Obsidian Entertainment has been pumping out beloved RPGs for decades now, but there was a long period of time where the studio’s financial footing was on shaky ground, prompting it to turn to crowdfunding. Though Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity director Josh Sawyer now says that even Kickstarter, the studio’s saving grace at the time, seemed like a risky move.
Speaking to Edge Magazine Issue 404, Sawyer says the idea to go down the crowdfunding route with an Infinity Engine-style game came after Double Fine (Psychonauts, Brutal Legend) successfully raised millions on Kickstarter to fund both a throwback point-and-click adventure game and a behind-the-scenes making-of documentary. Despite Double Fine’s huge win on the platform, Sawyer recalls that Obsidian’s “owner did not want to do it” and that he himself “was actually ready to leave [the studio] to do it.”
“Other people at the studio were also like ‘are we really not going to do this? If we don’t do it, there’s going to be another studio that [does],'” he continues. “There were a few ideas and the initial work didn’t go very far. We knew the clock was ticking on this.” Sawyer then came up with the idea to plan an old-school-style CRPG that mixes Planescape: Torment’s metaphysical ideas, Icewind Dale’s dungeon-diving, and Baldur’s Gate’s emphasis on companions.
“That’s the dream, right? A lot of people will probably say we didn’t come anywhere close on any of those things, but that was the idea – to blend the best things from the different Infinity Engine games into our own thing,” he says.
The idea was rock solid. The studio had more than proven itself in the genre. Double Fine had legitimized Kickstarter as a viable funding route. And top-down throwback CRPGs were just as rare as point-and-click adventure games. Even still, “I thought there was a 50/50 chance that we would get funded in a month,” Sawyer said, “so the fact that it was funded in 27 hours blew us away.”
“Creatively, I did feel more constrained on both Pillars and Deadfire, because there were so many genre expectations, worldbuilding expectations, ruleset expectations,” he continued. “Sometimes I had ideas where I was like I think this probably could be a better game, objectively, if I could make different choices here – but if I make different choices, a big chunk of the audience is going to get really upset about it.”
Pillars of Eternity was eventually a big success for the studio, and it’s continued to have a ripple effect throughout the years. Obsidian’s next game, the first-person RPG Avowed coming next year, actually shares the same universe as its isometric adventures, and Sawyer has mentioned the possibility of a Pillars of Eternity 3 a fair few times after the success of Baldur’s Gate 3.
Check out our Big Preview for Avowed to find out everything about Obsidian’s next romp through the Pillars of Eternity world.