That's not the impression I got from
wikipedia: among other things, he wrote the original story pitch and—crucially—the story for
Van Buren (where a lot of FNV's central elements originated).
Wow, that's a pretty awful article, bordering on the hagiographic, and certainly overdetailed, so probably needs to be flagged to Wikipedia actually, because virtually all the (many) sources are just "Avellone claimed this personally" being treated as fact, and most of them are just interviews with him. Clicking through, some of them also don't obviously support what they're being linked to either (though maybe I'm missing something). Like, I'm willing to believe he wrote Ulysses, because that's the exact two-note same character Avellone always writes, over and over and over, "Lecturing Libertarian Nihilist" (I'm far from the only one who has noticed this, note lol), but all this "Oh well I originally came up with everything!" stuff? Piss off! (not you, him). He's claimed that so often it's just not remotely plausible, especially because the moment he leaves Obsidian suddenly he's not making that kind of contribution anywhere.
Given that Avellone has been incredibly inconsistent in what he's claimed, and his claims have been quietly contradicted by other people on quite a number of occasions (especially re: Pillars of Eternity, where for example he both claimed to have written all of Durance and almost none of Durance at separate times), and that he seems to consistently exaggerate his contribution to projects he likes (or which were well-regarded) and minimize his contribution to projects he disliked or are less well-regarded (to the points of flexing that depending on the attitudes at the time, c.f. Durance), I'm very disinclined to believe anything that's "Avellone claimed this personally".
Honestly if Avellone was 1/4 the writer he has often claimed he is, he'd have popped out an indie game that blew everyone else out of the water by now in the several years where he was just doing consultant work. I see he's just joined Republic Games to work on a dystopian fantasy RPG so maybe we will get to see him put his money where his mouth is again, or maybe we'll just get lectured by a libertarian nihilist again lol. Given it's apparently about fighting an a "tyrannical regime" and their "ideology" I'm somewhat fascinated to know what that "ideology" will be - dollars to donuts, as Avellone is a super-edgy Gen-Xer, it's going to be something hilariously outdated.
The Outer Worlds, Pentiment, and definitely Avowed (as with its cringey companions and tendency to drown the player in abtruse lore). But I suspect you and I just have different aesthetic sensibilities, since I also disagree with you about the earlier games!
I'm sure we do have different sensibilities, but I would suggest "overwrought and self-indulgent" is quite a
specific criticism and I don't see how it applies to those games. The only specifics you give are "cringey" (which isn't the same as either of those, or even related, and is clearly a matter of taste - the only Avowed companion like that that I can see if the dwarf) and "abstruse lore" which more applies to Pillars 1/2 than it does Avowed. Impossible to see how either applies to Pentiment, and The Outer Worlds, if anything, was underwrought, writing-wise (that was part of the problem - the whole thing was kind of half-baked!). The only arguably "self-indulgent" thing re: the writing in The Outer Worlds is the anti-romance stance, but that seems to be pretty widespread at Obsidian. It's not that there isn't a lot to criticise about TOW's writing (there is!), just those two points aren't really it (rather overly black-and-white situations and unsatisfying/unconvincing solutions to those situations, together with rather bland/flat writing would be my main critiques there).
I also particularly don't see how you can fail to apply "self-indulgent" to Avellone's writing - it's practically a hallmark of it - Durance, Kreia and Jubilost may be three of the most strikingly self-indulgently written characters in gaming history (written by professional writers, anyway).
