Traipsing across a vivid, fantastical land with a chatty companion meandering nearby and a humble selection of RPG-lite systems under my belt, I was struck by how little, and how much, had changed with the Obsidian Entertainment formula. Here were all the same elements that had comprised some of the best RPGs of our time, only years of altered measurements and lab settings had changed something in the chemistry.
The Outer Worlds, Obsidian’s 2019 space-capitalism romp, shimmered with this changed state, comprised, again, of the same components we recognise but altered here and poked at there. The end result was a somewhat divisive experience, that shimmer sparkling in the eyes of some while catching in others. Depending on which of these people you are, your reaction to Avowed, slated for release in early 2025, will change dramatically.
Avowed casts you as a royal Envoy (see Courier, Dragonborn etc) set forth under the command of the emperor to investigate a mysterious plague plighting the Living Lands, a rather luscious coastal region of Eora. It’s something of a pirate-themed Wild West with the saturation cranked way up – the morals and laws of its people rife with abandon matched only by the native wildlife’s burgeoning refusal to bend to civilisation. It’s vibrant, alluring, and just a little bit naff.
With your ship dashed on the rocks and your mere presence in the Living Lands something of an affront to a people unaccustomed to royal eyes and the reach of the hands that follow, your Envoy is off to a strained start. And that’s before you even deal with the half mushroom growing out of your forehead pockmarking you as one of God’s chosen few. Like the spores and undulating floral growths scarring the land to signify the presence of the plague, so too are the Envoy’s markings greeted with fear and superstition. That the player can choose in the game’s character creator to hide these markings from their view (they still exist in game) is remarkably odd though, undermining the entire point of the social ostracization for the sake of aesthetics.
Approximately three hours with a setting that plays with ideas of divine cruelty and body horror is simply not enough to decide how well it will ultimately handle these headier musings, but Avowed’s opening hours do at least tilt Obsidian’s hand in terms of tone. Much like The Outer Worlds, Avowed is at least nominally about Things, though its political acumen and creativity juts up against a plethora of exposition-laden dialogue and fairly uninteresting conversations. Characters will talk at your Envoy about a many great things, but I never found myself leaning forward to hear more and rarely ever felt as if the Envoy themselves was much of a character outside of basic traits.
Avowed combines maritime goodness with solid fantasy aesthetics
While the Living Land’s denizens and woes did little to move me to action, the action itself called all the same thanks to Avowed’s hefty and frequently satisfying first-person combat. Far removed from the awkward flailing of Skyrim, Avowed does make you feel as if you are inhabiting a body, with the momentum of movement felt in every jump, slide, and swing of your assorted weapons. The action RPG of it all rings familiar and true; two loadout slots, each with both hands open for sword, shield, grimoire, bow and so on. Stats to invest points in bolstering performance of your build, and skills within to build over time as you spec into say, fire casting or full-bodied muscled glory.
From the looks of the later skills and array of stats, Obsidian’s streamlining is omnipresent though not entirely unwelcome. While the complexities of Baldur’s Gate III may appeal to RPG sickos, likewise, there should be space for a game to simply allow you to plop a point in and feel a little stronger. In these opening hours it’s all effortless, my Envoy (dubbed Fool, shoutouts to my Hobb truthers) found rhythm in off handing a spell book to cast rotating elemental magics (cool downs and mana management required) while lunging across the battlefield with heavy sword strikes. Then, when things got a little too hot, he would switch the grimoire for a shield, stamina depleted to block attacks before diving in for another.
It looks cool, it feels cool, it simply is cool. That physicality of body feels intrinsic to the moment-to-moment flow of Avowed’s combat, which can easily tip into outright challenging as multiple powerful enemies gather on you and management of the space around you becomes as crucial as your own meters and abilities. Occasionally this balance tips and the odds break wrong; too many foes at once feels antithetical to the methodical and weighty systems, doubly so when an enemy will cross a gap just a touch too wide for you to feel as if the resulting whack to your health was entirely fair.
Combat in Avowed has weight behind every movement
Elsewhere, your Envoy will engage the land around them with wits and a silver tongue, the game riddled with multiple skill checks in dialogue trees and potentially branching opportunities. With your chosen background influencing what innate knowledge your Envoy possess, you can crack wise at locals, intimidate guards, or simply convince someone of your best intentions. It’s all of a piece with Obsidian’s roots, and much like The Outer Worlds, it at least presents a veneer of returning to a kind of roleplaying yearned for in the AAA space.
And much like The Outer Worlds, the veneer is glossy and intermittently satisfying. Questing through the introductory dungeon, I found a woman in a prison cell. We exchanged some barbs about my face and her predicament, we came to an agreement that I would find the key and let her out in exchange for use of her boat. Finding the key was painless (Avowed has some pretty average white paint platforming in these opening hours) but when I returned, I felt the itch to play with the RPG. I denied her release, instead boldly asserting I would take the boat. As I left, her angry yells trailed me out of the room.
Admittedly, and somewhat smugly, I assumed this was a false flag of a choice. The character had a name and a hefty bit of dialogue, so my Companion bells were ringing as I imagined her catching up with us at the boat and begrudgingly coming along. But Avowed surprised me here; as I reached the beach, I was drawn into a boss fight with a brute as the prisoner rounded the corner and accused me of leaving her for dead. She was right, and I said as much, turning my boss fight into a doubles match. Imagine my surprise when the character I assumed would be a hoisted companion shattered into ice as I lobbed a stray spell her way. Video games!
Drink it, what’s the worst that could happen?
But also, video games. A woman I found in a major port city location was decrying the uselessness of the local guards in her time of need. My Envoy, short of coin, agreed to assist in her quest to clear her home of invading monsters. So you clear the home, find a journal with some new information, and confront the woman about how she misled you. And so on, and so forth. There was a germ of an idea in this quest’s revelation that speaks to Avowed’s broader, better, concepts but in execution, the side quest felt like exactly that. A criticism you could easily, word for word, levy at The Outer Worlds in turn.
So it goes that Avowed’s chemistry shimmers much like its RPG predecessor– a polished and gorgeously realised fantasy setting with a streamlined RPG layered atop and a smattering of cool ideas potentially rendered a little mute by its moment-to-moment delivery. The meaty combat is at least a thrilling balm to the world’s less dazzling elements though, and the overarching sense that Avowed is a fantasy RPG built to simply whisk you away with relative ease is not a poor pitch as we barrel ahead into the unknown of 2025.
Would that we could all just toggle off the scars.
Previewed on PC using code provided by the publisher
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