Josh Sawyer would spend a hypothetical blank check on a Darklands spiritual successor

Obsidian design director Josh Sawyer says if someone handed him a pile of money to burn, he'd probably try making a spiritual successor to Darklands — the obscure 1992 historical fantasy RPG set in 15th-century Germany. He floated the idea on a recent episode of the Human Can Opener Podcast, though he's quick to admit he has no idea if there's any market for it.

Sawyer's broader point is that he's largely made the games he always wanted to make — a D&D game early in his career, then Fallout: New Vegas about a decade later, and most recently Pentiment, his historical narrative RPG at Obsidian. With that checklist mostly ticked off, he says his priorities have shifted. "I feel like so much now is about working with the people that I like to work with," he told the podcast. He's blunt about the flip side too: "working on a dream game in an environment that sucks — it's never going to be fun. Your dreams are gonna be nightmares."

Darklands is a deep-cut reference — a MicroProse RPG from 1992 that leaned hard into historical realism, setting players in a gritty, late-medieval Germany complete with saints, alchemy, and robber knights. It's often cited as a proto-Kingdom Come: Deliverance in spirit, prioritizing period authenticity over high fantasy convenience. Sawyer has referenced it before as an influence on how he thinks about armor design, so his interest in the game runs deeper than nostalgia.

For now this is firmly in the realm of wishful thinking — Sawyer isn't announcing anything, and Obsidian is currently deep in Avowed's post-launch support. But given his track record with Pentiment proving that small, weird, historically-grounded games can find an audience, the idea of a Sawyer-led Darklands successor isn't quite as far-fetched as he makes it sound.