Obsidian once had plans for a Rick & Morty game

An image of Feargus Urquhart giving an interview.
(Image credit: Obsidian)

Life is filled with paths not taken. Careers unpursued, loves unrequited, games based on massive media properties unmade. Games like Obsidian's take on Rick and Morty, for instance, which studio boss Fergus Urquhart casually mentioned was planned by the company during a recent interview with NME.

Precisely what the game would have been is frustratingly undetailed in the interview itself, but we do know that it ended up shelved once Obsidian got bought by Microsoft and that it was one of many big licences the studio hoped to turn into games. The studio was also pitching a Walking Dead RPG and a game based on the reality show Cops before Microsoft scooped it up, although publishers "couldn't get their heads around" that last one. In another interview, we even heard that the studio had plans for a game based on James Cameron's Avatar.

I'm going to imagine that whatever Obsidian had in mind for Rick and Morty, it would have been somewhat close to the work it did on South Park: The Stick of Truth: A parodic RPG that recreated the art style of its source material to capture the vibe of the show. It's probably for the best that it didn't come to pass, though, given the imbroglio that now surrounds series creator Justin Roiland, who was charged with felony domestic violence and false imprisonment in 2020.

If anything, Urquhart's tales of Obsidian's stalled projects only serve to highlight just how much the studio has changed in the last few years. It used to be a kind of mercenary studio, picking up other people's series—Star Wars, Fallout, South Park, and so on—and making some incredibly good (some might say the best) games with them. Its attempts to kickstart its own properties never really took off, as Tyranny and Alpha Protocol can attest (even if both those games are excellent).

But now the company has more series of its own than you can count, and they're well-regarded too. Obsidian doesn't have to pitch games set in other people's worlds when it can do whatever it wants with the likes of Grounded, Avowed (based in Pillars of Eternity's world of Eora), The Outer Worlds, and Pentiment. Even though two of those games aren't classic Obsidian-style RPGs, Urquhart told NME that he doesn't feel like he's "being restricted" by Microsoft, and that the company's still doing "all the crazy stuff [it's] always done". But it's clear that the studio's recent success has given it room to experiment, and with things it actually owns to boot.

Still, Fallout: New Vegas 2 wouldn't go amiss. Just saying.

Joshua Wolens
News Writer

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Read more
Obsidian Entertainment VP of operations Marcus Morgan speaking at the 2025 D.I.C.E. Summit.
Obsidian says it won't chase huge profits or grow aggressively, and that's how it's going to last 100 years in the RPG business: 'Are we serious? Yes'
Avowed masked warrior lodwyn at night looking at camera
Avowed could have been Obsidian's Redfall, with a Destiny plus Skyrim co-op multiplayer vision scrapped early in a grueling 6-year development
Judge Dredd promotional image in Warzone
Half-a-dozen 2000AD games were in the works before fizzling out: 'The games you get to see are a tiny representative of the number that get started—sadly'
Wyrdsong concept art
Wyrdsong, the RPG from ex-Bethesda talent, isn't dead—but it's no longer an open world: 'We're down to a skeleton crew'
Avowed masked warrior lodwyn at night looking at camera
There's hunger at Obsidian for a Pillars of Eternity Tactics game after Avowed, says studio design director Josh Sawyer, but it doesn't sound like it'd get that Baldur's Gate 3-size budget he was fantasizing about
Close up of Fallout Power Armor helmet on orange background
Disco Elysium game director Robert Kurvitz praises the first Fallout: 'It makes other post-apocalyptic worldbuilding seem like an amusement park'
Latest in Game Development
princeton review best game design programs 2025
The best game design schools, ranked by the Princeton Review 2025
Sharon Tal Yguado speaking at the 2025 D.I.C.E. Summit.
'These kids do not care about romance': Game devs want to know what today's teens want, and surveys say sex and romance isn't it
Palworld early access
Palworld studio's first move as a publisher is to save a struggling indie dev: 'This is the energy I want to see driving games in 2025'
Yakuza/Like a Dragon creator Toshihiro Nagoshi says his studio's new game won't be that big after all: 'it's not modern to have similar experiences repeated over and over again'
A man with a sausage-shaped head
'Calm down!' says Facepunch Studios: Garry's Mod successor s&box is getting a fan-requested sandbox mode and an alternative to 'Sausage Men'
Hellboy Web of Wyrd
Devolver has a new label dedicated to making games based on comics, films, TV shows and 'cult heroes'
Latest in News
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all