All subjective opinion. I consider Obsidian to be the best RPG studio bar none. And their most recent big RPG, Grounded, has sold over 10 million.
I think PoEs were a bit too much nostalgia driven, but that’s what they promised. I do agree with you and see Obsidian still as the most reliable RPG studio. Both PoEs and Tyranny were quite excellent. Outer Worlds I found to be meh, but it was still finely crafted with some interesting ideas.
I definitely wouldn’t count Grounded as an RPG - it is straight up survival game. Pentiment was narrative adventure.
I think PoE were some of the most mature RPGs I have played - with fantastic conversation trees and best reputation system I have experienced. I do think, though, that Obsidian is at its best when being creative - in the past decade they seemed to play it more safe - resulting in more even titles, but also a bit less exciting. While not exactly my cup of tea Grounded and Pentiment seem like real passion project, and they have spark that some of the other titles lacked.
There is little point in rating studios - Obsidian name still raises my interest, it’s perfectly fine if it doesn’t for others. I have clearly different taste than some other posters, and PoE’s Eora is the first fictional RPG world about which I cared. It seems to have themes, purpose and thought behind it, that made it interesting to me.
