Avowed Director Quits Obsidian After More Than a Decade for Job at Netflix-Owned Oxenfree Studio

Avowed director Carrie Patel has quit legendary RPG company Obsidian Entertainment, just months after its most recent game’s launch.

In an update to her LinkedIn page, Patel revealed she had begun a new job at Night School, the Netflix-owned developer behind the Oxenfree series of narrative adventures.

“I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Game Director at Night School: A Netflix Game Studio!” Patel wrote in a brief update. Patel’s new role at Night School will again be as a game director, though what she’s working on remains unannounced.

Night School is most famous for its Oxenfree series of games, the most recent being 2023’s Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals. The Netflix-owned studio launched Black Mirror spin-off Thronglets earlier this year, around the same time it suffered an unknown number of layoffs. Months before, Netflix completely shut down another of its studios, working on a AAA game project headed up by Halo veteran Joseph Staten.

Patel had been a veteran of Avowed developer Obsidian, and over 11 years worked in various senior positions on games such as Xbox sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds and the classic Pillars of Eternity series.

More recently, Patel had taken on the reigns of directing Avowed after the game was rebooted early in its development. Avowed had initially been planned with a darker fantasy setting closer to The Elder Scrolls, with one big open world and multiplayer co-op.

Ultimately, Patel steered the game to launch as a brighter, more unique-looking experience, now featuring multiple large individual maps to explore, and an entirely single-player experience.

The response to Avowed was mostly positive, and Patel had initially discussed plans for the franchise to continue — either with expansions, a fully-fledged sequel, or both. Now, however, Patel won’t be part of that future.

An Avowed development roadmap announced last week detailed an array of mostly minor additions coming for free over the coming six months, including a Photo Mode and New Game Plus offering.

“With awesome worldbuilding and stellar character writing, Avowed reminds me why I fell in love with Obsidian’s RPGs in the first place,” reads IGN’s Avowed review. “However, the bigger picture is that it plays it quite safe, with a by-the-numbers fantasy adventure that’s more familiar than evolutionary.”

Obsidian’s next project to launch is The Outer Worlds 2, which is due to be shown off in detail at this year’s Xbox Games Showcase in June.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social‬