September 21, 2020 7:06 PM EDT
So, I'll get this out of my way:
Now that I've thought about it, and right now, without seeing and playing Avowed, I don't want Obsidian to make 'New Vegas 2' or even another Fallout.
Why?
Because most of the big writers and people behind New Vegas have left, and only Sawyer remains. In my experience, the last Obsidian RPG that had really great writing, characters and world-building was Pillars of Eternity 1. I'm not sure if they would be up to the task of making a sequel to what is, in my opinion, one of the greatest RPGs of all time.
"But what about PoE2 and The Outer Worlds?", you might ask. Well, I never played POE2, so I can't really claim it's bad. However, the reason I never played it was because its premise and world never really caught my attention, so much so that not even the prospect of another Obsidian RPG made me want to buy it. Regardless, it is rather well known that it didn't do nearly as well as the first game, and the writing, from the bits I've seen, seems inferior.
As for The Outer Worlds, it has a terrific concept and potential as a franchise, and I think in world and spirit it's better than FO4, mostly because it was designed primarily as an RPG, while FO4 decided to give up some RPG/Fallout fundamentals. However, if I take my Obsidian fanboy hat off, it really isn't as great in the writing department as the Obsidian of old. None of its companions are really as memorable as, say, Durance from PoE, or Boone and Raul from New Vegas, and the main story and themes are kind of a given once you see any trailer - it really doesn't go in different directions than what they set out for it (If your character good, then corporations bad, money bad - even if the outcome of going against corps might be bad, it's only because of a twist of luck, because fundamentally, they're all bad). It just doubles down and goes deeper on their story premise.
On the other hand, Obsidian isn't the only studio under Microsoft that has a Fallout history. inXile Entertainment just released a terrific post-apocalypse game (bugs aside) in Wasteland 3, and unlike modern Obsidian, I think at the end of the day, comparing both of these developers' recent track-record, I have more faith in inXile and the team behind Wasteland 3, so much so that I would rather see a collaboration between Bethesda and inXile than Bethesda and 2020 Obsidian.
This post was edited by Mr. at September 21, 2020 7:06 PM EDT