Pillars of Eternity prevented Obsidian closure

Obsidian Entertainment was on the brink of closure before its crowdfunded RPG Pillars of Eternity gave the studio new hope.

The revelation was made in the first entry in a new video documentary series, Road to Eternity, as spotted by VG247. You can watch the episode below.

Back in 2012, with South Park: The Stick of Truth facing yet more delays, the developer was hard at work on another title for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Unfortunately, the project was cancelled.

"With these larger budgets, when you crash, you crash hard," said project director Josh Sawyer. "And for a company the size of Obsidian to have a project like that cancelled, it can have a big impact financially."

The team tried to pitch the game to other publishers, albeit with tweaks to the design and setting, but it increasingly looked like lay-offs would be the only solution. 

Obsidian strived to secure a new project, but as the months went on, the management team even had to define a date on which the studio would be shut down if it could not find more work.

The rise of Kickstarter offered another option. At the time, little to no games developers had used the crowdfunding platform to finance video games development – and then Double Fine launched the Double Fine Adventure appeal.

Encouraged by this, Obsidian worked up the prototype for Pillars of Eternity and prepared its own Kickstarter campaign.

The appeal went on to raise $3.9m, and Obsidian was saved.

Check out Obsidian’s story below.