Obsidian Entertainment - More Onyx Engine RPGs

Chris Avellone's twitter reveals Obsidian is working on more projects using their own Onyx engine - here's the tweet:

Obsidian's future = more RPGs with our own engine… finally.

Thanks, Jaesun!
More information.

Sounds good!

I already mentioned in various threads that the engine is very solid, and quite suitable for party based RPGs. If only NWN2 had been made with an engine as smooth as the Onyx engine.

More Obsidian stuff = good

what other games have them made using the Onyx engine please?

So far Dungeon Siege III is their only game using the Onyx engine. The cancelled Aliens RPG also used the Onyx engine, but it obviously never was released

This is definitly good news - not that I wouldn't mind Obsidian games with other engines, but like it or not, Dungeon Siege III was by far the most stable Obsidian game and I doubt it's a coincidence. The engine also seems to be rather versatile considering Aliens was a third person RPG much like Mass Effect.

Now I just wish we'd know what games Obsidian are working on. Hopefully they'll annouce something sooner rather than later.

-Sergorn

Hmm.. I wasn't impressed with Onyx, but that probably had a lot more to do with DSIII than the engine itself.

Someone should tell Avellone to finally start making Torment2 instead of advertising engines.

Originally Posted by joxer
Someone should tell Avellone to finally start making Torment2 instead of advertising engines.

I fear a sequel, 'cause at least there will be on of those:

1 multiplayer (and I prefer Single Player much more)
2 'consolized' (you know what I mean, quest markers, GPS and all that stuff…)
3 poor story and characters
4 just one ending (and of course, it will be unsatisfied)

Personally, I want a new IP from Obsidian, and possibily apart of D&D brand, but that's just me of course .

Torment 2 would be the only game ever i will buy blindly. To me that game had the best ending and beginning in a game since the dawn of time. well except fallout perhaps….

I thought DS3 looked very average, but I can't deny that the engine was smooth and more polished than the typical Obsidian stuff.

The actual game was quite bland and unworthy - so I hope they return to their roots with their next stuff.

How about picking up that Aliens game again?

I second the motion to finish the Aliens Rpg. Did anyone see the concepts and early game screenshots?

Its a shame as the game was almost finished and Sega cancelled the project.

Planescape:Torment reimagined as a first person shooter, I can hardly wait!

DS3 was the first Obsidian game I wasn´t even slightly excited about and playing the demo didn´t change that. I suspected they first and foremost used its development as a warm up/testing ground for their engine and the game itself was sorta, um, secondary, so this was kinda expected (though good to hear).

The Alien RPG or Icewind Dale 3 would certainly piqued my interest. Even moreso with extensive use of honeycomb quest design .

In this context, I´m not sure what to think about of this: http://i.picpar.com/959e438070c24d4f…5424b0a6a2.jpg
("currently developing unannounced project for leading animation franchise")

Also, no Planescape: Torment 2, please.
I´d be fine with Planescape: Something Else Than Torment 2 though, the setting is/was underused.

While the Aliens RPG would be sweet, I seriously doubt it's ever going to get resurrected and I fear the decision is not up to Obsidian at all. However, why not salvage all those early designs and make a sci-fi RPG of their own IP. Of course they'd need to drop and/or rewrite all the direct references to the Alien(s) franchise and make it their own universe. Not a small task, I know, but doable surely with Obsidian's talented writers.

An Obsdian sci-fi RPG would be fantastic.

Yeah the Alien IP is at Sega, it's them who decided to cancel the Aliens RPG to begin with and handle the videogames IP. To be blunt they seem to be handling it very poorly: the RPG was announced at the same time as Gearbox's "Alien: Colonial Marines" and then suddenly Alien Crucible was cancelled while reports were coming that Colonial Marines was being restarted from scratch while Sega annouced a new Alien VS Predator game.

That's all rather weird, and I'd certainly wish to know how everything went down. Uruqart expressed several time he'd like to explain it, but it can't due to a NDA. Hopefully we'll know someday.

That being said the cancellation of Aliens might have been a bad for a good: because Aliens' team went and did Fallout: New Vegas - had Aliens not have been cancelled, New Vegas might not have happened since Obsidian might not have had the manpower to handle it.

Also, no Planescape: Torment 2, please.
I´d be fine with Planescape: Something Else Than Torment 2 though, the setting is/was underused.

I'd be fine with any non Forgotten Realms D&D CRPG. That being said I agree, I don't see the point of Torment 2: it doesn't require a sequel - that's even more non sensical that people wanting a Baldur's Gate 3. A new Planescape based RPG could be cool though.

-Sergorn

Obsidian's future = more RPGs with our own engine… finally.

Could be interpreted differently, too : Someone's licensing this engine … Money flows in …

I didn't play DS3 or bite on it even when it went on sale (which is unusual for me; cheap usually=buy) but I did read quite a number of comments that the GUI and the game itself was very consolized and the PC version suffers as a result.

I'm not sure getting more games like this, even if they are a bit more fleshed out than DS3, is such a good thing…

I'm not sure what's your point since I don't think "consolization" has anything to do with the engine used.

Just because DS3 was meant to aim at consoles players (it's basically a Dark Alliance clone after all) doesn't mean every game they'll do will be.

That being said what Obsidian needs is to work more into doing PC specific controls/UIs: that's two games (Alpha Protocol and Dungeon Siege III) that plays perfectly on a PC… with a controller, and suffers from obvious issues with a mouse/keyboard combo. I personally don't mind since I tend to play with controllers when I can, but this rather sucks.

Of course Obsidian is not the only culprit of this, but I have trouble excusing this when I see that even Arcania went to the hassle of offering a diffrent UI on PC and Console.

-Sergorn

Originally Posted by Sergorn
I'm not sure what's your point since I don't think "consolization" has anything to do with the engine used.

In the sense that if they're using someone else's engine I think they're likely to just go with whatever's already out there in term's of a UI (ie New Vegas) vs with this engine my suspicion is they are more likely to continue with a one-size-fits all console style UI and maybe even recycle as much as they can from DS3's UI.

Basically, I'm pretty much assuming they'll be as lazy as possible with their UIs but hopefully I'm proven wrong.

I don't think that "engine" means "UI" here.
In my opinion, both are separate parts of the whole game.