I hope it includes all the races/classes from PoE, or if it has an Elder Scrolls-esque skill system then have skills that correlate with those archetypes. I'd love to play an Orlan and be able to see how big the world looks from their perspective.
Yes Grounded is an Obsidian game. And yes it is classified as a survival RPG as it has quite significant RPG elements such as character development and level progression, story-driven main quest and side-quests, etc., plus also a crafting system. Then you also have the base-building and resource harvesting and management elements that are the survival side of the game. Oh, and it does have the option of being played in third-person.
A lot of people are raving about this game, and it's not even in its final form yet. Very happy for Obsidian's success here, and also proving critics wrong that MS will never allow games like this one to ever be made by Obsidian again.
I hope it includes all the races/classes from PoE, or if it has an Elder Scrolls-esque skill system then have skills that correlate with those archetypes. I'd love to play an Orlan and be able to see how big the world looks from their perspective.
I totally agree. And I have no doubt they will fully use all the setting-related materials they have developed in this new game. The only major concern is that if the game is solo-play and not party-based, then will they dump classes altogether for some classless system like in Skyrim or Dragon Age? I sure hope not, because I love the concept of classes.
@kanisatha "Yes Grounded is an Obsidian game. And yes it is classified as a survival RPG as it has quite significant RPG elements such as character development and level progression, story-driven main quest and side-quests, etc., plus also a crafting system."
You just described almost every game to come out in the last 5 years. Having some elements of an RPG doesn't make it a full RPG anymore. Otherwise literally every game is an RPG now.
@kanisatha "Yes Grounded is an Obsidian game. And yes it is classified as a survival RPG as it has quite significant RPG elements such as character development and level progression, story-driven main quest and side-quests, etc., plus also a crafting system."
You just described almost every game to come out in the last 5 years. Having some elements of an RPG doesn't make it a full RPG anymore. Otherwise literally every game is an RPG now.
Fair enough, though that would beg the question: what *is* a cRPG these days? For me, ultimately, it just comes down whether I enjoy playing that game or not.
@kanisatha "Yes Grounded is an Obsidian game. And yes it is classified as a survival RPG as it has quite significant RPG elements such as character development and level progression, story-driven main quest and side-quests, etc., plus also a crafting system."
You just described almost every game to come out in the last 5 years. Having some elements of an RPG doesn't make it a full RPG anymore. Otherwise literally every game is an RPG now.
He actually described game that has full RPG elements, instead of some RPG elements? WTF dude?
@kanisatha "Yes Grounded is an Obsidian game. And yes it is classified as a survival RPG as it has quite significant RPG elements such as character development and level progression, story-driven main quest and side-quests, etc., plus also a crafting system."
You just described almost every game to come out in the last 5 years. Having some elements of an RPG doesn't make it a full RPG anymore. Otherwise literally every game is an RPG now.
He actually described game that has full RPG elements, instead of some RPG elements? WTF dude?
Then every single game is now an RPG. Even FPS games have character progression now, every game has has been story driven for YEARS now unless its an intentional arcade throwback or multiplayer area, same for side quests, and crafting? Seriously, crafting has spread way too much in games. Everyone tries to shoehorn it in now, whether it fits or not.
By these criteria, MInecraft, subnautica, about half of the FPSes, racing games with career mode, Soul Caliber, etc. are all RPGs. If this counts as a "Full" RPG, then including genres at all is now utterly pointless. EVERYTHING is an RPG.
I have to agree: Grounded is NOT an RPG and hasn't been marketed as an RPG. The official Twitter account calls it "a new cooperative multiplayer survival adventure game with a small twist".
From all the interviews (not media pieces written by independent press) with the team it's clear Grounded is a project new for Obsidian, an experiment. It seems to be very successful.
Avowed will be a true RPG, first-person instead of isometric, set in the same world as PoE games.
I hope the team won't be restricted in time and resources as they were with The Outer Worlds, and will come up with interesting gameplay and story. It's great to see the series going in direction of more detailization visually, as isometric, while beautiful, can't be as immersive as first-person games. I salute experiments.
I hope the team won't be restricted in time and resources as they were with The Outer Worlds, and will come up with interesting gameplay and story. It's great to see the series going in direction of more detailization visually, as isometric, while beautiful, can't be as immersive as first-person games. I salute experiments.
Yeah this is why I was, from the beginning, quite happy with MS buying up Obsidian. I was quite confident we would end up with the best of both worlds: Obsidian would remain true to its identity as a creative and independent studio, with continuing focus on making high-quality RPGs but also experimenting with games in other genres, while being a part of MS would mean they don't have to worry as much about the budget and chasing publishers (or crowd funding) anymore and would be free to make games as they want to make them. That seems to be exactly how things are panning out. MS is allowing them to be as creative as they want to be and to pursue small passion projects even while also making the big AAA games that MS is looking for. The fact that when they made TOW (pre-MS) their budget would not allow them to include third-person perspective (Obsidian devs confirmed this multiple times on their forum that the budget was why they couldn't include it), but now for an even smaller game (Grounded) TP perspective is included by default, says a lot about how big of a difference it is to have MS's money. I mean, right now, Obsidian has four projects ongoing that we know of. FOUR! Two huge content DLCs for TOW (plus surely pre-development work on a TOW2); Grounded; Avowed; and Sawyer's unannounced RPG project. That's just so awesome.
Considering how they've fallen from grace, hard, I'm not so sure that's a favorable comparison. Especially with EA's track record. Let's not forget all the companies bought out and killed in fairly short time.
I can't say Eora as a world ever interested me. But then again, that's probably because PoE as a game couldn't hold me attention. We really, really need more open world RPGs however, so i'm gonna give it a shot.
Considering how they've fallen from grace, hard, I'm not so sure that's a favorable comparison. Especially with EA's track record. Let's not forget all the companies bought out and killed in fairly short time.
That was the point
After a buyout like that the new owner will often use the studio's name like a brand and put it on a lot of unrelated studios for marketing purposes. I'm assuming what with the increase of Obsidian's planned games that the same has happened here (though I haven't actually checked).
I'm glad that Shrunken did well. It means they might have lucked out and the people put in charge of development in the new studio organisation are capable game developers and the good name of Obsidian will live on, even if it'll probably be associated less and less with RPGs from now on.
So far, I haven’t seen any indication that Microsoft will go EAs route with these new studios, in fact I think it’s the opposite.
Microsoft is putting a lot of stock into its Netflix like gaming service and will need newer, exclusive titles to sell it. They won’t get that by stifling the creativity of their studios. In fact, Microsoft will probably learn from EAs mistakes from offering Origin’s free trials for games like Anthem and Andromeda only to have the actual sales plummet because consumers realized they were dead on arrival.
They may go the EA route with this gaming service however and offer only the base games for free, while any additional DLC for the games need to be bought, but I generally don’t find anything wrong with this.
That said, only time will tell but I don’t think Microsoft has the luxury of screwing this up if they want to stay in the console wars.
I can't say Eora as a world ever interested me. But then again, that's probably because PoE as a game couldn't hold me attention. We really, really need more open world RPGs however, so i'm gonna give it a shot.
eora just is not an interesting setting imo. the lore is just to dry and not that interesting.
I found the worldbuilding to be rather fascinating myself. Pillars of Eternity is pretty much the only western RPG franchise that incorporates the concept of reincarnation as fundamental part of its setting. The fact that Eora's gods were actually made by men also put a refreshing twist on the standard creation myth. Something that pretty much makes it the antithesis of the Forgotten Reams, theologically speaking.
True, the first installment somewhat felt too same-y to other franchises. Given the numbers of RPG's which are heavily inspired by celtic culture is staggering. Which is why I vastly preferred the second installment. Anything outside of medieval Europe-esque settings is a plus in my book.
I found the worldbuilding to be rather fascinating myself. Pillars of Eternity is pretty much the only western RPG franchise that incorporates the concept of reincarnation as fundamental part of its setting. The fact that Eora's gods were actually made by men also put a refreshing twist on the standard creation myth. Something that pretty much makes it the antithesis of the Forgotten Reams, theologically speaking.
True, the first installment somewhat felt too same-y to other franchises. Given the numbers of RPG's which are heavily inspired by celtic culture is staggering. Which is why I vastly preferred the second installment. Anything outside of medieval Europe-esque settings is a plus in my book.
I agree. Now Eora rivals, and in some ways like the very things you mention here surpasses, my love for the Realms. But unlike the Realms, and other fantasy settings that have been around for a very long time, Eora is still largely an open book that is yet to be filled in. And I expect that through games like Avowed we will see some really interesting new lore and new ideas making their way into the setting.
Shame its the absolute worst kind of RPG. First person hack and slash tends to be very bland game play wise. Hack and slash in general tends to be rock boring, actually. Maybe if they can a lot of neat interactivity like Dark Messiah did, this might be worth playing.
Shame its the absolute worst kind of RPG. First person hack and slash tends to be very bland game play wise. Hack and slash in general tends to be rock boring, actually. Maybe if they can a lot of neat interactivity like Dark Messiah did, this might be worth playing.
What could possibly make you think it would be "hack and slash"? I don't think it is in Obsidian's genes to even be able to make a hack and slash game. And in this case they openly say it is a story-driven RPG, and the trailer at least implies lots of reactivity and consequences. Yeah, I don't care for the FP perspective to be sure, but everything else about the game screams classic RPG.
Shame its the absolute worst kind of RPG. First person hack and slash tends to be very bland game play wise. Hack and slash in general tends to be rock boring, actually. Maybe if they can a lot of neat interactivity like Dark Messiah did, this might be worth playing.
What could possibly make you think it would be "hack and slash"? I don't think it is in Obsidian's genes to even be able to make a hack and slash game. And in this case they openly say it is a story-driven RPG, and the trailer at least implies lots of reactivity and consequences. Yeah, I don't care for the FP perspective to be sure, but everything else about the game screams classic RPG.
It’s going to be a Skyrim clone which is more hack and slash than tactical.
I don’t know how much faith I would have in the writing of it. I will think it’ll be better than anything Bethesda has written, but won’t be on par with other triple A, open world games.
I’d also still way too early in development to get any substantial hype out of it.
@kanisatha The first person view exceedingly limits movement options in combat. anything remotely technical or acrobatic will either be impossible to do, or would cause some awful disorientation. The only real options are "stand in front of opponent and hack away, occasionally strafe. Block." The only game I've ever seen do anything interesting with it was Might and Magic: Dark Messiah, which used a physics engine and copious amounts of environmental interaction to make combat more interesting.
Story driven is important, but it can only do so much if the only way to interact with the game is boring.
Shame its the absolute worst kind of RPG. First person hack and slash tends to be very bland game play wise. Hack and slash in general tends to be rock boring, actually. Maybe if they can a lot of neat interactivity like Dark Messiah did, this might be worth playing.
What could possibly make you think it would be "hack and slash"? I don't think it is in Obsidian's genes to even be able to make a hack and slash game. And in this case they openly say it is a story-driven RPG, and the trailer at least implies lots of reactivity and consequences. Yeah, I don't care for the FP perspective to be sure, but everything else about the game screams classic RPG.
It’s going to be a Skyrim clone which is more hack and slash than tactical.
I don’t know how much faith I would have in the writing of it. I will think it’ll be better than anything Bethesda has written, but won’t be on par with other triple A, open world games.
I’d also still way too early in development to get any substantial hype out of it.
Saying "Skyrim clone" has almost become a meme at this point. It won't be a Skyrim clone. Obsidian and MS gain nothing by just remaking someone else's game. In fact, it's kind of silly to think any serious game studio will just make a clone of some other existing game.
As for the writing, I guess that is subjective. I consider Obsidian to be one of the best, if not the best right now among RPG studios. Among RPGs I have played no one else comes close to Obsidian with respect to writing.
But yes, I agree, it is way too early to tell, because all we have at this point is a short cinematic trailer. We do have that list of things "leaked" about the game that I cut and pasted in a previous post. But still, no real info, including especially the possibility (and I thing very likely) the game will have a third-person option.
@kanisatha The first person view exceedingly limits movement options in combat. anything remotely technical or acrobatic will either be impossible to do, or would cause some awful disorientation. The only real options are "stand in front of opponent and hack away, occasionally strafe. Block." The only game I've ever seen do anything interesting with it was Might and Magic: Dark Messiah, which used a physics engine and copious amounts of environmental interaction to make combat more interesting.
Hey I agree about the FP perspective and that does trouble me. But I wouldn't say FP automatically makes a game hack and slash.
When TOW was announced as FP, Obsidian devs themselves said they couldn't include TP for budget reasons. Now, since joining MS, their next game, Grounded, has included TP option. So I have a lot of hope that Avowed will also end up having a TP option.
Shame its the absolute worst kind of RPG. First person hack and slash tends to be very bland game play wise. Hack and slash in general tends to be rock boring, actually. Maybe if they can a lot of neat interactivity like Dark Messiah did, this might be worth playing.
What could possibly make you think it would be "hack and slash"? I don't think it is in Obsidian's genes to even be able to make a hack and slash game. And in this case they openly say it is a story-driven RPG, and the trailer at least implies lots of reactivity and consequences. Yeah, I don't care for the FP perspective to be sure, but everything else about the game screams classic RPG.
It’s going to be a Skyrim clone which is more hack and slash than tactical.
I don’t know how much faith I would have in the writing of it. I will think it’ll be better than anything Bethesda has written, but won’t be on par with other triple A, open world games.
I’d also still way too early in development to get any substantial hype out of it.
Saying "Skyrim clone" has almost become a meme at this point. It won't be a Skyrim clone. Obsidian and MS gain nothing by just remaking someone else's game. In fact, it's kind of silly to think any serious game studio will just make a clone of some other existing game.
I mean. That's like 95% of the game developing business.
Shame its the absolute worst kind of RPG. First person hack and slash tends to be very bland game play wise. Hack and slash in general tends to be rock boring, actually. Maybe if they can a lot of neat interactivity like Dark Messiah did, this might be worth playing.
What could possibly make you think it would be "hack and slash"? I don't think it is in Obsidian's genes to even be able to make a hack and slash game. And in this case they openly say it is a story-driven RPG, and the trailer at least implies lots of reactivity and consequences. Yeah, I don't care for the FP perspective to be sure, but everything else about the game screams classic RPG.
It’s going to be a Skyrim clone which is more hack and slash than tactical.
I don’t know how much faith I would have in the writing of it. I will think it’ll be better than anything Bethesda has written, but won’t be on par with other triple A, open world games.
I’d also still way too early in development to get any substantial hype out of it.
Saying "Skyrim clone" has almost become a meme at this point. It won't be a Skyrim clone. Obsidian and MS gain nothing by just remaking someone else's game. In fact, it's kind of silly to think any serious game studio will just make a clone of some other existing game.
I mean. That's like 95% of the game developing business.
[
Hey I agree about the FP perspective and that does trouble me. But I wouldn't say FP automatically makes a game hack and slash.
Yeah, I mainly play Skyrim in third person and it's just as much of a hack and slash there
And there are plenty of isometric games that are hack and slash too, for example any and all dungeon crawlers imo. So there is no correlation between the perspective of a game and whether it is hack and slash.
Shame its the absolute worst kind of RPG. First person hack and slash tends to be very bland game play wise. Hack and slash in general tends to be rock boring, actually. Maybe if they can a lot of neat interactivity like Dark Messiah did, this might be worth playing.
What could possibly make you think it would be "hack and slash"? I don't think it is in Obsidian's genes to even be able to make a hack and slash game. And in this case they openly say it is a story-driven RPG, and the trailer at least implies lots of reactivity and consequences. Yeah, I don't care for the FP perspective to be sure, but everything else about the game screams classic RPG.
It’s going to be a Skyrim clone which is more hack and slash than tactical.
I don’t know how much faith I would have in the writing of it. I will think it’ll be better than anything Bethesda has written, but won’t be on par with other triple A, open world games.
I’d also still way too early in development to get any substantial hype out of it.
Saying "Skyrim clone" has almost become a meme at this point. It won't be a Skyrim clone. Obsidian and MS gain nothing by just remaking someone else's game. In fact, it's kind of silly to think any serious game studio will just make a clone of some other existing game.
I mean. That's like 95% of the game developing business.
[
Hey I agree about the FP perspective and that does trouble me. But I wouldn't say FP automatically makes a game hack and slash.
Yeah, I mainly play Skyrim in third person and it's just as much of a hack and slash there
And there are plenty of isometric games that are hack and slash too, for example any and all dungeon crawlers imo. So there is no correlation between the perspective of a game and whether it is hack and slash.
You CAN'T do a tactical system and keep it first person. There is no enough view of the overall battle that way. It is specifically limiting in this regard to other systems.
Possible, yes. Though it would be more immersive to pull off in a scifi RPG. All the developers would need to do is giving the player access to drones that could monitor the environment in real time via a mini HUD overlay. The player character itself wouldn't even show up on their live footage. Basically a repurposed minimap.
I suppose the same could also be immersively achieved via using familiars or animal companions in place of drones.
Shame its the absolute worst kind of RPG. First person hack and slash tends to be very bland game play wise. Hack and slash in general tends to be rock boring, actually. Maybe if they can a lot of neat interactivity like Dark Messiah did, this might be worth playing.
What could possibly make you think it would be "hack and slash"? I don't think it is in Obsidian's genes to even be able to make a hack and slash game. And in this case they openly say it is a story-driven RPG, and the trailer at least implies lots of reactivity and consequences. Yeah, I don't care for the FP perspective to be sure, but everything else about the game screams classic RPG.
It’s going to be a Skyrim clone which is more hack and slash than tactical.
I don’t know how much faith I would have in the writing of it. I will think it’ll be better than anything Bethesda has written, but won’t be on par with other triple A, open world games.
I’d also still way too early in development to get any substantial hype out of it.
Saying "Skyrim clone" has almost become a meme at this point. It won't be a Skyrim clone. Obsidian and MS gain nothing by just remaking someone else's game. In fact, it's kind of silly to think any serious game studio will just make a clone of some other existing game.
I mean. That's like 95% of the game developing business.
[
Hey I agree about the FP perspective and that does trouble me. But I wouldn't say FP automatically makes a game hack and slash.
Yeah, I mainly play Skyrim in third person and it's just as much of a hack and slash there
And there are plenty of isometric games that are hack and slash too, for example any and all dungeon crawlers imo. So there is no correlation between the perspective of a game and whether it is hack and slash.
You CAN'T do a tactical system and keep it first person. There is no enough view of the overall battle that way. It is specifically limiting in this regard to other systems.
You may be right. I have not played any FP games to be able to say one way or the other. But, again, a game not being tactical doesn't (for me) auto-translate to that game being hack and slash. There is no strictly binary choice of either it is tactical or it is hack and slash.
And going a bit further from a purely personal standpoint, and saying this as a hardcore cRPG fan, I'm not particularly enamored of tactical combat (as that term is used in discussing video games). A game being a true RPG while also having a combat system that is NOT tactical would actually be what is ideal for me.
Comments
A lot of people are raving about this game, and it's not even in its final form yet. Very happy for Obsidian's success here, and also proving critics wrong that MS will never allow games like this one to ever be made by Obsidian again.
There's also some PoE-related news recently. See this article which has a lot of nice bits of info on things Obsidian:
https://gamingbolt.com/pillars-of-eternity-3-will-happen-only-if-obsidian-are-excited-about-making-it-says-series-director
You just described almost every game to come out in the last 5 years. Having some elements of an RPG doesn't make it a full RPG anymore. Otherwise literally every game is an RPG now.
You may find this article on Grounded a good read. It's also a great read about the game making mentality and process that exists within Obsidian these days:
https://www.gamesradar.com/behind-the-tiny-biomes-and-giant-bugs-of-obsidians-grounded/
He actually described game that has full RPG elements, instead of some RPG elements? WTF dude?
Then every single game is now an RPG. Even FPS games have character progression now, every game has has been story driven for YEARS now unless its an intentional arcade throwback or multiplayer area, same for side quests, and crafting? Seriously, crafting has spread way too much in games. Everyone tries to shoehorn it in now, whether it fits or not.
By these criteria, MInecraft, subnautica, about half of the FPSes, racing games with career mode, Soul Caliber, etc. are all RPGs. If this counts as a "Full" RPG, then including genres at all is now utterly pointless. EVERYTHING is an RPG.
From all the interviews (not media pieces written by independent press) with the team it's clear Grounded is a project new for Obsidian, an experiment. It seems to be very successful.
Avowed will be a true RPG, first-person instead of isometric, set in the same world as PoE games.
I hope the team won't be restricted in time and resources as they were with The Outer Worlds, and will come up with interesting gameplay and story. It's great to see the series going in direction of more detailization visually, as isometric, while beautiful, can't be as immersive as first-person games. I salute experiments.
Considering how they've fallen from grace, hard, I'm not so sure that's a favorable comparison. Especially with EA's track record. Let's not forget all the companies bought out and killed in fairly short time.
That was the point
After a buyout like that the new owner will often use the studio's name like a brand and put it on a lot of unrelated studios for marketing purposes. I'm assuming what with the increase of Obsidian's planned games that the same has happened here (though I haven't actually checked).
I'm glad that Shrunken did well. It means they might have lucked out and the people put in charge of development in the new studio organisation are capable game developers and the good name of Obsidian will live on, even if it'll probably be associated less and less with RPGs from now on.
Microsoft is putting a lot of stock into its Netflix like gaming service and will need newer, exclusive titles to sell it. They won’t get that by stifling the creativity of their studios. In fact, Microsoft will probably learn from EAs mistakes from offering Origin’s free trials for games like Anthem and Andromeda only to have the actual sales plummet because consumers realized they were dead on arrival.
They may go the EA route with this gaming service however and offer only the base games for free, while any additional DLC for the games need to be bought, but I generally don’t find anything wrong with this.
That said, only time will tell but I don’t think Microsoft has the luxury of screwing this up if they want to stay in the console wars.
eora just is not an interesting setting imo. the lore is just to dry and not that interesting.
True, the first installment somewhat felt too same-y to other franchises. Given the numbers of RPG's which are heavily inspired by celtic culture is staggering. Which is why I vastly preferred the second installment. Anything outside of medieval Europe-esque settings is a plus in my book.
"That was the point
Ah, my bad. I thought it was a reply to the previous comment, made it looks like a favorable comparison to me.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-07-09-how-minecraft-and-mojang-taught-xbox-how-to-buy-studios
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-07-09-developing-for-xbox-game-pass-i-could-never-pitch-these-ideas-to-a-publisher
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-07-10-are-xbox-series-x-developers-being-held-back-by-xbox-one
It’s going to be a Skyrim clone which is more hack and slash than tactical.
I don’t know how much faith I would have in the writing of it. I will think it’ll be better than anything Bethesda has written, but won’t be on par with other triple A, open world games.
I’d also still way too early in development to get any substantial hype out of it.
Story driven is important, but it can only do so much if the only way to interact with the game is boring.
As for the writing, I guess that is subjective. I consider Obsidian to be one of the best, if not the best right now among RPG studios. Among RPGs I have played no one else comes close to Obsidian with respect to writing.
But yes, I agree, it is way too early to tell, because all we have at this point is a short cinematic trailer. We do have that list of things "leaked" about the game that I cut and pasted in a previous post. But still, no real info, including especially the possibility (and I thing very likely) the game will have a third-person option.
When TOW was announced as FP, Obsidian devs themselves said they couldn't include TP for budget reasons. Now, since joining MS, their next game, Grounded, has included TP option. So I have a lot of hope that Avowed will also end up having a TP option.
I mean. That's like 95% of the game developing business.
Yeah, I mainly play Skyrim in third person and it's just as much of a hack and slash there
You CAN'T do a tactical system and keep it first person. There is no enough view of the overall battle that way. It is specifically limiting in this regard to other systems.
I suppose the same could also be immersively achieved via using familiars or animal companions in place of drones.
And going a bit further from a purely personal standpoint, and saying this as a hardcore cRPG fan, I'm not particularly enamored of tactical combat (as that term is used in discussing video games). A game being a true RPG while also having a combat system that is NOT tactical would actually be what is ideal for me.