Xbox boss Phil Spencer has explained ‘Avowed’s delay to February 2025 was not because Obsidian “needed the time”, but was instead because the publisher wanted to spread out its releases.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer has insisted ‘Avowed’ was not delayed because Obsidian Entertainment couldn’t meet its original release date.
The upcoming role-playing-game was initially planned to launch this month, though the title was pushed back to February 2025, and now the publisher’s CEO has said the reason behind the delay was because the company already had a lot of games ready to launch at the back-end of the year, like ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’, ‘Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’ and the ‘Diablo IV’ expansion ‘Vessel of Hatred’.
In an interview with Game File, Spencer said of the ‘Avowed’ delay: “We can afford it when we have the ‘Diablo’ expansion, then ‘Black Ops’, then Indy’.
“We didn’t move it because Obsidian needed the time. They’ll use the time.”
The Xbox head added the decision was made to “make sure we pace this out a little better”, particularly with ‘The Great Circle’ and ‘S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl’ coming to Xbox Game Pass day-one on 20 November and 9 December respectively.
In August, Xbox said it would be pushing back ‘Avowed’ “to give players’ backlogs some breathing room”.
On X (formally known as Twitter) the official Xbox account tweeted: “So many games coming! As such, we’re moving Avowed to Feb 18, 2025 to give players’ backlogs some breathing room.”
Avowed delay was not because Obsidian ‘needed the time’, says Xbox head Phil Spencer
