Obsidian Entertainment — the studio behind Fallout: New Vegas, Avowed, and The Outer Worlds — is facing a class action lawsuit alleging systematic wage and hour violations under California labor law. The case has been active since October 2024 but drew wider attention after a Reddit post flagged an amended complaint filed in January 2025.
The suit was filed by plaintiff Victoria Turner, whose name matches a QA lead credited on The Outer Worlds 2 with prior work on Mass Effect 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The class covers anyone employed at Obsidian as a non-exempt employee in California from October 9, 2021 through the date of class certification, with a separate subclass for employees who left on or after October 9, 2022. The complaint accuses Obsidian of boosting profits by failing to pay minimum wages and overtime, withholding wages owed at separation, not providing lawful meal periods or rest breaks, skipping reimbursement of necessary business expenses, and issuing inaccurate wage statements.
Obsidian filed a response in early March, flatly denying every allegation and laying out 38 points in its defense — including the argument that employees "consented to and/or acquiesced in the alleged conduct." The case has seen little movement since that response. The lawsuit sits in some tension with the studio's long-standing reputation: back in 2019, senior designer Brian Hines told PCGamesN that Obsidian is "not a crunch studio," describing any extra hours as always voluntary and short-term.
No trial date has been set, and the class has not yet been certified. With Obsidian currently operating under Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios umbrella and actively shipping titles like Avowed, the outcome could have broader implications for how the wider industry handles labor compliance in California.
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