As a lover of Obsidian Leisure’s catalog of unbelievable role-playing video games (RPGs), I feel Avowed is totally one other feather within the developer’s cap. Going down within the Pillars of Eternity universe, Avowed affords loads for collection followers to chew on lore-wise, whereas being a wealthy and alluring gameplay expertise for newcomers.
Overview data
Platform reviewed: Xbox Collection X, PC
Obtainable on: Xbox Collection X, Xbox Collection S, PC
Launch date: February 18, 2025 (February 13 for early entry)
You’d be forgiven for pondering Avowed is a Skyrim-esque expertise with its first-person perspective, versatile construct selection, and a deal with real-time fight. However that’s actually the place the similarities finish; Avowed may be very a lot its personal beast. And whereas it may not maintain a candle to the breathtaking immersion supplied by an Elder Scrolls recreation, it handily trumps them with regard to each fight and the general high quality of the writing. Witty, partaking, and dripping with tidbits of lore at each flip, it’s actually as much as the standard Obsidian normal.
It’s, nonetheless, honest to say that Avowed received’t be for everybody. Omissions like the whole absence of a day/night time cycle and the shortcoming to pickpocket do hamper some avenues of position play. And despite the fact that the sport has a satisfying compact 25-30 hour runtime, the occasional filler quest can sluggish pacing to a crawl.
These complaints apart, Avowed remains to be positively price trying out when you’ve received a fantasy RPG itch to scratch, and it’s a implausible begin for Xbox Recreation Studios’ 2025 output.
Voice in my head
The participant character in Avowed would possibly simply have essentially the most unenviable set of duties I’ve ever seen in a fantasy RPG. Because the envoy of the Aedyran Empire, you’re despatched off to the untamed, largely lawless frontier of the Residing Lands. It’s a severely harmful place that people nonetheless attempt their luck on with the intention to construct a brand new life for themselves.
Sadly, the locals aren’t finest happy by the presence of the empire, and most NPCs deal with you with the suitable quantity of suspicion. The empire additionally isn’t doing itself any favors, because it makes an attempt to deliver order to the Residing Lands by way of authoritative measures.
Because the envoy, you’re thrust into the middle of proceedings. Formally, you’re right here to analyze and quell the Dreamscourge, a spore-like plague that may flip individuals and creatures into uncontrollable, murderous lunatics. Nonetheless, as the sport progresses, you do get the sensation that that is only a entrance for the empire’s true intentions of management and dominance.
Greatest bit
Whereas actually getting caught into some thrilling fight eventualities was actually a spotlight, by far my favourite side of Avowed is its glorious writing and characters. I cherished exhausting each dialogue choice the place I might, simply to see what sorts of lore tidbits I might unravel or just hear what a very entertaining character like Marius or Yatzli needed to say.
You’re additionally a godlike, an individual born with distinctive powers and a connection to the Adra, a crystal-like substance that has a consciousness all its personal. This entity makes itself generally known as a veritable voice in your head, and far of the intrigue in Avowed comes from you deciding simply how a lot you’ll be able to belief it – particularly because it appears to treat the Dreamscourge as a boon slightly than a plague to be eradicated.
It’s an involving setup that leaves loads of room so that you can make your personal selections. And whereas not each resolution you make from quest to quest is instantly consequential, there’s sufficient so that you can determine how you can conduct your self and form the way forward for the Residing Lands. Do you symbolize the empire with unwavering loyalty, or develop sympathetic to the land’s resistance factions? It’s all offered by way of Obsidian’s professional penchant for writing, and I discovered myself keen to maintain taking part in all through because of this.
And my axe
So how does character constructing work in Avowed? Effectively, there are three distinct talent timber you’ll be able to make investments factors into upon leveling up, overlaying the fantasy RPG trifecta of fighter, ranger, and wizard. Every has myriad perks to assist make your character stronger, with new perks opening up as you attain degree thresholds.
What I’ll say is that sticking to at least one specific archetype (say, solely two-handed weapons) isn’t the most effective concept. Avowed is usually a surprisingly tough recreation, and given you could swap between two distinct weapon loadouts on the press of a button, you’re strongly inspired to combine up your construct.
I opted to go for a mixture of every little thing, with a sword and defend as my main set, and a pistol paired with a grimoire of spells as my secondary loadout. With this I used to be capable of cowl virtually all bases; robust offense and protection for up-close encounters, in addition to two ranged choices for crowd management and protecting a distance. What’s nice is you’re not locked into any particular archetypes, with level respeccing costing solely a small quantity of gold.
Whilst you can after all hard-focus your character down a selected talent tree when you’re wedded to a sure weapon kind or armor class, I personally cherished with the ability to adapt on the fly, particularly as battles sometimes come towards giant mobs of enemies. Enemy packs do have a tendency to point out indicators of group, too, with pesky ranged models peppering you from a distance whereas chunkier shield-bearers getting up in your grille. Having the ability to reply with the identical – hopping from a flaming sword to explosive crowd management spells – is the place I received essentially the most from Avowed’s fight.
And to be frank, you’ll want all the talents you will get. At launch, the fight AI of the companions you purchase within the recreation leaves lots to be desired. It was all too typically that I’d witness a close-range tank like Kai (the primary companion you’ll meet near the beginning of the sport) both fail to shut the hole to enemies or just not trouble to assault. It was a uncommon prevalence that companions left an encounter with out being incapacitated first. Your get together members can’t die, fortunately, however it could be good to see enhancements to their fight conduct in future patches.
With a little bit assist from my buddies
Your get together members aren’t a lot use in fight, then, however that doesn’t imply I don’t love them. Every of Avowed’s main companions brings a singular, fleshed-out persona, and there’s loads of banter to get pleasure from between them a la Dragon Age or certainly Baldur’s Gate 3.
Kai is the primary one you’ll be part of up with, and opposite to his light big look and mannerisms, he’s truly fairly loose-lipped which might hilariously trigger extra issues than it solves. Yatzli, in the meantime, is an absolute delight. Genuinely humorous and maybe ever so barely unhinged, she turned a staple in my get together of three (that’s your self and as much as two companions) just because I couldn’t get sufficient of her dialogue.
Your companions do have their very own talent timber so that you can spend money on, which embrace passive perks and lively expertise they will carry out on command which does lend them a little bit of usefulness in fight. Usually, these expertise are good for crowd management, equivalent to Kai’s potential to stun enemies, or Marius’s trap-laying expertise that may maintain enemies in place for a superb chunk of time.
A land price residing in
In Avowed, the setting of the Residing Lands is genuinely breathtaking. Extra ‘open zone’ than ‘open world’ (like The Outer Worlds, you’ve received loads of particular person areas to discover separated by loading screens). Nonetheless, every is richly dense with significant aspect quests, alternatives for exploration, and no scarcity of jaw-dropping vistas to gawp at.
You may have the bustling metropolis of Paradis, itself replete with enterable buildings and winding aspect paths. It’s a labyrinthine metropolis in nature and it’ll take a while so that you can get your bearings there, however that’s partly why I like it; I merely didn’t know what to anticipate round each nook.
Emerald Stair was one other spotlight for me, an space completely dripping with a morose environment – its deathly quiet farmlands and surrounding forests genuinely left me feeling unsettled. It has an virtually dreamlike high quality to it, making exploration in itself really feel loads wealthy and rewarding.
The maps of Avowed are fairly giant and there’s loads to discover in every. You’ll be inspired to, as effectively, as you’ll wish to discover beneficial assets to craft and enhance your gear to maintain up with enemies that enhance in energy as you progress. Avowed doesn’t make use of low cost degree scaling, fortunately, and it’s fairly simple to wander into areas crammed with highly effective enemies you’re simply not able to tackle. Exploration total, then, will be as harmful as it’s rewarding.
Over on the efficiency entrance, Avowed does often buckle below the load of its busy, richly detailed areas. I bumped into frequent body fee hitches on PC, however the recreation was extra secure on Xbox Series X. On console, I felt that the 30fps (frames per second) High quality mode was a little bit too uneven to be satisfying, however the 60fps Efficiency mode was a lot smoother – even when the general impression on lighting and picture high quality was fairly noticeable.
Ought to I play Avowed?
Play it if…
Don’t play it if…
Accessibility
Avowed has a superb quantity to supply within the accessibility division to accommodate gamers of every kind. On the digital camera entrance, you’ll be able to alter the pinnacle bob and digital camera shake energy (or flip them off solely) when you’re vulnerable to movement illness. For the consumer interface, you’ll be able to alter textual content measurement and there are many subtitle choices, from displaying a speaker’s identify to adjusting subtitle background opacity. There sadly doesn’t look like any colorblind choices out there at launch, nonetheless.
There are additionally 5 issue settings: Story Time, Straightforward, Regular, Exhausting, and Path of the Damned. So there’s loads right here to tailor an issue expertise that’s best for you and, they are often modified at any time.
How I reviewed Avowed
My time with Avowed lasted roughly 25 hours throughout each PC and Xbox Series X Digital Edition. I used to be capable of carry my save between platforms because of the Microsoft account performance.
Playtime included a full playthrough of the primary marketing campaign, in addition to a beneficiant serving to of aspect quests and exploration to enhance my character’s gear. I predominantly performed with an Xbox Wireless Controller on Xbox Collection X, and the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro on PC. On console, I performed on an LG CX OLED TV.
First reviewed February 2025