Microsoft Studios has acquired Obsidian Entertainment. A video game development studio best known for their work on RPGs like Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II. The announcement was made today at Microsoft’s Inside Xbox X018 press conference which was broadcasted live from Mexico City.
In addition to Obsidian, inXile Entertainment was also added to Microsoft’s portfolio of developers added during today’s announcements. inXile is known for their work on games such as Wasteland and The Bard’s Tale.
Obsidian and inXile are not the first studios to have been acquired by Microsoft Studios this year. At E3 2018 the company announced that takeovers of Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games, Undead Labs, Playground Games and The Initiative were underway. The most notable acquisition was Ninja Theory, who developed Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and DMC: Devil May Cry before being acquired.
It seems that now they are going one step further, acquiring Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment. We’ll have to see what happens now that both studios are under the Microsoft and Xbox umbrella. Whether it means that the inherited projects will become an Xbox and PC exclusive or just a way to help stabilise Obsidian’s financials before moving onto titles like that, we’ll have to see – however, they did hint at the future for both developers in the press release.
While they do share a common heritage, the two creative teams at Obsidian and inXile are very different. They will continue to operate autonomously with their unique talents, IP and expertise. As part of Microsoft Studios, Obsidian and inXile will have the support and freedom to fully realize their creative ambitions on both existing franchises and new RPG projects.
This makes the amount of studios under the Microsoft Studios umbrella a total of 13 video game development companies, and confirmation that both Obsidian and inXile are working on “new RPG projects” for Microsoft is huge news, especially since Xbox have a drought for that genre right about now.
“The reason this is great for the fans is that now my team and I have the opportunity to improve our production quality in ways that we’ve never had the chance to before. Of course, we’re gonna continue doing role-playing games.” said inXile CEO Brian Fargo in a video statement shortly after the announcement.
Some of the most likely reasons for Microsoft picking up both of these studios is to add more titles to Xbox Game Pass and continue to support services similar to that in the future. We’ll update this story if anything else arises regarding the topic.