Things do not appear to be going well in the land of classic RPG developers. After a month of Dragon Age: The Veilguard receiving a massive bevy of critical backlash in response to its gameplay, story, and development decisions it looks like things aren’t exactly looking up for Obsidian’s latest endeavor in the RPG world, Avowed, either with former Obsidian founder and writer Chris Avellone even calling for a mass lawsuit due to discrimination in hiring practices that allegedly took place at Obsidian.
This all stems from Obsidian’s Art Director, Matt Hansen, tweeting about specifically giving priority to black artists when it comes to hiring practices for Obsidian. Hansen has since deleted and locked his Twitter and his Bluesky respectively but his Tweets have since been archived.
Obsidian themselves haven’t commented on Hansen’s tweets. Obviously racism as forward as this probably isn’t something any company wants to be associated with, and Hansen’s comments will likely be disavowed by the company eventually, the threat of a lawsuit likely forcing Obsidian to keep things close to the chest for a little bit. Whether or not Hansen’s comments merit legal action are something that will likely be combed over should artists decide to go that route.
Drama such as this isn’t really something anybody wants with a highly anticipated title releasing soon, doubly so considering Avowed has to win some undecided customers over after Obsidian’s last first person open world RPG, The Outer Worlds, didn’t light the world on fire. Regardless of the outcome, Matt Hansen himself is likely the recipient of some dressing down at Obsidian at the very least, and these comments whether they’re retracted or not will definitely effect the performance of Avowed critically, as well as effect the atmosphere of the community in general. Hopefully Obsidian clears the air soon.