After Xbox layoffs hit Obsidian, director Brandon Adler pushed back on claims the RPG studio has lost its identity. Here is what is confirmed, what is reported, and what RPG fans should watch next.
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Obsidian director answers the identity debate after Xbox cuts
Obsidian director Brandon Adler has publicly pushed back against criticism that the studio is no longer the developer it used to be, doing so after what he described on LinkedIn as an “extremely difficult week” in which Obsidian had to say goodbye to developers and close friends. Eurogamer reported Adler’s comments, and Kotaku also covered the post in the context of Microsoft’s wider Xbox layoffs.
The immediate tension is clear: Obsidian has reportedly been hit hard by Xbox’s latest cuts, while fans are also trying to read the studio’s future through rumors and reports about project changes. Adler’s response does not deny that the week was painful. Instead, he separates the real loss of people from what he views as uninformed claims about the studio’s creative identity.
According to Eurogamer, Adler wrote that it had been difficult to see “cold take artists” discussing “what Obsidian is or what it isn’t.” He said people with no understanding of who worked on past Obsidian games or what they contributed were spreading misinformation when claiming the studio is no longer what it was. Kotaku quoted the same LinkedIn post and framed it as a response to a wave of speculation about Obsidian’s state under Xbox.
For RPG fans, the Obsidian layoffs response lands at a sensitive point. This is a studio whose reputation has been built on authored questlines, reactive dialogue, faction politics, build expression, and a willingness to let players live with messy consequences. When layoffs and corporate project shifts enter the picture, players do not only worry about a logo. They worry about whether the people who understand those systems will still be able to make them.
What Adler actually said about Obsidian’s continuity
Adler’s central argument, as reported by Eurogamer and Kotaku, is that Obsidian’s creative lineage has not been severed in the way some online commentary suggests. Eurogamer quoted him saying that “in most circumstances,” the people in lead or director roles are the same people who worked on games such as The Outer Worlds, Pillars of Eternity, and Fallout: New Vegas. He emphasized that these are “literally the same people.”
He also pointed to a longer through line from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 to the studio’s current work. Eurogamer reported that Adler said the studio is not the same as it was 20 years ago, because nothing stays the same, but that its “DNA” remains the same as the one behind KotOR, New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2, and South Park: The Stick of Truth.
That claim matters because Obsidian’s identity has always been tied to craft that is hard to see from the outside. RPG continuity is not only a question of who owns an IP or whether a sequel gets approved. It is built from the habits of quest designers, narrative leads, systems designers, area builders, writers, combat designers, and QA staff who know where reactivity breaks. Adler’s comments are a reminder that the public often talks about “old Obsidian” as if it were a fixed party roster, when development is closer to a long campaign with shifting roles, shared rules knowledge, and institutional memory.
At the same time, Adler’s defense should not be read as proof that nothing has changed. He explicitly acknowledged that Obsidian is not the same studio it was two decades ago. His point is narrower and more concrete: he disputes the claim that the current studio lacks the human connection to the games that built its reputation.
The layoff numbers are reported, and they do not fully align
The scale of the cuts at Obsidian is still being described through reports rather than a detailed public breakdown from Microsoft or Obsidian in the provided source material. Eurogamer reported that Microsoft’s Xbox cuts totaled 3,200 jobs and that Obsidian reportedly lost a quarter of its staff. Push Square, citing Kotaku, said Obsidian lost around 25 percent of its workforce, with between 60 and 70 employees affected. Kotaku’s later piece says Xbox cut 50 staff from the studio, while also describing the broader action as the first wave of 1,600 layoffs across Microsoft’s gaming division, with roughly 1,600 more still on the way.
Those figures point in the same direction, but they are not identical. The responsible reading is that Obsidian was significantly affected, with outlets reporting a large reduction, while the exact headcount varies by source and may reflect different reporting windows, internal categories, or updates as the situation developed.
PC Gamer’s headline added a human scale to the numbers, reporting that the losses ranged from a 21-year veteran artist to an engineer who had been at the studio for only two months. Push Square reported, again citing Kotaku, that many of the impacted employees were senior figures, some with over a decade at the studio. Adler’s own post, as quoted by Eurogamer and Kotaku, focused on the developers themselves. He said anyone hiring former Obsidian developers would be hiring some of the best people around, professionally and personally.
That human detail complicates any clean narrative about “identity.” If a studio’s RPG voice comes from institutional memory, losing veteran developers is serious. If its continuity also comes from remaining leads and directors who worked on earlier pillars of the catalog, Adler’s defense is also relevant. Both can be true within the available reporting.
The reported Fallout pivot raises bigger questions than nostalgia
The sharpest future-facing detail is the reported change in Obsidian’s priorities. Eurogamer reported that, after the layoffs, Xbox decided to move Obsidian onto the Fallout franchise, aligning with Microsoft’s stated intent to focus on its biggest franchises. Eurogamer also said the project is reported to be a new Fallout game, not a remaster of an existing one. Kotaku similarly wrote that Xbox reportedly changed Obsidian’s development plans away from an Avowed sequel and toward a new Fallout game.
None of the provided sources includes an official announcement of a new Obsidian Fallout project, a title, a release window, confirmed platforms, a price, or gameplay details. For now, this remains a reported direction, not a product reveal.
Still, the report is potent because of Obsidian’s history. Fallout: New Vegas remains one of the studio’s most cited RPGs in the provided coverage, and Adler himself used New Vegas as part of his argument that many current lead or director figures have roots in the studio’s earlier work. If Xbox is truly steering Obsidian back to Fallout, fans will likely see that as both opportunity and constraint.
The opportunity is obvious: Obsidian’s reputation for faction choice, reputation systems, dialogue friction, and morally awkward quest design fits Fallout’s wasteland politics. The constraint is also obvious: a corporate pivot toward a major franchise can narrow the kinds of risks a studio takes, especially after layoffs. The question is not whether Obsidian knows how to make a choice-heavy RPG. Adler argues that the creative through line is still present. The question is whether the studio will have the staffing, schedule, and mandate to build the density of consequences players expect from that name.
Obsidian’s busy year makes the cuts harder to parse
Kotaku noted that Obsidian had released Avowed, Grounded 2 in Early Access, and The Outer Worlds 2 in the same calendar year before being hit by cuts. That output matters because it shows a studio operating across multiple scales and genres: first-person fantasy RPG, survival-focused co-op, and satirical sci-fi role-playing. It also makes the layoffs harder to explain from the outside as a simple post-ship contraction.
Push Square argued that the reported seniority of some cuts means the situation should not be confused with ordinary downsizing after a product ships. The outlet also wrote that Obsidian has been one of Xbox’s more prolific studios, while questioning whether it has delivered a commercial breakout under the Xbox banner. Push Square specifically described The Outer Worlds 2 as the studio’s biggest and most expensive project to date and said it did not catch on by many accounts, trailing its predecessor’s sales. That is Push Square’s assessment, not an official sales disclosure in the provided material.
For players watching the Obsidian studio future, the uncomfortable point is that productivity does not automatically protect a developer inside a larger platform strategy. If Microsoft is prioritizing its biggest franchises, as Eurogamer reported in relation to the Fallout shift, then a studio’s value may be judged less by how many distinct worlds it can sustain and more by how effectively it can serve major IP.
That can be good for fans who want a polished, well-funded Fallout-scale RPG. It can be worrying for players who came to Obsidian for worlds like Eora, Halcyon, or smaller experiments that rely on unusual tone and tightly written quest structures. The sources do not confirm cancellations beyond the reported move away from an Avowed sequel, but they do show why fans are reading the layoffs as a signal about creative direction.
RPG fans should separate studio identity from project conditions
The strongest version of Adler’s point is that studio identity should not be reduced to outsider assumptions about who left, who stayed, or whether a company looks the same as it did during the KotOR2 or New Vegas years. According to Eurogamer, Adler has worked at Obsidian for 13 years. Kotaku reported that he started at the studio in 2006 as a tester on Neverwinter Nights 2. His argument comes from inside the production pipeline, and he is directly challenging commentary that treats Obsidian’s past as if it were disconnected from its present staff.
The strongest concern from fans is different. Even if the “DNA” remains, project conditions determine how that DNA expresses itself. A reactive RPG needs time for branching quests, narrative validation, encounter tuning, companion interactions, and the unglamorous connective tissue that makes choices feel remembered. Layoffs can remove specialists, institutional memory, and production slack. A franchise pivot can change the design target. A smaller or reorganized team can still make excellent work, but the shape of that work may change.
That is the practical lens to use from here. Treat Adler’s Obsidian director comments as a credible rebuttal to broad claims that the current studio has no link to its classic work. Treat the reported Fallout shift and layoff figures as still-developing business news until Microsoft, Xbox, or Obsidian gives formal project details. Do not assume a new Fallout from Obsidian is confirmed for any platform or date, because the provided sources do not establish that.
For now, the fair reading is neither doom nor blind confidence. Obsidian has suffered real personnel losses, according to multiple reports. Its future priorities may be changing under Xbox. One of its directors says the studio’s RPG lineage is still alive in the people leading its games. The next test will not be whether fans can recite the studio’s old quest log. It will be whether future Obsidian projects still give players meaningful builds, consequential choices, and worlds that respond when a character sheet becomes a story.