Obsidian chief creative officer and co-founder departs studio (update)

Chris Avellone, Obsidian Entertainment's chief creative officer and one of its founding officers, is no longer with the company, Avellone confirmed to Polygon today.

His last day was May 31.

"I have officially left Obsidian Entertainment to accept a sudden opening as the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts," Avellone tweeted this morning.

When we followed up with him he confirmed that while his future job at Hogwarts was a joke, his departure was not.

"It is true, and many well wishes to the folks at Obsidian," he told Polygon. "On the future, I'm off to pursue new projects, but I can't say anything more at this time beyond life is short, and the ideas keep growing. :)"

Avellone started his career writing campaigns role-playing games, before joining Interplay in 1995. At Interplay, Avellone worked on a number of titles including Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and the Icewind Dale titles.

In 2003, he left Interplay to co-found Obsidian Entertainment along with Feargus Urquhart, Chris Parker, Darren Monahan and Chris Jones.

While at Obsidian, he worked on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Fallout: New Vegas, among other games. Most recently, Avellone has been working as the narrative designer for Pillars of Eternity.

Update: Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart offered the following statement to Polygon: "Chris is no longer at Obsidian. We wish him the best in his future endeavors."