'Avowed' Lead Environmental Artist Says "This Is The Most Confident I've Ever Been" Ahead Of Game's Release
Dennis Presnell, the Lead Environmental Artist for Avowed at Obsidian Entertainment claims that “this is the most confident I’ve ever been” ahead of the game’s release in February.
Presnell spoke with Games Radar telling the outlet, “Games are really hard to make, and every experience is different. I've always felt a certain level of dread months before a game shipped, a case of the nerves. But this is the most confident I've ever been in my experience at this stage of the project.”
He added, “I'm just overjoyed at how well everything's come together. The team is now closing things down and fixing bugs and working on perf, and I'm going to be really proud of this game when it's available to the public. I can't wait, actually.”
Presnell’s comments were published about a week after it was discovered the game included pronouns and the game’s Art Director Matt Hansen admitted he wanted to make Elon Musk mad with the game.
It was discovered in a preview video for the game done by Force Gaming that the game featured pronouns.
This inclusion elicited a reaction from Elon Musk who wrote, “Having pronouns in a fantasy video game is utterly unacceptable.”
READ: 'The Great Rebellion' Developer Blasts 'Avowed' Art Director As "Unstable" And "Childish"
Hansen reacted to Musk’s comment on BlueSky, “Sickos.jpg. I wanted to badly to make him mad with my game, and I cannot believe it actually happened.”
He then threatened, “just wait until you see the default, you said little s**t.”
It was also uncovered that Hansen has advocated for discriminatory hiring practices over the past half decade or so. Back in 2020 he wrote, “Reminder to Black artists out there who are looking for portfolio reviews or job advice: my DMs are open, and you will always have my priority. We got too many crusty white dudes in this field, please let me help you replace me one day - I want to go back to living in the woods.”
READ: Obsidian Whistleblower Describes 'Avowed' Art Director Matt Hansen As "Pure Evil"
In March 2024, he reacted to another post from Elon Musk. Musk wrote at the time, “It should not be acceptable for any company in the gaming industry to be racist & sexist against ‘white guys.’”
Hansen retorted, “Oh, Elon, you sweet summer child, this will only embolden me, you sad sack of s**t.”
Hansen also declared that supporters of Donald Trump have “putrid lives.”
Ahead of the elections in the United States, Hansen wrote on BlueSky, “They need to feel the sting of shame for the rest of their putrid lives, tbh. And that *is* me being nice.”
Regardless, Presnell is not the first game developer to tout what appears to be a very woke game that turned into a massive sales disaster.
Infamously, Concord Lead Character Designer Jon Wesinewski told PC Gamer, “Concord has so much humanity and depth to it. I really hope people give it a shot.”
He added, “Insanely proud of the game, we’re strapped in and ready to push it for years to come.”
Concord was shut down less than 2 weeks after it released towards the end of August. Fast forward a couple of months to October and Sony announced that developer Firewalk Studios was being shut down.
Similarly, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told investors ahead of the release of Star Wars that the game “is among the most awaited games of the industry this year” and it had “a really strong, positive community sentiment.”
A month after the game released and Guillemot and Ubisoft revealed the game had soft sales. At the end of October, the company admitted the game “underperformed sales expectations.”
In November, the company released the game to Steam and it did not even hit a peak concurrent of 2500,
READ: Former Co-Owner Of Obsidian Entertainment Says Company Should Be Sued For "Hiring Discrimination"
EA CEO Andrew Wilson also made similar comments about Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Wilson claimed the game had “breakout potential.”
He said, “certainly think Veilguard has breakout potential. … This opportunity to bring in incredibly high quality, creative storytelling set in an amazing world with rich characters living out those stories you’re able to capture that moment in entertainment. Success almost certainly follows.”
He added, “And so while I think it’s too early to predict the outcome, the critical reviews have been incredibly strong. The team feels really energized by what they have delivered. And my sense is that, yes, it has breakout capabilities.”
Dragon Age: The Veilguard only hit a peak concurrent player count of 89,418 during its first weekend after release and has seen its player counts steadily decline ever since.
Furthermore, neither BioWare nor EA have released any kind of sales data for the game. Their silence indicates the game did not sell well given numerous other developers and studios announced their successes including Focus Entertainment and Saber Interactive recently sharing that Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 achieved 5 million total sales.
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