Owlcat Games - What's Next?

Owlcat has demonstrated exceptional skill in adapting Pathfinder Adventure Paths into CRPGs, which is not an easy thing. Each of the games had over 60 patches.

While I would love for them to develop games for campaigns such as Curse of the Crimson Throne, Rise of the Runelords, and Hell’s Rebels, I believe that developing an original IP would offer them greater creative freedom. Without the constraints of existing lore and licensing from Paizo and WotC, they could innovate and craft a unique setting. Coupled with their experience in CRPGs, this could lead to an outstanding game.

Looking forward to it.
 
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Owlcat Reddit AMA 2024 - Answers!
Would owlcat ever make a Shadowrun crpg?

The setting is awesome and there are people in the team who'd be really excited to work on it, should an opportunity arise. It's not among the games we're currently developing, though.

Will owlcat make a CRPG in their own original IP like Larian has done with Divinity?

Which developer doesn't dream about their own franchise? Of course eventually we hope to! It's not on the horizon just yet though.

Will we ever get a starfinder game?

We like the idea about a game in a space setting, but we aren't developing any Starfinder games right now.
 
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Reading between the lines of their Q&A, sounds like another Warhammer project is in the works. When asked about anything else, they pretty much just said "no, we're not doing that." When asked about Warhammer, their answer was more along the lines of "stay tuned".
Rogue Trader is a good game for me. I still haven't played Void Shadows—waiting for the last DLC so I can do a second run with both DLCs together. Another W40K game sounds good to me, though maybe it’ll be a Warhammer Fantasy game instead. The last one I played was Mark of Chaos.
Would owlcat ever make a Shadowrun crpg?

The setting is awesome and there are people in the team who'd be really excited to work on it, should an opportunity arise. It's not among the games we're currently developing, though.
A Shadowrun game also sounds great—I love the setting. Shadowrun Returns, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, and Shadowrun: Hong Kong were all fun games. Too bad Harebrained Schemes stopped developing them. We need another studio to take up the mantle.
 
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A Shadowrun game also sounds great—I love the setting. Shadowrun Returns, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, and Shadowrun: Hong Kong were all fun games. Too bad Harebrained Schemes stopped developing them. We need another studio to take up the mantle.
I thought they were all good but not great. Harebrained Schemes didn't have the budget to really do the setting justice. Owlcat could probably make an awesome Shadowrun game.

Too bad about Starfinder. I'd rather have an RPG based on that than another WH:40K game.
 
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I thought they were all good but not great. Harebrained Schemes didn't have the budget to really do the setting justice. Owlcat could probably make an awesome Shadowrun game.
Most of the time, I don't need a game to be great—I just need it to be fun. I see games as a form of entertainment, and if they turn out to be great, even better. I'm always open to being surprised.
 
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Most of the time, I don't need a game to be great—I just need it to be fun. I see games as a form of entertainment, and if they turn out to be great, even better. I'm always open to being surprised.
Sure, but the better a game is the more potential for fun it has, or at least that's how I look at it.

The Shadowrun games from HBS were fun, but they could have been a lot better imo. I'd like to see one that's less linear and with a larger and more interactive world.
 
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Reading between the lines of their Q&A, sounds like another Warhammer project is in the works. When asked about anything else, they pretty much just said "no, we're not doing that." When asked about Warhammer, their answer was more along the lines of "stay tuned".
Its logical after success of Rogue Trader. The question is - does they make new W40k project again as izo RPG or that first 3D RPG?

If Larian left D&D after BG3 I wouldnt be surprised if they make one W40k RPG and one D&D RPG. How many IPs are left after this QA? :)
 
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Owlcat has demonstrated exceptional skill in adapting Pathfinder Adventure Paths into CRPGs, which is not an easy thing. Each of the games had over 60 patches.

While I would love for them to develop games for campaigns such as Curse of the Crimson Throne, Rise of the Runelords, and Hell’s Rebels, I believe that developing an original IP would offer them greater creative freedom. Without the constraints of existing lore and licensing from Paizo and WotC, they could innovate and craft a unique setting. Coupled with their experience in CRPGs, this could lead to an outstanding game.

Looking forward to it.
I can only disagree with that. When you use an existing IP, you gain an existing world with all its complexity, depth and "realism".

Settings that are custom built for games tend to be very shallow. The only exception to this is perhaps the Elder Scrolls setting... and still.
 
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I can only disagree with that. When you use an existing IP, you gain an existing world with all its complexity, depth and "realism".

Settings that are custom built for games tend to be very shallow. The only exception to this is perhaps the Elder Scrolls setting... and still.
Perhaps true for certain narratively heavy games. For most games I am fine with the likes of Eora (PoE), Britannia (Ultima), Xeen (M&M), Tamriel or whatever a good designer dreams up.

The upcoming Mass Effect like game, Exodus, is effectively creating it's own IP as well i.e. publishing books and other media before the release.
 
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Owlcat has demonstrated exceptional skill in adapting Pathfinder Adventure Paths into CRPGs, which is not an easy thing. Each of the games had over 60 patches.

While I would love for them to develop games for campaigns such as Curse of the Crimson Throne, Rise of the Runelords, and Hell’s Rebels, I believe that developing an original IP would offer them greater creative freedom. Without the constraints of existing lore and licensing from Paizo and WotC, they could innovate and craft a unique setting. Coupled with their experience in CRPGs, this could lead to an outstanding game.
The drawback of assigning resources to develop an original IP is that you need to assign resources for that purpose, with no guarantee it will ever pay off. It's more of a gamble. Licensing a successful IP lets you focus on your core strengths of creating a video game, with some prospect of having an interested fan base to go with the release.
 
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Rogue Trader is a good game for me. I still haven't played Void Shadows—waiting for the last DLC so I can do a second run with both DLCs together. Another W40K game sounds good to me, though maybe it’ll be a Warhammer Fantasy game instead. The last one I played was Mark of Chaos.
The AMA already shot that down:

Will you ever make a Warhammer Fantasy / Old World RPG?

Sounds exciting, but our priorities are elsewhere at the moment. We aren't developing any game in that setting right now.

...

What are the odds we get something Age of Sigmar related? The Mortal Realms always struck me as better "video game" material than WHFRP.

It's a great setting, but it is not among the list of currently developed projects or plans for the near future.
 
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You all know already what their next CRPG setting is going to be. They pretty much spelled it out in the AMA.

- Not fantasy themed
- Not Shadowrun
- Not own IP
- For the previous IP they worked with, they made 2 games
- For the current non-fantasy, non-Shadowrun, non-own IP they are working with, they made 1 game so far (stay tuned!)

I already said here that some on this site wouldn't like it, but tons of their fans did, it's what it is.


It's still a ways off anyway - for now Void Shadows is an insanely good DLC, possibly the best they've ever made, the new companion is probably the best written and characterized companion of all. And Lex Imperialis coming up soon will have cool features that most people will love, even the average RPGWatch user.

I know WH40K is not everyone's cup of tea, but I honestly feel you're missing out if you don't give it a shot, in a genre where there's so little to pick from.
 
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Yeah it absolutely sounds like there's another WH40K CRPG coming, but then they have 3 other "projects" too and I don't really see any hints for those. Although I guess we also already know that 1 of those 3 is a sci-fi action RPG using the Unreal Engine, because of job postings. Could be they're counting ongoing RT DLC as 1 of the remaining 2 projects.
 
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ehehe whatever it will be half of it's skills and abilities will be semi working or not working at all, on release.

Nothing like leveling up and then finding that skill doesn't do anything. Then you respect and the same thing happens on a new skill you pick. Owlcat at it's finest.
 
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1 of those 3 is a sci-fi action RPG using the Unreal Engine, because of job postings. Could be they're counting ongoing RT DLC as 1 of the remaining 2 projects.
Afaik they have 2 new games in pipeline. Aside from DLCs.
So this 3D sci-fi ARPG could be actually W40k - if they decide to make the IP bigger and more epic. And that izo CRPG could be "D&D classics"?
Some ppl would say that it could be Star Wars ARPG but... Im not sure if they can get this IP.
 
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