While mandates of generative AI continue to creep into facets of the gaming industry, Xbox Game Studios' role-playing game (RPG) developer, Obsidian Entertainment, is not one of the teams that seemingly plans to embrace it.
Speaking in an interview with GameFile, Obsidian Entertainment's Josh Sawyer, Kate Dollarhyde, and Leonard Boyarsky discussed the process of writing several major games across the studio's history and how their experience has changed over time.
As part of the conversation, Boyarsky mentioned his comments from a 2019 podcast where he speculated about AI-powered writing. Boyarsky noted that he was now tempted to smack his prior self "upside the head" and that any such concept would quickly get "very unwieldy."
When asked whether or not Obsidian Entertainment is using generative AI in its writing, Sawyer said that it's "not something we've used," with Boyarsky adding that "We haven't been using it at all."
It's a telling statement, considering that Obsidian Entertainment is easily one of the most productive studios not just under the Xbox umbrella but across the entire gaming industry.
In 2025 alone, Obsidian Entertainment launched a fantasy RPG with Avowed, a survival experience with Grounded 2 (which admittedly launched in early access), and a sci-fi sequel, The Outer Worlds 2.
Launching three fairly big games in the same year for a studio that has 285 employees at last count is genuinely astounding, and the teams deserve huge props for their work.
Another team has even found time to bring a turn-based mode to its 2015 RPG Pillars of Eternity, and the mode is available in beta testing on PC right now.
