The studio behind Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds is being sued over wage and hour violations

[midian182]

In a nutshell: Obsidian, the developer behind some of the best RPGs of all time, is being sued. A class-action lawsuit has been filed against the Fallout: New Vegas maker over allegations that it violated California wage and hour laws.

The case, Victoria Turner v. Obsidian Entertainment, was originally filed in Orange County Superior Court in October 2025. It appears to have gone largely unnoticed until Reddit user macken_zee highlighted the docket and court documents on the r/pcgaming subreddit. An amended complaint was filed on January 12, 2026.

Turner is listed in The Outer Worlds 2 credits as a QA lead. The filing seeks to represent current and former nonexempt employees who worked for Obsidian in California from October 9, 2021, through the date of class certification. It also seeks to certify a separate group of employees who left the company from October 9, 2022, onward.

The complaint alleges that Obsidian "engaged in a systematic pattern of wage and hour violations under the California Labor Code and Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Orders."

Those alleged violations include failing to pay all minimum and overtime wages, failing to pay wages owed when employees left the company, failing to pay wages on time during employment, denying lawful meal and rest breaks or compensation in place of them, failing to reimburse necessary business expenses, and failing to provide accurate itemized wage statements.

The lawsuit seeks monetary relief for affected workers, including unpaid wages, unreimbursed expenses, interest, benefits, attorneys' fees, costs, and penalties.

Obsidian said that it denies "generally and specifically, each and every allegation." In a response filed in March, the studio asked for the complaint to be dismissed in its entirety with prejudice.

The company also laid out 38 points in its defence. Among them, Obsidian argues that the complaint does not state sufficient facts to support valid claims, and that Turner and any proposed class members "consented to and/or acquiesced in the alleged conduct."

Reddit users have been arguing over whether California employees can waive meal and rest break protections. Others have urged caution, noting that complaints and responses in wage suits can contain broad, boilerplate allegations and defenses long before the facts are tested.

There has been little movement in the case since Obsidian's March response. The suit remains pending

Permalink to story:

The studio behind Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds is being sued over wage and hour violations

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

I think employees should be able to not take a break if they feel like continuing to work, but as far as I know in California there is a penalty for that. My former employee said they risked fines if we did not take meal breaks within a certain time.

Apparently, the state of California says every 5 hours of work there must be at least a 30 minute meal break. The only exception is if "the nature of the work" prevents it (ie. the only worker), and then an on-duty meal break is allowed: https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_mealperiods.htm

Under California law (IWC Orders and Labor Code Section 512), employees must be provided with no less than a thirty-minute meal period when the work period is more than five hours (more than six hours for employees in the motion picture industry covered by IWC Order 12-2001).

Unless the employee is relieved of all duty during the entire thirty-minute meal period and is free to leave the employer's premises, the meal period shall be considered "on duty," counted as hours worked, and paid for at the employee's regular rate of pay. An "on duty" meal period will be permitted only when the nature of the work prevents the employee from being relieved of all duty and when by written agreement between the employer and employee an on-the-job meal period is agreed to. The test of whether the nature of the work prevents an employee from being relieved of all duty is an objective one. An employer and employee may not agree to an on-duty meal period unless, based on objective criteria, any employee would be prevented from being relieved of all duty based on the necessary job duties. Some examples of jobs that fit this category are a sole worker in a coffee kiosk, a sole worker in an all-night convenience store, and a security guard stationed alone at a remote site.

 

[dangh]

I think employees should be able to not take a break if they feel like continuing to work

I think this would be exploited to no end (and probably already is) by companies, who just would like to treat everyone as a slave. So, all of them.

I think every sane person would like to take a break after an hour of work, and would like to get a lunch break after 3 - 5 hour of work to clear his mind a bit. Especially for programmers, those breaks are really good to have. No one person would like to work 8 hour straigth without a break, that is just mental. Sure, if you are 'in zone' on some serious issue you can do this break later, or sometime skip it, but this should be a rare exception from a rule. Having breaks is just healthy attitude and proper approach to a work, unless someone is planning to have his body wrecked before he hits 30s...

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The irony of Obsidian having made Outer Worlds 1 and 2 while treating their employees like wage slaves is not lost on me.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

I think this would be exploited to no end (and probably already is) by companies, who just would like to treat everyone as a slave. So, all of them.

I think every sane person would like to take a break after an hour of work, and would like to get a lunch break after 3 - 5 hour of work to clear his mind a bit. Especially for programmers, those breaks are really good to have. No one person would like to work 8 hour straigth without a break, that is just mental. Sure, if you are 'in zone' on some serious issue you can do this break later, or sometime skip it, but this should be a rare exception from a rule. Having breaks is just healthy attitude and proper approach to a work, unless someone is planning to have his body wrecked before he hits 30s...

I agree, and the latter is more what I'm talking about. In the past, I just lied about it and entered my timesheet as if my lunch hour hadn't changed lol. And you'd be surprised, some programming jobs are really chill. That said, a video game studio is unlikely to fall in that category.

 

[NumberNine]

Data driven lawsuits and data driven gameplay. They'll not see my dollars either way.

 

[Gezzer]

I worked for Footlocker way way back in the day. And we were all told that we had to "voluntarily" work all the hours we were open on any day we worked. So Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were 11 hour shifts. We did get breaks and it was commision plus minimum wage, so it wasn't so bad. But no OT for the extra 3 hours and everyone was exhausted when we closed because it was hella busy.

And that's the problem, it's almost never really voluntary. In fact there was a provincial undercover sting operation that caught all the Kinny of Canada outlets doing this plus half the rest of the stores in the mall. Result? Managers all got let go, no voluntary extra hours, for about 3 or 4 months and then they started doing it again.

Did Obsidian abuse their workers and are trying to pass it off as okay because the employees agreed to it? The big question is was it really voluntary? With my experience I wouldn't be surprised if it was nudge nudge wink wink (mandatory)...