Avowed, the recently released action RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, garnered positive buzz when it was released this month. It had quite a tumultuous development cycle.
It was announced during the Xbox Games Showcase in July 2020 and was released five years later on February 18. But did you know it suffered numerous setbacks, given the game had to be rebooted twice?
Avowed's Development Began In 2018
Game director Carrie Patel shared the development struggles of Avowed in a chat with Bloomberg (paywalled). When Avowed was announced, the game had already gone through two vertical slices (a chunk of the game designed to demonstrate how it would play). Even then, it wasn't moving in the direction the development team was hoping for, and by January, the studio replaced the project's leadership team and once again rebooted the game.
Patel notes, "Normally if you’re stepping back and reevaluating your creative direction, putting together a new vertical slice and revised production plans, you would do that with a very small team...We did not have a very small team at that point."
In the following weeks and months, Patel had to develop a new vision for the game, fill key leadership roles, and keep...
