Avowed review: some wow, some meh

Obsidian Entertainment is famed for its stellar RPGs. Can Avowed join their elite ranks? Dive into our review to find out!

I’m a sucker for a good RPG. Something about getting lost in a fantasy world filled with stunning vistas, zany characters, and difficult choices makes them so interesting. Of course, it’s not like I have been starved for RPGs these days. Pretty much all modern games tend to have some RPG elements. But to find a true gem, that’s something special.

Obsidian Entertainment is a developer who knows how to make a great RPG. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, The Outer Worlds… the list goes on. And now we have Avowed, a fantasy RPG set in the world of the Pillars of Eternity series that is filled with deep lore, magical elements, and more. All the ingredients are there. This game should be perfect. But is it? Let’s find out.

Table of Contents

Graphics

The game is built on Unreal Engine 5, and it looks stunning. The world is full of colour — from the lush green forests to the azure blue waters and everything in between. The world is also very well designed. It begs you to explore it. One moment, you’ll be going to a quest objective, only to be distracted by a building or a cave. Next thing you know, you’ve found some hidden loot. Like The Outer World, players don’t get a single massive world to explore. Instead, they get sections. That being said. Each of these sections is pretty big in on its own.

A lot of modern titles tend to give us massive worlds with nothing to do in them (stares at Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and Starfield). I am glad that the devs remember the subtle art of telling a story through world design.

Story

Speaking of story. Obsidian’s games are known for their excellent and tight stories and memorable characters. It’s a shame that Avowed falters here. A lot is just exposition. You play the role of an envoy from the Aedyr Empire sent to the Living Lands to investigate a plague called the Dreamscourge. A mysterious illness that first turns people mad and then twists their bodies into grotesque abominations with fungi growing out of them. Think Clickers from The Last of Us, with a healthy dose of magic.

Avowed is based on the same game world as Obsidian’s Pillar’s of Eternity series. So, a lot of the lore is shared. As such, fans of the series might find more meaning in the story.

Your character’s driving motive is kinda pointless if you ask me. You are a Godlike, meaning a god has personally blessed you. This blessing means that you look kinda weird (you can even turn this off in the settings). However, no god has claimed you as their Godlike, and because you look weird, you were picked on as a kid. But not to worry! The emperor came across you and liked you enough to add you to his court and now trusts you to investigate the Dreamscourge. During the journey, the ship is attacked, and almost everyone onboard dies.

I have no idea what to make of this. Am I supposed to feel sad about my poor character who was bullied for their appearance but had an incredibly privileged life as a member of the emperor’s court? Am I supposed to be grateful and loyal to an emperor I have never met or even heard about beyond the exposition? Why can’t I simply turn around and ride off into the sunset, away from the crazy fungus disease?

The Courier in Fallout: New Vegas was shot and left for dead. He is out for vengeance. The Stranger in The Outer Worlds is pretty much the only survivor of a legendary colony ship. He is out to save his people. Meanwhile, The Envoy had the minor inconvenience of not being claimed by a god but is currently living a life of success and privilege. He is out to do his job because his boss told him to.

By itself, I could live with my character’s motivations. It’s an RPG, after all. I will role-play. But the characters you meet are so dull and boring. Almost everyone you meet keeps info-dumping on you. After a while, you feel overwhelmed with information. And the developers knew that the writing was a little too much. How do I know this? Well, whenever you are having a dialogue, you can press a button to bring up a glossary to learn more about the terms brought up in that particular conversation. Clearly, the writers of the game never learned of the ‘show, don’t tell’ writing technique.

As for the companions, no one particularly stands out. At least not in a good way. The game has four companions, and players will come across all four as they progress through the main quest. They banter amongst themselves, have unique dialogue, and, after gaining a certain level of affinity, grant bonuses. You know… pretty standard stuff.

Gameplay

While the story of Avowed is not that great, the gameplay kinda pulls things together. The game has an excellent traversal system, and as mentioned earlier, the gameworld encourages exploration. All this together means that you’ll spend a lot of time clambering about the whole place. It’s extremely fun and is one of the best traversal systems in RPG games.

The combat is also quite entertaining. Players can choose from the standard menagerie or fantasy weapons like swords, axes, and bows alongside basic firearms like flintlock pistols and muskets. Magic is also a combat option with wands and tome books that grant access to elemental attacks. Interestingly, the game lets players have two load-outs, with the option to switch between them on the fly. This means I can switch from a swordmaster to a pistol-toting wizard in the middle of a battle without pausing the action. They also also quickly throw grenades in the middle of combat. This gives players a bit of freedom when creating their build without necessarily ending up with the stealth archer archetype.

The upgrade and crafting are also quite simplified. When they level up, players can put points into attributes while also choosing an ability. These range from passive abilities, like a health increase, to active ones, such as one that summons vines to trap your enemies in place. Weapons and clothing can also be upgraded at a crafting table, provided the player has the right ingredients.

It should be noted that the game does not have a permanent base. Rather, players set up camps at specific areas on the map. These bases allow access to the workbenches for upgrading equipment, as well as letting the player converse with companions and get their take on recent quests.

One thing to note is that you can’t really be a ‘bad guy’ in Avowed unless it’s via set dialogue options and is a part of the story. For example, you can take whatever you want without any consequences for stealing. Further, most NPCs in cities are completely immune to damage, and they won’t even react to you trying to attack them. This really breaks the immersion and makes you feel like everything is a sham made for the player’s sake. Meanwhile, in a game like Skyrim, players are free to attack a town if they want as long as they are ready to face consequences for their actions. While there were some unkillable NPCs in town, some could and would remain dead, leading to locked-off questlines.

Verdict

Avowed could and should be a great game. It’s made by a developer known for making some of the best RPGs ever. It has good gameplay with an excellent traversal system, which is then complemented with an excellent map/level design. However, the story and characters are extremely forgettable, which is a problem in an RPG. If Obsidian Entertainment could have tightened the writing a bit more, we might have a proper spiritual successor to Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on our hands while we wait for Bethesda to give us an update on Elder Scrolls VI.

The game is available for free on Game Pass, so subscribers and RPG fans should definitely check it out at the very least. That being said, Avowed has a big shadow looming over it in the form of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, which also promises RPG fans an excellent adventure minus the fantasy setting.

Editor’s Score: 7.5/10

Pros:

Cons:

More Info:

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Platforms: Xbox Series X/S, PC
Reviewed on: Xbox Series X

We played a review copy of Avowed provided by Microsoft

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