Sawyer continued his involvement in theater and music, including directing a production of Assassins his junior year,[4] and minored in theatre.

[10] On July 19, 2005, GameSpot reported that he had left Midway's Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, and was accepting a position at Obsidian Entertainment, a studio founded and staffed by many veterans of Black Isle.

In December 2011 Sawyer publicly released a New Vegas mod designed for his own personal use adding a large variety of small tweaks to the game ranging from rebalancing the karma of certain characters to slowing down the level up speed.

[17][18] In 2012, with Obsidian on the brink of financial disaster after the cancellation of another project by a publisher, Sawyer proposed the company return to its design roots by making an isometric RPG in the style of those created at Black Isle.

Arguing there was a market for this type of game among fans, Sawyer suggested turning to the platform Kickstarter to secure funding for development without a publisher.

He succeeded in persuading company leadership, and the resulting game, Pillars of Eternity, met its Kickstarter funding goal of 1.1 million dollars in 27 hours.