Obsidian boss says it "makes sense" to work with publishers on large scale console RPGs

Obsidian Entertainment boss Feargus Urquhart has said the studio would love to develop a large-scale RPG such as Skyrim, and while Kickstarter is great for funding projects, larger scale ideas sometimes need the backing of a publisher.

Speaking in an interview with CVG, Urquhart said role-playing games are the "trajectory we want to always be on," and when it comes to making large RPGs, working with publishers "makes sense."

"Right now, fewer major games are being worked on by independent developers than almost any time in the games industry," he said. "That's one of the challenges of being an independent developer right now. I would love to say that I could go up on Kickstarter and raise $15, $20, $30 million dollars to do our own big triple-A console game.

"But the reality is - minus Star Citizen - that's probably a little bit of a pipe dream. When it comes to making bigger console RPGs, working with publishers makes sense. It's a big apparatus to try to ship these big console RPGs. I think we'll always continue to talk to publishers, not just because of funding but also because of the realities of publishing big console projects."

Urquhart went on to say Obsidian continues to "call up" publishers to discuss creating such large scale projects on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, hoping to convince companies to back particular ideas.

"I won't even use names, but for us to go off and do our own Skyrim-like game that's going to be on next-gen consoles, I'd love to do that," he said.

"I'm not saying we're talking to Bethesda about doing a Skyrim-like game or anything like that, but just saying that's something we continue to call up and talk to publishers about.

"We have a lot of experience doing that, we love to do it, and if we can get them convinced of an idea, or if they already want to do it, then that would be something that we would choose to do."

Back in January, Obsidian posted an opening for UI designer to work on current-gen consoles from PlayStation and Microsoft.