In a candid interview with Bloomberg, Carrie Patel, the second game director of Avowed, provided insight into the tumultuous journey that led to the abandonment of two years' worth of work. Initially, Obsidian Entertainment set out to create Avowed as a unique blend of Destiny and Skyrim, with ambitions to merge cooperative exploration in a vast open world with dynamic multiplayer elements.
The 2020 teaser trailer sparked enthusiasm among fans, yet it concealed the underlying truth: the game was far from finished. Mere months after the teaser's release, the decision was made to completely overhaul the project. This meant discarding everything that had been developed up to that point, rendering the teaser a mere echo of an unreleased prototype that bore no resemblance to the eventual game.
After the reboot, Carrie Patel took over as game director and steered the project in a new direction. She moved away from the initial inspirations of Skyrim and Destiny, opting out of the open-world and multiplayer concepts. Instead, Obsidian returned to their strengths with a zone-based structure and concentrated on delivering a captivating single-player narrative deeply connected to the Pillars of Eternity universe.
The decision to restart mid-development posed significant challenges, comparable to making a movie without a script. Teams toiled under uncertain circumstances as the leadership endeavored to forge a unified vision. Despite these obstacles, it took another four years of dedicated effort before Avowed was ready for its much-anticipated release.
