Obsidian wants to make a Pillars of Eternity Tactics game after Avowed—but there’s one big problem

The success of Avowed has inspired Obsidian to think of more projects set in the world of Eora, first shown to players with the Pillars of Eternity games. Being turn-based RPGs, they could prove a great foundation for a potential Pillars Tactics game, and Obsidian is considering making one.

Josh Sawyer, the director of the Pillars games and the groundbreaking Fallout: New Vegas, has come out and said, “Pillars Tactics is a thing that a lot of people at [Obsidian] would like to work on” (thanks GamesRadar). Sawyer expressed his belief that “there are a lot of people that like tactics games,” but admitted, “the fanbase is not humungous.” He said that this disparity between the size and the enthusiasm of the tactical game community would prove an issue when designing a potential Pillars Tactics title.

“How many developers do you dedicate to a relatively niche genre? How big do you make it? How much time do you dedicate to making it as pretty as, say, Avowed,” Sawyer said, adding that the “scope of development” would need to be at a level “where it feels like it could actually make money.”

Even if you could determine the scope of the game and the size of the development team, you wouldn’t be guaranteed a return on investment. As the New Vegas director points out, a good tactics game is sure to attract fans of the genre, though even if the whole fanbase buys it, “that’s still not that many people.” There have been tons of fantastic and successful tactics games in the past, from Fallout Tactics to the XCOM franchise to Warhammer 40K: Mechanicus, the latter of which is getting a sequel soon, proving there’s still a target audience and a large enough fanbase to justify new and big tactics projects.

Avowed has been doing quite well for itself, becoming one of the most-played Game Pass titles since launch and attracting tens of thousands of concurrent players on Steam. Obsidian recently noted how it was “happy” with how the game performed, with the game’s director wishing to make more games set in the world of Eora. This next game in the Pillars universe might prove to be precisely a tactics title, though Obsidian has a lot to think about before moving on to new projects.

After all, the studio is still developing The Outer Worlds 2, which is set to come out this year.