Time for a little bit of news that actually flew under the radar amidst all the chaos: despite being cancelled, Avowed 2 is still being worked on, according to Jason Schreier.

In the initial report where we learned that Obsidian lost 25% of its staff and was pivoting to work on a Fallout game, it was also reported that Avowed 2 and several other projects had been canned. However, buried in that report was a piece of text stating that: “Some Obsidian employees will continue working on the Avowed sequel as they wait for new projects such as Fallout to be ready, perhaps in hope of one day reviving the game, the people said.”

I missed it entirely. And seemingly so did almost everyone else. But Schreier has now expanded on his claims a little more.

In his newest Youtube video, Schreier discusses Avowed 2 and Obsidian might be hoping it could still be released.

“Obsidian actually has a small team that was working on Avowed 2 that is still going to keep working on Avowed 2, even though it is cancelled, while they wait for other projects like Fallout to be ready for them, and maybe in hopes of getting it uncancelled.” said Schreier.

“Maybe it was actually farther along than I think people would expect for a sequel to a game that came out last year. I think their hope is perhaps that they’ll get it so close to being finished that Xbox will look at it and say, ‘Okay, yeah, you can finish and release this. It won’t cost that much more to finish it.’”

This seems like a smart decision to me. A new Fallout game might take a while to spool up – although it’s very possible they might be able to retool some of their existing projects to save time – so instead of having some of your team doing nothing, keep them on Avowed 2.

On the other hand, it also seems like a decision that could risk the wrath of Xbox’s higher-ups, should the command to cancel Avowed 2 have come from them.