Microsoft Studios has acquired Obsidian Entertainment, a video game development studio best known for their work on RPGs like Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II. The announcement was made yesterday at Microsoft’s Inside Xbox X018 press conference which was broadcasted live from Mexico City.
In addition to Obsidian, inXile Entertainment was also added to Microsoft’s portfolio of developers added during today’s announcements. inXile is known for their work on games such as Wasteland and The Bard’s Tale.
Obsidian and inXile are not the first studios to have been acquired by Microsoft Studios this year. At E3 2018 the company announced purchasing Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games, Undead Labs, Playground Games and The Initiative. The most notable acquisition was Ninja Theory, who developed Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and DMC: Devil May Cry before being acquired.
This makes the amount of studios under the Microsoft Studios umbrella a total of 13 video game development companies, and confirmation that both Obsidian and inXile are working on “new RPG projects” for Microsoft is huge news, especially since Xbox have a drought for that genre right about now.
“The reason this is great for the fans is that now my team and I have the opportunity to improve our production quality in ways that we’ve never had the chance to before. Of course, we’re gonna continue doing role-playing games.” said inXile CEO Brian Fargo in a video statement shortly after the announcement.