Avowed features plenty of commentary about empires, religion, colonization, war, progress, and other weighty matters. But what Avowed is really about, when you strip everything else away, is simple: Who are you loyal to? That’s the question at the heart of this new role-playing game. And more than any other element or theme, it’s that question that leads to some of the most memorable moments in what is one of the best RPGs I’ve played in years.
Avowed, out now on Xbox and PC, is developed by Fallout: New Vegas studio Obsidian Entertainment. The new first-person open-world RPG is set in the same world as Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity series, but don’t worry if you’ve never played those games; I haven’t and I fully understood and enjoyed all the world-building in Avowed. All you really need to know is that in this universe the gods are real, reincarnation is a thing, and a weird island of rebels and misfits—the Living Lands—is somewhat disconnected from all of this. But when a strange plague, the Dreamscourge, begins destroying the island and its people, the emperor of the massive and faraway Aedyr Empire sends you, his envoy, to investigate.
Oh, and you are a special person known as a godlike who has mushrooms growing out of your face, not unlike what the plague does to people in the Living Lands. Understandably, your status as both a godlike and a representative of a massive empire looking to possibly take over the island makes every interaction in Avowed a little awkward.
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Choices, choices, choices
So how does one go about stopping a gnarly magical plague that turns people into crazed, mushroom-faced monsters who act more like zombies than citizens? Well, like so much of Avowed, that’s up to you.
From the moment you arrive in the Living Lands, you’ll be making a lot of choices. Some small, some big. Obsidian correctly understands that what makes an RPG great isn’t combat, big maps, or loot, but instead, it’s letting the player role-play. And you can do just that in Avowed.
You can build a character who is tough, strong, and fiercely loyal to your emperor. You can force people around you to bend their knees to your empire and its demands while using an iron fist to fight anyone who doesn’t. On the other hand, you can stick up for the people of the Living Lands and not only help them with the plague but possibly lead them into a new future that doesn’t involve the empire. Or maybe you try to please everyone and walk a tightrope between being the envoy of the emperor and a hero of the Living Lands.
All of these options (and many more) are possible and better yet, rarely do choices have an easy answer. The companions you meet throughout the 20- to 30-hour game will offer advice and give you plenty of pushback as you make choices that could affect the Living Lands permanently. Trying to balance your friendships with them and your role as the envoy—as well as your own goals connected to a mysterious voice in your head—is a big part of Avowed.
And it’s this balancing act that makes many choices in the game so damn hard. There’s rarely an easy answer, and what seems like the best option in the moment can turn on you hours later for reasons you never expected. By the end of Avowed, even though I was immensely satisfied by the ending I reached, I wanted to immediately boot up the game and start a new playthrough just to make different choices and see the paths I hadn’t taken previously.
The big RPG experience, streamlined
While Avowed is chockablock with hard-to-make decisions and dialogue trees to dig through, don’t get it twisted. This is still an action-heavy first-person fantasy RPG that plays a lot like Bethesda’s Skyrim and Obsidian’s own The Outer Worlds. You talk to people, pick up quests, run out into the wilderness to fight enemies and complete said quests, and get some XP and loot. But Obsidian isn’t trying to perfectly copy the Bethesda open-world RPG formula here. Instead, Avowed feels like a lean, condensed, and smartly streamlined spin on the bloated open-world game genre.
For example, there isn’t just one big map you explore for 200 hours. Instead, Avowed is broken up into five or so smaller open-world zones. This approach has seemingly allowed Obsidian more freedom in designing these areas, as they don’t need to slowly merge into each other like they might in a game with one large map. As a result, each one feels very distinct from the others, with its own politics, atmosphere, colors, and characters.
The green coastal vibes found in the first area are very different from those of the Morrowind-like swamp you visit next. Though oddly, you end up fighting the same enemies—mostly lizard people, humans, and bears—in most maps, which is one of the only giveaways that Avowed had a shorter dev cycle and a smaller budget than other contemporary open-world games. The smaller zones also mean that you don’t have to walk extremely long distances, as most of these maps can be crossed on foot in under 10 minutes.
Another example of smart streamlining is the way loot works in Avowed. As you explore the various zones, find treasure chests, and complete quests, you will, of course, find new swords, bows, shields, spears, and even black powder pistols and rifles. And if you’re like me, you’ll be picking up all of this crap, even if you don’t need it. But don’t worry. If you get over-encumbered, you can just teleport everything to your camp storage or break it all down into resources you use to upgrade the stuff you actually use. And you’ll be doing that a lot, as there’s not much variety in Avowed’s weapons.
A low-quality one-handed sword you find in the first hour will have the same stats as a low-quality sword you find 30 hours later. This might sound like a bad thing but I found it freeing, as it meant that I wasn’t dumping out 12 different weapons and armor pieces and studying each of them carefully to see which was better. Instead, I just found a special sword that healed me when I killed enemies and funneled all my resources into making it very powerful. On the flip side, if you do want to switch things up, you can do that too. Any piece of gear you find can—with enough resources—be upgraded into something capable of tackling any enemy. And you don’t have to bother with repairing any of this stuff, either.
Here’s one more smart example of how Avowed streamlines the classic big RPG experience. When you enter a building or a cave filled with boxes and crates, you don’t need to mindlessly open each one to grab loot. Most of them can’t be searched. Only highlighted chests that glow or boxes that can be broken apart—denoted by an icon—will contain loot. This makes exploring new areas so much less tedious as I don’t have to spend hours combing through every box and crate in the hopes of finding something neat. It’s yet one more example of how Avowed is more focused on the fun parts of an RPG over the boring crap. And you know what’s fun in a good RPG? Fighting stuff.
Swinging swords and fighting powerful monsters
While Avowed streamlines a lot of the Bethesda-style RPG experience to make something more enjoyable, combat is one area where Obsidian goes the opposite direction. Fighting enemies makes up a big chunk of Avowed’s runtime, with most quests involving some amount of combat. Thankfully, Obsidian made sure that the action in Avowed is more than just “hit stuff and walk backward.”
You can dodge left, right, and backward, getting out of the way of attacks or swooping in behind an enemy to deliver a fatal blow. You can block and parry attacks, too. As you do damage to enemies they build up a stun meter and once that’s filled you can do a nasty finisher that will either kill them or do a lot of damage. Your companions fight alongside you and can be ordered about using a command wheel, opening up more tactical options in combat. And as you level up, you unlock more cool moves and spells for both you and your companions, which is nice because later on some combat encounters get rough.
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As mentioned, Avowed features a variety of weapon types like fast and agile spears, chunky swords, and heavy-hitting muskets. Each of these weapons feels different and dramatically changes how you fight. And most of them can be dual-wielded. Do you want to run into battle like a medieval John Wick with two pistols and a musket on your back? You can do that. You can also use two spears, or a sword and a shield, or a knife and a gun. And if you want to sneak around in tall grass and quietly pick off monsters with stealth attacks, that’s an option, too.
Like so much of Avowed, the game gives you plenty of choices and doesn’t punish you for changing your mind later, so I always felt free to experiment. Add to all this the ability to toss out different elemental grenades, like an ice bomb or fireball, and you have a very deep and dynamic combat system that I never found boring in my 30ish hours with Avowed.
I also appreciated that enemies don’t scale in level with you as you play. As a result, the world feels dangerous and you’ll likely encounter situations where you get your ass kicked by baddies you had no business fighting.
This happened to me throughout the game. I’d push my luck, knowing that the enemies I was about to face would be very deadly, and the game would destroy me and my companions in seconds. However, sometimes I’d eat a ton of food items that buffed me and would, through trial and error, defeat a tough enemy earlier than the game expected. These moments felt awesome and would often reward me with really good loot and resources that would help even the playing field faster, further rewarding my risky move.
The quiet moments between it all
I’m trying to be very careful and not spoil any story moments, big choices, or twists in Avowed. Not because I’m afraid of some embargo or whatever, but because I genuinely don’t want to ruin that part of the game for you. I want you to walk into the Living Lands and freshly experience all the wild moments and choices I made. But I do want to talk about the companions in Avowed and one of my favorite features: Campsites.
Avowed doesn’t have a day-and-night cycle like most other open-world RPGs. Instead, you quest during the day and eventually stop at a resting site. It’s here that nighttime arrives and you spend however long you want quietly chatting with your companions about their lives, quests you’ve completed, and choices you have made. Even if you don’t talk to them directly and choose to focus on upgrading your gear or cooking up some meals for later— you can only do this kind of stuff at campsites—your companions will chat with each other in the background.
Early on, two of my companions stole some food from another companion. Kai—a former soldier and fish man—and Giatta—a soul wizard—secretly snuck into the dwarf scout Marius’ tent and grabbed some of his fancy cheese. They had a conversation about this later that I overheard and laughed at. 20 hours later, as I was contemplating what gear to upgrade next, Giatta admitted that she felt bad stealing the cheese. Kai felt guilty, too. However, they both admit they’d do it again because the cheese was just that good. It’s a silly, unimportant moment, but these kinds of moments happen all the time while camping in Avowed.
I learned so much about my companions during these chill moments between big quests and battles, and it made me grow closer to them. I’d often linger around the campsite long after I was done upgrading gear, just to hear more of their conversations or chat with them about the world. And it’s these campsite moments that really differentiate Avowed from Skyrim, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and other open-world RPGs.
Obsidian has long been good at creating characters you’ll want to care about and Avowed is just the latest game to benefit from this.
Sure, you can spend hours walking around caves and forests hunting down loot or completing side quests, but eventually you always come back to camp and directly face your companions. They’ll criticize your choices. Applaud your actions. Grumble about your mistakes. Or support your plans. And I appreciate that Obsidian wants to make sure you don’t forget that all the choices you make and things you do have consequences. Avowed isn’t a fantasy theme park, but a real world with real people in it, and who you remain loyal to will ultimately change the Living Lands in big ways. It’s these small moments that help remind you of that.
Avowed might not deviate enough from the fantasy RPG formula for some. And for others the streamlining of inventory management and gear might make the game feel too simple. But for me, Avowed is about as close to a perfect RPG as I could hope for. A game that respects my time, kicks my ass every now and then, and builds a world filled with characters I care so much about that every choice feels impossible to make.
Avowed is a special game that I’ll likely replay multiple times over the next decade not just because I want to see every option, but because I want to return to this world and its people again and again.
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