The Outer Worlds 2’s director recently spoke about Microsoft’s 2018 acquisition of Obsidian, saying that it came as a shock considering the subject matter of their game. Read on to find out more about what the acquisition means for the upcoming game!
Outer Worlds’ Co-Creator Shocked by Acquisition
Microsoft Has Given Obsidian Creative Freedom
The Outer Worlds 2’s creative director and franchise co-creator Leonard Boyarsky recently spoke on Obsidian’s recent history and Outer Worlds 2’s development, revealing that Microsoft’s acquisition of the game studio came as a shock considering The Outer Worlds’ anti-corporate themes.
"It was quite a shock," Boyarsky said in an interview with Edge magazine. "Halfway through a game about corporations running everything, a giant corporation bought our studio."
The first-person action RPG is a satirical space opera that heavily incorporates themes of greed, power, and corruption. Specifically, The Outer Worlds is set in a universe where megacorporations have become dictatorial entities that monetize and penalize everything they can, even death.
Thankfully, in this case, life hasn’t imitated art as the Outer Worlds team over at Obsidian has shared that their new parent corporation has exerted minimal creative influence. If anything, the acquisition has further enabled them to tell the story they want to by providing creative freedom and financial backing.
The Outer Worlds 2 was close to falling victim to the irony, however, as the upcoming game was originally going to release for an exorbitant $80. Fortunately, Obsidian announced earlier this year that they would roll the price back to the AAA standard of $70.
With The Outer Worlds 2 right around the corner, fans can expect Obsidian to delve even deeper into the same themes, despite Microsoft’s looming shadow. "We still
have [the theme of] capitalism run amok," revealed art director Daniel Alpert in the same interview.
"Unfortunately, power corrupting [people] has always been an issue in humanity, and I don’t think it’s going to change anytime soon," Boyarsky said, "We want to focus on stuff that’s much more universal and less specifically tied to our time."
Microsoft made headlines in 2018 by purchasing Obsidian Entertainment in the midst of what can only be described as a corporate shopping spree. In the same year, Microsoft also brought Compulsion Games, Ninja Theory, inXile Entertainment, Playground Games, and Undead Labs into the fold.
While the unprecedented series of acquisitions was huge news at the time, Microsoft would continue making waves with even bigger purchases in the form of the $7.5 billion ZeniMax Media acquisition in 2021 and the gigantic $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard that closed in 2023.
Despite the incorporation of numerous big-name studios, Obsidian has stood out as one of Microsoft's most valuable players, being the creative force behind many of Xbox’s hits, namely The Outer Worlds, Pentiment, Grounded, and this year’s Avowed and Grounded 2.
"In a lot of ways, we’re still the same studio that we’ve always been," Alpert said. "We have our core values: rich narrative, explorable areas, player choice. No matter what game we make or how much time or resources we have, those are foundational touchstones for everything we build."
In a time when corporate oversight has led to countless studio dissolutions and game cancellations, it’s definitely refreshing to see a studio as storied as Obsidian thrive in the new setting rather than fold. Hopefully, the game studio can continue on its impressive run and we can see Microsoft’s other recently acquired companies do the same.
The Outer Worlds 2 is set to release on October 29, 2025 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
