During E3 earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it had five more studios under its umbrella, including Playground Games, Ninja Theory, and others. Today, two more studio acquisitions were announced at Microsoft at its X018 event, both of them being RPG making veterans.
Confirming previous rumors, Obsidian Entertainment will soon be officially joining the Microsoft Studios family. The developer is well-known for its role-playing games such as Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II, as well as for its original series Pillars of Eternity.
The second studio is inXile Entertainment, another developer known for its hand in making role-playing titles. Its responsible for games such as Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, and Bard"s Tale.
Microsoft said that it will use a hands-off approach on the two studios, giving them the freedom to choose their own projects while also supporting them. It added the following regarding the decision to acquire the studios, in its announcement:
It was important for us to find studio partners who have strong creative visions, a mastery of their medium and are expert world-builders. Obsidian and inXile embody all of these qualities while also bringing expertise on the PC platform and a unique RPG focus to the table.
It will be quite interesting to see what experiences these two studios will cook up under the Microsoft brand. In any case, the future looks very RPG-friendly for the Xbox One family and Windows 10 PCs.