It seems to be like 2025 goes to be a wonderful 12 months for motion role-playing video games. We’ve already began issues off with a large Dragon Age: Veilguard bang, however subsequent 12 months may even carry Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Fable and the topic of at present’s dissection, Avowed. Each title presents one thing distinct for single-player RPG followers, and Avowed is poised to offer top-tier dialogue timber and wealthy worldbuilding, courtesy of Fallout: New Vegas, The Outer Worlds and Pentiment studio Obsidian Entertainment. This is the studio’s first tentpole title underneath the Xbox Game Studios banner and its first AAA fantasy sport ever.
While I couldn’t decide its full scope within the preview I performed this week, I’m happy to report that up to now, Avowed’s world is as attractive as its writing.
The preview included the sport’s first two hours or so, from character creation by way of the preliminary primary missions. Avowed is a spin-off of the Pillars of Eternity sequence and it’s set within the Living Lands, an space unexplored within the present video games, giving Obsidian a clean canvas for an epic unique story. A blight known as Dreamscourge is spreading throughout the area, infecting vegetation, animals and other people with a prismatic fungus that induces insanity, rage and demise. You play because the envoy of the emperor of the Aedyr Empire, which has a deep historical past of invading and colonizing the encompassing lands.
Of course your protagonist is particular, even by the requirements of this magical world. Players are a godlike, which means they’ve been touched by the divine and marked by facial growths of rainbow fungus. Generally, your godlike standing and relationship with Aedyr robotically instills respect and suspicion within the folks you meet. As you be taught extra in regards to the Dreamscourge, it turns into unattainable to disregard its similarities to the godlike marks you carry, and this existential terror builds superbly within the sport’s first few hours.
Are nature’s mutations insanity or divinity? It’s a skinny distinction with a lengthy and darkish historical past, and Avowed wallows on this grey space. Its first few hours introduce a number of narrative themes that may be mined all through the sport — the violence of colonization, palace intrigue, non secular visions, madness and non secular fervor type essentially the most distinguished speaking factors. These arcs play out in conversations with supporting characters and in interactive items of lore scattered across the environments, every idea unspooling in a pure and intriguing style. There are loads of alternatives within the dialogue timber to analyze these concepts and be taught extra in regards to the world or your companions, with specialised responses that unlock in case you have the correct stats. In normal, dialogue within the Avowed preview is good and quippy, and every new character comes with a distinct, plausible character. Already, I’m curious to know extra in regards to the folks of the Living Lands.
There aren’t any strict lessons in Avowed. Instead, gamers freely stage up their skills throughout fighter, ranger, and wizard utilizing acquired ability factors. There’s additionally a godlike tree, a web page to improve your companions’ skillsets, and a character sheet with traditional RPG attributes that you could place factors into. I centered on increase my magic, well being and harm, and it took a minute to seek out my most well-liked fight fashion. There are two weapons loadouts you’ll be able to swap between on the fly, a pop-up radial with additional skills, and 4 programmable spots on the D-pad. It’s a lot to handle within the frenzy of battle, however new weapons and instruments are added to your stock at a regular tempo and it’s straightforward to experiment with completely different builds. In phrases of weapons, I stumbled throughout a knife, spear, bow, protect, grimoire, wand, pistol and big hammer, however I think there have been much more instruments hidden on the planet. The bow and pistol have limitless ammo, however reloading the pistol is a prolonged course of, and the hammer is extremely highly effective, however its swing takes a second to attach, leaving you weak between hits. Combat is chaotic — particularly when combating hordes of big spiders — however the sport responds properly to rapid-fire inputs and usually, every encounter appears like a actual expertise check.
For me, the whole lot felt proper as soon as I discovered the wand. I closed out the preview with the bow in a single loadout, and the grimoire and wand within the different, and I used to be beginning to really feel like a actual badass. The wand is a fast midrange weapon, and mixed with the rechargeable spells within the grimoire and the lengthy vary of the bow, it labored very well for my most well-liked combating fashion. One annoyance I famous was the truth that I couldn’t draw my bow whereas taking sustained poisonous harm, as every small hit made my character lose focus — this was a robust lesson to be taught whereas making an attempt to struggle off a gang of rat-toothed reptilian creatures, however I positively absorbed it.
In any RPG, I’ve a exhausting time leaving an space with out smashing each vase, breaking each field and exploring each path. Avowed rewards this conduct with bits of worldbuilding, potions, unusual animals, cash and instruments hidden within the corners and crannies of the Living Lands. Or, generally, there’s simply a breathtaking view. Either manner, it makes me excited to see what secrets and techniques the total sport is hiding.
I additionally performed Avowed for about 45 minutes at Xbox’s Gamescom occasion in August, beginning with a pre-built mage character in the course of a search-and-rescue mission a few hours into the sport. I had a good time flinging spells from my grimoire and chatting with characters within the caves I used to be exploring, however I sensed a slight disconnect that I attributed to the rushed and public nature of the demo. Now, I do know what was lacking: Character creation.
Rich character customization is a huge motive RPGs can really feel so immersive and emotionally highly effective, and it was a deal with to mess around with this technique in Avowed’s newest preview. As a godlike, your character’s face is dotted with technicolor fungal growths, and tweaking the position and look of those particulars was pleasant, permitting my mind to construct the foundations of my character’s story instantly. I selected a face with fuschia butterfly-wing paddles protecting my eyes and brow, and a crown of neon ridges draped over my cranium. I then began molding my character’s backstory as a witchy scholar with a logical thoughts and a coronary heart of gold, and swapped a dexterity attribute level for structure. All of the anticipated customization mechanics have been there, permitting me to tweak the scale and form of every facial function, and alter my coiffure and colour, pores and skin tone, physique kind, voice, background, primary expertise, pronouns and identify. Put merely, the Monster Factory boys may have a lot of enjoyable with this one.
That stated, it’s exhausting to seek out something ugly in Avowed. It’s shaping as much as be a stunning sport, and the preview showcases expansive medieval vistas, shimmering psychedelic spores, rainbow-flecked animals and extremely detailed NPCs. I used to be significantly impressed with the pores and skin textures within the preview: Our primary companion, Kai, has snakelike teal pores and skin, and I very a lot loved watching the sunshine shine on his scales as we chatted by the hearth of our social gathering camp. Maybe I’m growing a reptile fetish, or perhaps Avowed is simply a actually fairly sport — a minimum of when working on a PC with an RTX 4070 Super. I haven’t had the possibility to strive it out on an Xbox but, and I’m curious to see the way it will carry out on each the Series X and Series S.
I’ve it on good info that Pillars of Eternity gamers will acknowledge the rainbow fungus and its infesting methods, however I don’t as a result of I’ve by no means performed these video games. Avowed is my introduction to Obsidian’s darkish fantasy universe, and I’m not alone on this place. Developers at Obsidian are keenly conscious that Avowed would be the first Pillars sport for a lot of gamers, as artwork director Matt Hansen and manufacturing director Ryan Warden defined to me in August.
“We don’t need gamers to really feel like there’s required studying,” Hansen stated. “So the whole lot that we do must be accessible and enjoyable and pleasant on its personal. If you are simply taking part in Avowed and that is the one sport you play, you will have a good time. And then on high of that, we’re discovering methods to weave in little winks and nods.” He specified that these take the type of paperwork, books and even a few acquainted faces. He continued, “We simply wished to ensure that that is a sport that is enjoyable for everybody, and fortunately the world is wealthy sufficient that it is easy to inject somebody in at any level. It’s additionally a part of the explanation we picked the Living Lands. Its unexploded territory provides us a lot of freedom.”
Warden added, “Even on the search entrance, we attempt to maintain it enriched by lore, however you’re not utterly misplaced whenever you’re a new participant.” He stated that characters in Avowed provide extra info on the historical past of any given scenario if you happen to’re all for asking them for it, and there’s a lore tooltip function that means that you can search for phrases mid-conversation (which can be a factor in Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, so it’s form of like a meta wink).
Hansen and Warden additionally shared some ideas in regards to the scope and format of the total sport, one thing that may’t be conveyed in a two-hour preview.
“The sport is structured much like Outer Worlds, the place there’s open zones which might be open-world in construction, however not one contiguous open world,” Warden stated. “So it permits the vital path, the primary story to be extra centered and have key moments that occur at a cadence that does not really feel weirdly paced, nevertheless it additionally permits a ton of freedom for participant alternative. You can go off and do facet quests and the areas are simply sufficiently small to be manageable. You can do a lot, you’ll be able to discover, nevertheless it’s not simply checking off a bunch of icons. Everything is bespoke. It’s hand-done. There’s not a lot reuse of issues.”
Hansen nodded and stated, “Lots to discover, however you are not punished for not exploring it. I imply, frankly, I’m changing into an previous man. I do not wish to spend 120 hours on a sport anymore. I like with the ability to play by way of our sport comparatively swiftly. Or, I’ve had playthroughs that have been like six occasions so long as different playthroughs as a result of I began to get into the nitty gritty. And that is a good lodging.”
“It will be so long as you need it to be,” Warden completed.
Avowed is because of hit Steam and Xbox Series X/S on February 18, 2025.
