Pentiment director warns: experimenting in production kills schedules
Summary
Josh Sawyer, director of Pentiment and design director at Obsidian Entertainment, shares hard-won lessons on keeping game development lean and on schedule.
His core argument: experimentation belongs in pre-production only - once production starts, changes become costly disruptions.
Obsidian's 2024 lineup (Avowed, Grounded 2, The Outer Worlds 2) serves as a cautionary tale, with two titles delayed 6+ years and missing sales forecasts.
"If then in production, when you're supposed to be just making the game, you start changing a bunch of things and experimenting, that's extremely risky, and it's extremely disruptive"
01
The pre-production vs. production discipline that keeps teams on track
Sawyer's foundational rule: pre-production is for big swings and experimentation, production is for execution only.
Mixing the two phases is the primary driver of schedule overruns in his experience.
His default stance on proposed mid-production changes is conservative - if it's already solved, don't re-solve it.
"My approach to everything is usually to be as scrappy as possible and to reuse and be very careful about not reinventing things"
02
The real cost of mid-production experimentation
Sawyer quantifies the risk clearly: experimenting during production can add 6 months to 1.5 years to a project.
Wasted work and consumed time compound across the entire team, not just the area being changed.
Even Pentiment required a full rewrite of its third act during beta - Sawyer judged it worth the cost, but stresses these calls are rare exceptions.
"You're going to waste a bunch of people's work. You're going to eat up a bunch of time"
03
Obsidian's 2024 release crunch as a real-world case study
Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 each took over six years to complete and were delayed multiple times.
Both titles missed their sales forecasts - a direct consequence of budgets inflated by extended development timelines.
Releasing three major titles in one year (Avowed, Grounded 2, The Outer Worlds 2) strained studio resources significantly.
Sawyer acknowledges this outcome stemmed from internal plans not going as expected, not a deliberate strategy.
04
The strategic tradeoff every studio leadership team must own
Sawyer frames the core tension honestly: tighter discipline means faster, cheaper delivery - but potentially less innovative output.
More experimental cultures can produce breakthrough games, but carry real schedule and budget risk.
"Other people want to push things, experiment more. And that can lead to more interesting games and more interesting experiences. So what do you value more, right?"
Most of Sawyer's projects still slip by 3 to 6 months consistently - even under disciplined conditions, some variance is inevitable.
05
Implications for studio production planning going forward
Studios under budget pressure or publisher scrutiny should treat pre-production vs. production phase separation as a non-negotiable structural control.
For teams weighing scope changes mid-cycle, Sawyer's framework offers a practical test: is the gain worth a potential 6-18 month cost?
As AA and indie studios face tighter funding environments, Sawyer's "scrappy and reuse" philosophy is increasingly relevant as a survival model.
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