Josh Sawyer on Why RPGs Shouldn't Let You Control Everything
Pentiment director Josh Sawyer has a message for players who want to be all-powerful in their role-playing games: you can't, and that's the point. In a recent interview with
The Examined Game, the veteran developer argued that RPGs are "at their best" when players feel "at the center" of their decisions but can't control everything around them.
Sawyer, who spent years at Obsidian on
Fallout: New Vegas and the
Pillars of Eternity series, isn't just theorizing. He's been designing limitations into his games for over a decade, often to mixed reception.
"I think I’ve done this in a lot of the games I’ve worked on to different levels of success or favorable or unfavorable reception by the audience,"
he said. That's a gentle way of saying some players really, really hate being told "no" in a game that otherwise promises choice.
"In Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, notably you can’t stop Eothas,"
Sawyer said, referring to the game's deity antagonist. "He’s just going to do what he's going to do. And you're kind of told that point blank, and we also try to telegraph that he's way beyond the ability to physically do anything."
That decision was intentional. Sawyer says it pushes back against the idea of "I'm the protagonist, I can literally do anything." Instead, Obsidian's games force players to sit with imperfect choices—decisions that feel like real human problems rather than clean binary outcomes.
The Philosophy Behind It
"So many problems are just human problems," Sawyer explained. "They're part of the reality of life and being a human being and living on this planet with other people right now. And even in a fantastic world, there are still going to be powers that are beyond you."
The most striking example comes from
Pentiment itself. Late in the game, players must accuse someone of murder—even though it's impossible to truly solve the crime. Someone is going to die, and you have to pick who.
"It requires the player to interrogate their own values and say, like, is it most important to me that I condemn the person I think did it? Is it most important to me that I condemn the person that I dislike?"
Sawyer said. There's no "right" answer, only a cost.
This design philosophy stands in contrast to power-fantasy RPGs where every problem has a solution. It's also a risky approach in a market that rewards player agency. Sawyer has previously warned that experimenting during production is
extremely risky, but he's clearly willing to take that bet.
What This Means for Gamers
Sawyer's comments come at a turbulent time for Obsidian. The studio recently lost roughly a quarter of its staff in Xbox's latest round of mass layoffs, which affected 1,600 employees starting July 6.
Bethesda's Todd Howard confirmed Obsidian is collaborating on a new Fallout game, but the studio's future remains uncertain.
For now, Sawyer's argument is a reminder that the best RPGs aren't about giving players a god-mode button. They're about making you feel the weight of what you can't control—and that weight is sometimes the whole point.
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