00:00While I was doing all kinds of shenanigans online, I managed to bump into this particular news,
00:05and it's all about the WoWed. It seems Obsidian is working on a WoW 2 with a new director,
00:10and this is a very interesting news to me for various reasons which I will disclose later,
00:16but I would take it with a healthy dose of caution because none of this has been officially
00:21confirmed by Xbox or Obsidian. Most of it comes from comments by former Obsidian co-founder Chris
00:27Avalon, and the important thing here is that he no longer works at the studio, but apparently still
00:34has connections there. So why am I interested in this news? Well, I played the game, I made a review
00:40about it, and you can check it out if you wanna, but long story short, it was pretty shit. I
00:46could
00:46go on and on about what was bad in that game, but it's safe to say that a WoW wasn't
00:51a blockbuster on
00:52a level of Skyrim. And don't get me wrong, when we saw initial trailers and reveals and whatever
00:58they dished out, the game had amazing potential. Not to mention, it was Obsidian who was making the
01:04game, and we all know what happened with Fallout New Vegas. That is how legendary that game became.
01:10And it's still, to this day, one of the greatest RPGs ever made. So when you actually started playing
01:16the game, it seems like we were heavily, and I mean it, heavily catfished. Because the game looked
01:23nothing like the trailers. Or at least, it looked nothing like we thought. And there are many reasons
01:29for that, I think I also made a video about it, I don't really remember. More incentive for you guys
01:34to go through my channel and see what I was doing. But anyway, if you take a look how the
01:39game was
01:39developed under the previous leadership, new leadership may not be a bad thing. The new guy who's going
01:46to be the replacement has an excellent pedigree. He worked on Neverwinter Nights 2, Mask of the Betrayer,
01:52Dead State, Pillars of Eternity, and Tyranny. So if we take that as a reference point, a WoWed 2
02:00might lean more heavily into deep roleplaying systems and stronger narrative design. However,
02:06considering what a WoWed is now, that is what kind of turd we have in front of us, I am
02:13going to be
02:14extremely skeptical when it comes to this game. Because you know what they say, fool me once,
02:19shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I believed Obsidian once that the game is going to be
02:25a good
02:26game, so that ain't gonna happen anymore. It's only when I see proper gameplay, and gameplay features
02:33properly fleshed out, only then would I consider to buy it. But then again, considering I'm doing this
02:40review bullshit, and this is me speaking as a reviewer, I am actually kinda curious to see if
02:47they can fix what was bad with the first game. And there were a lot of things that didn't work
02:53there,
02:53let me tell you that. Also, I worry that a sequel is the easy answer here. This may sound harsh,
03:00but I wonder if a WoWed 2 is being made because Microsoft needs franchises rather than because there
03:06was an overwhelming demand for another game. Yeah, there was an overwhelming demand for another
03:11game from the Pillars universe, but I can say with 100% certainty, nobody wants what a WoWed was in
03:20the
03:20form of a WoWed 2. My bet would be that people want what Pillars of Eternity 1 and Pillars of
03:26Eternity 2
03:27was. At least that's my view, because I played both of those games and they were pretty good. And then
03:33you have a WoWed as a comparison to the older stuff and oh my god, it's nowhere near good like
03:39the old stuff was. So I don't really know what's their angle here, but in the long run it doesn't
03:46matter. If they want to repeat history and make another shitty game, you know, by all means you
03:51can do that, nobody's stopping you. What I would do, however, is I would totally scrap a WoWed to begin
03:58with. I would actually work hard for people to forget that game and focus making Pillars of Eternity 3.
04:05Because remember, sequels should exist because players overwhelmingly want more, maybe the first
04:12game had incredible ideas that deserved expansion, or there's a passionate community demanding another
04:18entry. And I don't really see any of that with a WoWed. The only time that I saw that people
04:24were saying
04:25that they cannot wait for WoW 2, well, that was a very fringe minority. Probably people who don't know
04:31what a good game is, or people who have very low expectations. I mean, there's plenty of those, so what
04:38do I know? And if majority of people are saying the game is, you know, okay-ish, I think that
04:44is a
04:44weird foundation on which to build a franchise, especially when Microsoft is cutting costs and
04:49restructuring studios. Anyway, I will end this with two things. The first thing is that I think
04:55this reflects a bigger Xbox problem. Microsoft seems obsessed with manufacturing franchises
05:00instead of letting them emerge naturally. It kinda reminds me a bit of Ubisoft. But the point here is
05:06that not every game needs a sequel, and not every IP needs to be a trilogy. Sometimes a game comes
05:13out,
05:13receives a lukewarm response, and you basically move on. But instead, Xbox has spent years throwing
05:20money at projects, hoping one of them becomes the next Halo or Elder Scrolls. And meanwhile, some of
05:26their most interesting projects remain a niche. The second thing that I would like to point out is,
05:32I actually wonder if Obsidian's talents are being wasted here. Remember, this is the same studio that made
05:38Pentiment on a relatively tiny budget. And that game had more personality, artistic vision,
05:45and confidence than Avowed ever did. So in that sense, I would rather see, for example, Tyranny 2,
05:53a new isometric RPG, maybe some kind of a spiritual successor to New Vegas, or something completely
06:00original. And instead, we are getting something that many people already have forgotten. It's kinda
06:06interesting if I wanna be cynical a bit, because this sounds less like Avowed was a success and
06:11deserves a sequel, and more like we spent years and millions creating this IP, so we have to keep
06:17going. And that is a sunk cost thinking. But I mean, okay, if Microsoft wants to burn money,
06:24by all means, do whatever you want. Just don't expect that people are going to flock to Avowed 2,
06:30unless you make it much, much better in comparison to what first Avowed was.
06:35And that's basically my take on this news. Thanks very much for watching, and as always,
06:40like, share, subscribe, comment, all that good stuff. And that's it from me, until the next one.
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