Avowed 2 reportedly in production with George Ziets leading creative, says Chris Avellone

Chris Avellone, who co-founded Obsidian Entertainment and contributed to Fallout: New Vegas before leaving in 2015, first flagged the Avowed sequel on X back in November, noting the studio had no plans for The Outer Worlds 3 but was pressing ahead with another game in their first-person Pillars spin-off series. He has since added more detail about the project.

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By his account, Avowed 2 is leaning on design outsourcing, so it is not being built entirely in house. This should not come as a surprise since this has been a practice in the game development for many years and was also the case with Avowed.

Avellone also played down the idea of Pentiment director Josh Sawyer running the show, saying Sawyer "isn't leading Avowed 2 any more than he did the first one," which Avellone reckons only became visible in the closing months of the original, probably to reassure buyers. The plan to treat the IP as a company-wide effort, he claims, did not last long either.

But the one detail longtime Obsidian fans will care about the most is that George Ziets is believed to be heading up the creative direction, and Avellone rates him highly.

Who is George Ziets?

Ziets is best known as creative lead on Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, still held up as one of Obsidian's finest narrative efforts and fan-favourite. He also wrote for Fallout: New Vegas, led creative on Dungeon Siege III, and worked on Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera. That is a CV built on character writing and world design, which is encouraging for a sequel to a game some felt played it safe.

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George Ziets is reportedly a game director on Avowed 2

Obviously, none of the information about Avowed 2 is official. Obsidian has not confirmed a director or properly announced the game, so treat it as informed chatter from someone no longer inside the building.

That said, I'm excited to see where Obsidian take Avowed 2. I felt Avowed was a solid foundation so there's definitely a lot of potential for the sequel to expand on that with a bigger world, more classes, better companions, cinematics and overall presentation.