Obsidian swings hard with its first-person fantasy RPG, and lands a wonderfully timed strike. Set in the Pillars of Eternity universe, Avowed serves up a gateway drug towards discovering those gems. This is much less weighty than other RPGs of its kind, but it’s moment to moment action carries it forward. Avowed is like the ring in trees, there’s a bunch of stories and growth to be found within.
Editor’s Note: Reviewed up to Patch 1.2.2
The game begins with you having been touched by a god as you go around the wheel of life. Known as a godlike, your facial deformities make you easily identifiable, but give you specialness and appreciation. You grow up and become an envoy of the emperor, who sends you to stop a plague that is spreading across the Living Lands within Eora. At the outset, you make a character of your own creation, setting your godlike attributes to be very noticeable to even non-existent. From there you jump straight into the game, having crashed onto an island ravaged by the plague as part of your initial investigation,. Though starting things off right after a shipwreck seems to be very common trend in Eora. After this concludes, you’ll be led to visiting the Living Lands proper.
Avowed takes place in the same universe as Obsidian’s own Pillars of Eternity and Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, taking place after the events of those games. They were different games, offering real-time with pause RPGs from the isometric perspective, that are fantastic in their own right. From the font to the colors to the constant references to the “Deadfire archipelago”, this is a game with plenty of recognizable elements and comfort of familiarity. If you’ve not played those games, there’s a lot of lore to learn as you meet and converse with a large swath of characters. It’s a game world that’s believable, lived in, and is something that exists before and after you are there.
One of my favorite elements of this game is its combat. It’s fast, fluid, and skill-based. You will need to properly dodge, block, and parry in order to get through fights, and it feels great when doing it. If you want, you can have multiple loadouts, and varying styles of weapons in main and off-hands. The game is wildly customizable, allowing you to play it how you want, and not how the game wants you to play it. There’s many elemental afflictions like fire, ice, lightning, bleed, and poison; you can mix ‘n’ match or find ways to increase their potency, they all stack. So you can carry a wand and shield, two swords, or just equip dual pistols if you’d like. Avowed is fun when you’re experimenting and playing outside of traditional roles of role-playing games. Enemies are not varied, but they are when it comes their challenge level, indicated by skulls and ranking.
Your character levels up, to the maximum of level 30, and can invest in attributes that compliment: might, constitution, dexterity, perception, intellect, and resolve. Along the way you’ll be selecting abilities, and within those abilities there’s specialties that offer buffs to its base version. The skill tree doesn’t operate linearly, meaning you can respec and only invest in higher tiers of skill as they unlock, and you should respec. It’s a nominal fee to respec your skill tree, so it’s best to seek out skills that go well with your weapons. Additionally, companions level up and have abilities too, though their branches are much shorter to explore as you aren’t having to level up individual stats. While these are limited to four total, you can still invest in what their specialties they bring to a given fight.
Like a unique weapon you found at the beginning of the game? Good, you can keep using it until the end credits roll. Avowed has a crafting and upgrade system to accomplish this. As you complete quests, side missions, bounties, or seek out treasure, you’ll be looting everything. With that, there’s lots of materials you’ll accumulate that can be used to enhance your weapons and gear. Progressing through each region of the game introduces higher tiered materials. Meaning, if you need lesser items, you either need to go back to the previous area or downgrade to break down higher items into lesser items with larger quantities. There’s even a cooking system that lets you make food based on recipes. Going back, that unique item has five upgrade tiers, with three steps in-between. You can take items from common to fine to exceptional to superb to finally legendary with that wonderful orange color. Having tiered gear requirements may be unconventional but it gets you to engage with its systems you probably otherwise wouldn’t. It feels like you’re forming a relationship with these items as you bring them to higher tiers, and into the end of the game.
The inventory has a weight limit, so you can sell items to vendors for coin or break them down to their essential components for crafting. There’s one kind of item, gems that are solely for selling to vendors. What I also like, is that the game tells you what items are used for, so you’re never lost as to what item is for what. This extends to the upgrade system, as you’re always told what’s needed for that next upgrade, letting you make little to-do lists as you make your way through the Living Lands.
Like The Outer Worlds, you are limited to two companions to bring with you, with four companions in total to choose from. First there is Kai, and it’s very easy to just get attached to him. I think the biggest reason is that his voice actor played Garrus from Mass Effect. Next you meet a dwarf named Marius. Much later comes Gianna, who’s irreplaceable because of her healing abilities she brings to the party. Lastly is Yatzli, who’s horny as hell, but a fun addition. Ultimately my party included Kai all steps of the way, and I never deviated from having Gianna because of how helpful she was. It’s a bit of a bummer that you can’t give companions weapons or gear (like you can in Pillars of Eternity), but also kind of nice not having to worry about that. They are all capable on their own, and don’t need you to do anything but pick their abilities.
A lot of Avowed is dialogue, both what you say to NPCs and what gets told to you. At times it may feel like there’s a lot of unnecessary exposition and lore dumping going on, but that’s what Obsidian does best, and especially in such a lore rich world as Eora from two prior RPGs, so it is expected and welcome. Along the way, your background and skills you’ve upgraded may come into play. If your skill isn’t high enough, you may not be able to roll the invisible dice, but other times you’re able to speak as an authority that can de-escalate situations, or sometimes escalate situations into shituations. All the same, there’s some heartfelt and laugh out loud moments to be had, and I really liked talking with every NPC I could find, as well as my party at camp.
Surprisingly, Avowed has a fantastic parkour system that lets you mantle and clamber onto objects and buildings. The game’s rather generous when leaping a gap, to be able to grab the ledge in front of you. There’s a healthy amount of platforming you’ll be asked to do, and it just feels really great to do in every instance. There’s also some great physics at play, too. There are some soft objects like cloth tarps that will buckle and rip under your weight if you’re not careful. It’s amazing to say that I enjoyed the first-person platforming, but it’s done really well here. Though it should be noted there is a toggle to play this game entirely in third-person, if you want.
There are four regions to explore, each with their own biome, architecture, and history. You’re always free to explore at your leisure, and the map has a fog of war that reveals itself as you make your way through them. There’s always a reason to explore and try to uncover as much as you can. Each area has a day/night cycle, and the time that passes feels realistic and not too fast. There are adra pieces, giant translucent rocks that have significance where you and your party can camp. Camp forces nightfall, and leaving camp forces day. You can fast travel to every beacon and campsite, you’ve previously been to, removing unnecessary walking or running. There are no resources used to make camp, so you can do this at your discretion to craft, cook, or converse.
Avowed utilizes Unreal Engine 5 to the fullest, including the latest technologies such as Ray Tracing, Frame Generation, DLSS 3, and NVIDIA Reflex. All of which I had enabled, and it performed amazingly, with no ghosting, and visual clarity. I was able to achieve an average of 130fps without an issue, and I don’t think the game ever went below 100fps. It’s incredibly optimized and just stunning at every turn.
My PC Specs:
– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 13900K @ 5.8GHz
– ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360 ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
– G.SKILL TRIDENT Z5 6000MHZ 64GB (32×2) DDR5 RAM
– ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
– WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 (4 TB)
– LG UltraGear 34GP950B-G (21:9 Ultrawide @ 3440×1440)
What Obsidian did with New Vegas to improve Fallout as Avowed does for Elder Scrolls. While in separate universes, this feels like Obsidian’s take on an Elder Scrolls-esque game, and does so much more. Avowed is gorgeous and delightful, but equally grim and dark as its story unfolds. You needn’t play Pillars of Eternity to understand everything, but you’ll be inclined to after the credits roll. Avowed asserts itself into the pantheon of great first-person RPGs, offering best-in-class combat.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
