Oftentimes, video games are delayed because the project hasn’t fully come together, riddled with performance issues or game-breaking bugs. But that’s not the case with Avowed, according to Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer. He pushed back Obsidian’s upcoming RPG because this holiday season was too crowded for the company.
Speaking with Game File (via VGC), Spencer discussed Avowed’s delay to February, noting Xbox currently has the benefit of a packed holiday season with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hate, and next month’s Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (not to mention Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024). This allowed Xbox to space out releases and give Avowed its own time to shine next year.
“We didn’t move it because Obsidian needed the time,” Spencer said. “They’ll use the time.”
On the one hand, really hate the reason for the delay. Clearly this is Microsoft just looking to make specific financial quarters look good.
On the other hand, Obsidian games have just about always shipped with a bunch of jank. Considering this is meant to be their big push into the action RPG genre, it would be really nice if they could ship something that “just worked,” and this delay gives them a lot of extra time to polish.