Avowed Blended Destiny with Skyrim Early On

During a Bloomberg interview, Carrie Patel, Avowed's second game director, revealed the turbulent development journey that forced the team to abandon two years of progress. Originally, Obsidian Entertainment conceptualized Avowed as a hybrid between Destiny and Skyrim – merging expansive open-world co-op exploration with dynamic multiplayer gameplay.

The 2020 teaser trailer sparked tremendous fan anticipation while concealing an inconvenient truth: the actual game remained far from finished. Mere months later, developers made the radical decision to completely overhaul the project. Today, that original teaser serves merely as a historical artifact of a scrapped prototype bearing zero resemblance to the finished game.

After this dramatic reset, newly appointed director Carrie Patel fundamentally reimagined the project. She systematically eliminated all Skyrim and Destiny influences, moving away from open-world mechanics and multiplayer entirely. Obsidian instead returned to their RPG roots, implementing their hallmark zone-based design while focusing intensely on a rich single-player narrative deeply connected to Pillars of Eternity's lore.

Rebooting mid-production created extraordinary obstacles – comparable to filming a movie without a finished script. Developers worked at breakneck speed under constantly shifting directives while leadership scrambled to solidify a coherent creative vision. Against all odds, this rebuilt version ultimately required four additional years of development before Avowed's final release.