Obsidian’s Josh Sawyer: RPGs Aren’t for ‘Hardcore’—They’re for Explorers, Adventurers, and Survivalists Who Want to Suffer

Josh Sawyer doesn’t design for ‘hardcore’ or ‘casual’—he builds RPGs for explorers, adventurers, and the masochistic ‘survivalists’ who play on survival mode just to hear their own screams.

The Obsidian designer categorizes RPG players into three distinct archetypes: explorers who prioritize discovery, adventurers who seek balanced challenge, and survivalists who thrive on punishing mechanics.

In a recent deep dive on player intent, Sawyer rejected rigid difficulty labels, arguing that “giving more granular difficulty options is a very good thing.”

“If it cost nothing—which it does not—then I would say let players in-game set their difficulty options however they like,” he said, acknowledging the tension between modding freedom and rising development costs.

Early Obsidian titles like Icewind Dale allowed mod-driven tweaks, but modern projects face steeper technical hurdles. “Survivalists aren’t necessarily interested in Pentiment,” he added, highlighting how bullet drop mechanics remain core to survivalist playstyles but optional for explorers.

Sawyer’s framework rejects the false binary of ‘hardcore’ vs. ‘casual,’ instead advocating for systems that adapt to player intent. Whether through modding or built-in options, the goal is to let adventurers adjust resource management while preserving survivalist challenges like bullet drop physics.