reality (got something to back that up with)?... I understand we're all disappointed with Microsoft but racism allegations seem a bit over the top.

Congratulations to Obsidian, Pentiment is excellent and I can't wait to play Avowed.

Obsidian has a consistent flow of quality titles. If avowed makes its 2024 target then it will be 5 games in 7 years. I don't think we have to worry about them closing especially if they keep spitting out games with over 15 million players like grounded (that number was reached prior to switch and ps5 versions being out). Massive success for xbox.

Pillars of eternity 2 2018
The outer worlds 2019
Grounded 2022 (early access 2020)
Pentiment 2022
Avowed 2024
Outer worlds 2 (tbd)

Uh oh.... here comes Matt Booby!

Don't worry Feargus, I'm sure Ubisoft is hiring.

@NEStalgia

You could have at least picked Sony, apparently they've acquired Deviation Games, or whatever was left of them 😉.....

@Sol4ris lol. Two peas in a pod. We're broke! Let's close studios. Hey look a studio for sale, let's buy it! 🙄

@Gamer_X Win an an even number of rewards and you're good; win an odd number, and it's curtains for you.

Obsidian has other projects in the works, unlike poor Tango. No need to staff up and long hammer out project details before beginning development one day.

I finally played and finished Pentiment this month and loved it. The ambiguous nature of the mysteries on top of the stakes tied to your choices made it very memorable, I really agonized over some of the accusations I made.

I said this before here but for anyone else who enjoyed Pentiment, you should check out the criminally overlooked Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. It's got similar themes and fantastic artwork but it's clearly on a higher budget (fully voice acted, better animation, etc).

Next on chopping block

I wish we could have more games as creative, interesting, mid-budget, and excellent as pentiment. Would take one pentiment over 5 of the usual AAA games.

Good lord are people just trolling, or are they so traumatized they have to bring up the Bethesda closures in every thread? The internet really wrecks some people.

Whilst I too am disappointed in Studio closures, there is a difference between buying an independent Studio and buying a Publisher with Multiple Studios in a 'bundle'.

MS could have bought Zenimax because they really wanted their Back Catalogue (Publishing rights), IP's like Fallout, Doom, Elder Scrolls etc, the tech (id tech Engine, Creation engine) and/or some of the Studios (id Software, Machine Games, Bethesda) but to get them, had to buy 'everything'.

Obsidian have probably been the most Productive too of the new Studios. We are still waiting for games from Compulsion, undead Labs etc, yet Obsidian have delivered Pentiment, Grounded and some Outer Worlds DLC, as well as working on Avowed and Outer Worlds 2.

Both Arkane Austin and Tango may not have had anything in development and requiring a lot of investment to get those Studio's up to full capacity to bring games to market in a reasonable time frame. Arkane Austin lost a lot of Staff because of Zenimax pushing them to make Redfall and Tango too lost the creator behind the Evil Within.

As I said, I'm disappointed with the news this week, but I don't think Obsidian are in the same situation with Avowed nearing completion and Outer Worlds 2 in development. Also MS bought Obsidian specifically.

Obsidian was bought as a single package. Xbox specifically wanted this one studio.

Tango was part of a package deal and merely an inclusion with what xbox actually wanted which was ID, BGS, machine games, zenimax online.