Obsidian Entertainment
Obsidian Entertainment is an American developer of computer games based in Santa Ana, California. It was founded in 2003 and specializes in the development of computer role-playing games. It was known among other things with the games Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and Neverwinter Nights 2
History
Founding and first publications
Obsidian Entertainment was founded in 2003 by the game developers Feargus Urquhart (CEO ), Chris Avellone, Chris Jones, Chris Parker and Darren Monahan. The name originated as a reference to the Black Isle Studios, for which the founders were active in leading positions before. There they were in the development of role-playing games such as Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, or Icewind involved Dale series. Since many of the Black Isle Studios employees after its closure in December 2003 found a new job at Obsidian, the company is regarded partly as its unofficial successor.
Due to the existing business relationship with the Canadian developer BioWare Obsidian received orders to continue the successful BioWare role-playing games Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ( KotOR, LucasArts ) and Neverwinter Nights ( for Atari ). Obsidian's first project, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II:. The Sith Lords, the end of 2004 appeared in the U.S. for the Xbox, the Windows version and the German versions followed in early February 2005 beginning of November 2006 published Obsidian Neverwinter Nights 2 2007 and 2008 followed one after the extensions Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir. Both games were received generally positive, while KotOR 2, however, was heavily criticized for his unfinished appearance and Neverwinter Nights 2 for numerous bugs. As the following projects contained conspicuous bug, obsidian was increasingly the reputation of producers of defective games to be.
First in-house developments and additional license continuations
On 13 December 2006 it was announced that Obsidian will develop an RPG for Sega based on the Alien movies from 20th Century Fox. The Alien RPG bore the code name " Project Connecticut " and should, under the title Aliens: Crucible will be published. However, it was announced in 2009 that the work was stopped on the tracks. Besides Aliens Obsidian for Sega developed since 2006 also Alpha Protocol, an espionage role-playing game in the style of the films about the agent James Bond, Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer. After several postponements of the title finally appeared on 28 May 2010 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC. Alpha Protocol received mediocre ratings. Was praised above all the action.
From Bethesda Softworks, the creators of Fallout 3, Obsidian Entertainment has been commissioned to develop on the basis of the Fallout 3 tech another offshoot of the Fallout series. The game was released on 22 October 2010 under the name of Fallout: New Vegas. From the trade press, it received good reviews and was praised as a good successor of Fallout 3, even if the title places contained bugs. In addition, the technology is outdated and contain no great new innovations.
On 17 June 2011, the Japanese publisher Square Enix released developed by Obsidian third part of the Dungeon Siege series. Dungeon Siege 3 used an Obsidian first self-developed graphics engine called Onyx, which originally already in Aliens: Crucible should be used. With this project, obsidian introduced a new quality assurance process to counter its reputation as a developer verbuggter games. In fact that was otherwise mediocre rated Dungeon Siege 3 praised in the reviews due to its low error rate.
South Park and Crowdfunding
In October 2009, the two South Park creator Matt Stone and Trey Parker approached to Obsidian to develop a role-play to the TV show. Initially still financed by Viacom joined obsidian and South Park Digital Studio end of December signed a publishing contract with the U.S. publisher THQ. Together, the companies announced in early December 2011 on an exclusive article for the American gaming magazine Game Informer title South Park: The rod of truth.
On September 14, 2012 Obsidian announced a new role-playing game with the working title Project Eternity. The game has been funded via the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.com. During the funding period from September 14 until October 16, so at least $ 1,100,000 should be collected. This target was already after two days, so reached on September 16. Finally, a total of 3,986,929 U.S. $ were ingested on Kickstarter until 16 October 2012, Project Eternity thus belongs to the highest funded games software project of the crowdfunding platform. Through alternative financing options, the sum could be increased again to 4.3 million. In December 2013 Obsidian announced the final title of the game, Pillars of Eternity.
In January 2013, THQ was smashed due to insolvency and the goodwill auction. Ubisoft secured from the bankrupt the publishing rights for South Park: The rod of truth. After the date has been postponed several times, ( Europe) was finally announced the completion of the development work on 12 February 2014 and start of sales for the 4th of March ( North America ) and 6 March set.
Trivia
For unannounced games Obsidian awards as a project name internally the name of a U.S. state (eg Project Connecticut for Aliens: Crucible ). Similarly, projects have already been named in the Black Isle Studios. Here, however, the names of U.S. presidents were used, such as Project Jefferson for the never released Baldur's Gate 3 or Van Buren for a Fallout 2 's successor also set.
Games
- 2004: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (Xbox, Windows)
- 2006: Neverwinter Nights 2 (Windows)
- 2007: Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (Windows)
- 2008: Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (Windows)
- 2010: Alpha Protocol (Windows, PS3, Xbox360 )
- 2010: Fallout: New Vegas (Windows, PS3, Xbox360 )
- 2011: Dungeon Siege 3 (Windows, Xbox 360)
- 2014: South Park: The staff of truth (Windows, Xbox 360, PS3)