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The Latest Breaking News from Josh Sawyer

Fallout: New Vegas lead writer 'loved writing' Yes Man, but thinks his questline may have been a mistake: 'It lets you get through the game without getting your hands dirty'

The sycophantic, (mostly) immortal robot made certain design constraints easier to work around, but it allows for a "rebellious, individualistic" player to bypass some tough choices.

PC Gamer

Obsidian's Josh Sawyer leads the charge of RPG fans playfully roasting Stranger Things for its D&D rule flubs: 'The oldheads are going to catch all these things'

Clerics casting Dimension Door? Not at any table in 1987.

PC Gamer

Fallout: New Vegas lead writer worries Caesar's argument for authoritarianism 'was done a little too well,' but still believes 'you can't just make your tyrants cardboard villains'

Fascism's foothold in the wasteland mirrors the way it spreads in the real world.

PC Gamer

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As Larian disgusts and excites with Divinity trailer, Obsidian's Josh Sawyer says "it is wild what people will get upset about in games" and then cheer "Wicker Man x Event Horizon"

The Divinity reveal is far more graphic than Baldur's Gate 3's gruesome trailers

GamesRadar

Xbox studio Obsidian Entertainment doesn't use generative AI for its games like The Outer Worlds 2 — "We haven't been using it at all."

While many game publishers are leaning more and more on generative AI, Xbox studio Obsidian Entertainment is not using it at all.

Windows Central

Fallout: New Vegas director and RPG maestro Josh Sawyer says it doesn't matter how good a game's writing is if the pacing is bad: "Players are going to get tired of it"

Obsidian writers have more sway than most studios, though

GamesRadar

Pillars of Eternity's 10-year anniversary turn-based mode will sidestep the biggest issues I was worried it would have, and you can try it this week

Pillars 1's turn-based mode enters public beta testing on November 5

PC Gamer

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RPG vet Josh Sawyer keeps things like Fallout and D&D grounded in history because 'Once things get too magical… it's impossible to bring it back down to Earth'

Which is also why Deadfire is the best CRPG of at least the last decade, just saying.

PC Gamer

RPG legend Josh Sawyer says the reason classics like Baldur's Gate disappeared in the '00s was "because retailers told us no one wanted to buy them"

"We asked if we could see the research and they basically told us to trust them"

GamesRadar

Obsidian director Josh Sawyer says he's 'Never really felt secure in a job' in 26 years, and it's worse than ever now

"That’s actually pretty messed up."

PC Gamer

RPG devs stopped making games like Baldur's Gate 'because retailers told us no one wanted to buy them', says New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity director Josh Sawyer

The Infinity Engine wasn't quite so infinite, in the end.

PC Gamer

It's literally impossible to pick the 'real' murderer in Pentiment because Obsidian never considered having one: 'You're not a detective, you're a f***ing artist'

But it was obviously Ferenc.

PC Gamer

10 years ago, Obsidian made the only D&D-style Monk I've ever really loved⁠—all it took was grounding him in harsh asceticism, mortification of the flesh, Aztec history, and stoner comedies

Monks are often really lame in RPGs, but Zahua is not.

PC Gamer

"I want to support the sweaty boys!" — Fallout: New Vegas director says it's a "mistake" to trade RPG crunch for "super accessible" gameplay, and he's right

Obsidian Entertainment's Fallout: New Vegas director Josh Sawyer says it would be a "mistake" to get rid of RPG depth and "crunch" in pursuit of approachability.

Windows Central

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PC Gamer

Obsidian director Josh Sawyer says it's a 'mistake' for RPGs to sacrifice crunchy 'sweaty boy' systems in favour of a 'one size fits all' game, since easier difficulties aren't too hard to make

"With not a whole lot of effort, but just good planning, we can support a wide spectrum of players."

PC Gamer

Despite always preferring turn-based combat in RPGs, Pillars of Eternity designer Josh Sawyer thinks a lack of experience and opportunity meant the studio couldn't pull off a similar swing to Larian taking Baldur's Gate turn-based

"I guess we did South Park, but other than that, we hadn't done turn-based ever, really."

PC Gamer

New Vegas lead Josh Sawyer thinks turn-based combat fell off in the 2000s due to a lack of 'tactical variation': Even Fallout 1 would 'get to the point where you're always doing nut shots and eye shots'

Real time with pause won the 2000s, but turn-based won the war.

GamesRadar

Fallout New Vegas designer and noted RPG romance cynic Josh Sawyer was sold on Cyberpunk 2077's love stories: "If I were gonna base romances on anything, I'd probably do something like that"

Josh Sawyer doesn't hate romance in games, he just doesn't like when it's party based

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Inverse

‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Could Spark A Huge Change To Another Great RPG Series

The future of the Pillars of Eternity series could look very different after the success of 'Baldur's Gate 3' according to developer Obsidian's design director.

GamesRadar

Avowed isn't Pillars of Eternity 3, but if the third RPG ever happens director Josh Sawyer reckons it should move to a proper 3D environment "more like Baldur’s Gate 3"

"I think that a third game should be an isometric 3D with an environment more like Baldur’s Gate 3"

PC Gamer

Josh Sawyer says a hypothetical Pillars of Eternity 3 would be 3D, just like Baldur's Gate 3, with 'environmental mechanics, elevation hazards, and dynamic terrain'

"That could be super cool."

GamesRadar

"We're in a post Baldur's Gate 3 world": Indie publisher says Larian proved players "are not stupid" and want "50 million copies" of intense CRPGs

New Blood Interactive wants Pillars of Eternity 3 now

PC Gamer

Random characters kept swearing in Obsidian's font-obsessed murder-mystery when its procedural error system ran amok: 'Naughtiness abounded'

Ah, Scheiße.

Inverse

The Decade’s Hardest-Working RPG Creator May Borrow From Final Fantasy

Obsidian wants to make a tactical RPG set in the Pillars of Eternity universe, which is a risky but excellent idea.

PC Gamer

There's hunger at Obsidian for a Pillars of Eternity Tactics game after Avowed, says studio design director Josh Sawyer, but it doesn't sound like it'd get that Baldur's Gate 3-size budget he was fantasizing about

Look, I'll just be happy to get another isometric game even half as good as Deadfire.

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