Avowed Review

Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed arrives after more than five years in development and with surprisingly little fanfare considering it’s the developer’s first AAA project following its acquisition by Xbox Game Studios. Has that long road led to anything remarkable in the overcrowded open-world RPG space?

First thing’s first: Avowed isn’t Obsidian’s take on the tried-and-tested Elder Scrolls formula in the same way that The Outer Worlds wasn’t exactly ‘Fallout in space’ in spite of some surface-level similarities and common ground. A Skyrim-like approach was suggested early on, but Obsidian naturally pulled back on the scale and doubled down on characters and story over sandbox-y freedom.

Mind you, Avowed is a big video game with four major open areas available by the end of the journey to explore freely, but neither the actual amount of content on offer nor the world design are trying to mimic what Bethesda Game Studios has mastered over these last two decades. It’s a far more focused and deeper experience that lands quite close to the company’s past efforts, and that’s a double-edged sword.

The story takes us to the Living Lands, part of the world of Eora, which many players had already visited in the two Pillars of Eternity titles. In fact, Avowed includes more than a few references to the main events of the second installment. While those two releases tried to keep the tradition of CRPGs such as Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment alive, Avowed instead presents itself as a direct action-RPG designed to be played in first person (though a third-person mode is available).

The Living Lands, a “mysterious island filled with adventure and danger” has become even more dangerous as of late, with a plague of the mind and body threatening to take everything from the people who settled there long ago, all while the Aedyrian Empire is making big moves towards taming its citizens and wilds. First and foremost, Avowed’s story is one of colonialism, independence, and diversity. The Living Lands are every bit as colorful and enchanting as its populace, but peace was already a distant dream before the Aedyrians wanted to absorb the island.

Unsurprisingly, Obsidian’s approach to this specific story is more nuanced than rooting for the natives (who aren’t really natives but previous settlers) and painting the Empire as unquestionably bad. And that’s just the opening act of the game; things soon become much more complicated as gods and the confusing nature of the plague factor into the equation that could either save or doom the Living Lands. Big choices must be made, and the writing is strong from start to finish, with four wonderfully written (and acted) companions – Kai, Marius, Giatta, and Yatzli – only elevating the game’s core themes and landing critical hits outside of combat too. More specifically, the voice acting work is top-notch all-around, and it’s been easy to discern which characters will become fan favorites as soon as the game launches.

On the other hand, the actual impact such choices have on the world are limited; while the writing is a highlight, too many secondary quests (most of which are well worth the hassle) with seemingly huge implications for characters and locations don’t do much to change the state of the Living Lands and its most intriguing corners. For example, one early quest establishes a complicated relationship between a woman and a reptilian xaurip (a very aggressive species). You can try to push her towards ‘connecting’ with the creature, but if you visit her place later, she’s nowhere to be found, and you don’t really get a tangible resolution to her dilemma. Even Starfield, a divisive RPG by all accounts, paid attention to such details, and that’s the sort of stuff that’s made other open-world RPGs so appealing and replayable over the years.

This doesn’t mean Avowed is a rigid RPG, far from it. Its most significant forks in the road can be tough to navigate, and I’m already thinking about a potential second playthrough to see where the story takes me as an entirely different character with shifted priorities. It all is encouraged from the get-go with different backgrounds that offer distinct bonus dialogues on top of the ‘standard’ choice, and the class-building is all about mixing active skills and passives from the Fighter, Ranger, and Wizard trees. In my 20-hour playthrough (following the main path with some side quests and exploration), I only reached level 23 before rolling credits, and I’d barely earned enough points to fully level up five or so nodes. You can go wide or deep, but you’re not meant to complete any path in a single run.

The other half of the progression system is tied, to the surprise of no one, to leveled gear that can be found, bought, or upgraded. Unique effects/abilities are also a thing, and the shockingly simple enchanting system – performed at the camps much like the upgrading – can change them. This approach to loot works (you’re encouraged to break apart for components or sell the more common items), but there’s an overall feeling to the way that both items and enemies are leveled across the game that makes Avowed feel like too much of a single-player MMORPG at times. In any difficulty above Easy, the degree of grind – of either coins or materials – can feel like a chore at times since the world isn’t designed like a reactive playground and rarely feels genuinely alive.

This sort of level gating has been at the center of many discussions in the past, but I’m of the opinion that both this approach and level scaling can be done well with the right mechanics and enemy/world design firmly in place. In Avowed, however, the tiering of loot and foes simply feels aggressive, especially for a game that’s all about wandering into the unknown and freedom of choice. Moreover, the absurdly high prices of most equipment at shops renders the gold grind totally unappealing versus simply waiting to ‘luck into’ better loot or progressively acquiring the required materials to upgrade one sword you picked up during the early hours of the game all the way to the highest tier.

Thankfully, the moment-to-moment combat clicks together right away: It’s punchy and weighty. This is the one area that other studios tackling first-person action-RPGs should pay attention to, and I’d say Avowed has the best real-time combat in a Western RPG in quite a while. Whether you’re swinging an axe or zapping a group of enemies dead with a wand and an enchanted grimoire, it all feels just right and satisfying. On the downside, control over allies (two companions at a time) is too limited; you can only issue action orders and can’t work out even the most basic placement or mid-combat strategies with them.

The positives of how Obsidian has handled battles also applies to the many enemies you’ll encounter. What the roster lacks in true variety, it makes up for with readable movesets that are scary quite often and relentless hordes that can easily overrun the entire party. When everything comes together (ragdolls included), Avowed can feel like a spiritual successor of sorts to Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, which is no small feat. Likewise, any boss fight that you fail to deactivate tends to be intense, to say the least.

The strong focus on combat sadly renders the stealthy options and dialogue-oriented builds (that’s not really a thing in this game) non-existent. Sure, there are a few basic stealth actions and weapons that support such a play style, but it’s nigh impossible to clear a single enemy group without alerting everyone, and the maps are infested with enemies that don’t have time to chat. In fact, even key story beats seemingly lock you into battles with foes capable of reasoning regardless of what you say. This isn’t that exact kind of Obsidian RPG.

Despite the aforementioned limitations, the Living Lands are thoroughly fun to explore and discover, with most dungeons and hub towns putting many key areas of far bigger RPGs to shame. It’s all elevated by an art direction that puts colors and personality over realism even if the UE5-powered visuals can be dazzling (especially when ray tracing is turned on). While the game can be finished in around 20 hours, a slower-paced journey is recommended here to enjoy the quality of the writing and the stunning environments you’d skip otherwise. Venus Theory’s original soundtrack, which I found quite similar to Inon Zur’s work on the Fallout series, perfectly captures the calm but unsettling vibes of the Living Lands too.

On the matter of performance, there’s little to criticize here. Despite the dreadful results of recent big releases using UE5 like Stalker 2, Avowed is a thoroughly smooth ride on PC if you meet the recommended system requirements. On a 4070Ti GPU and 7800X3D CPU build, I was averaging 100 FPS maxed out at 1440p with DLSS set to Quality and frame generation turned on, regardless of the area I was in and the number of NPCs on the screen. For what it’s worth, Avowed seems to put most weight on the GPU.

In conclusion, Avowed isn’t trying to reinvent the genre it belongs to nor Obsidian’s core philosophy; ‘The Outer Worlds but fantasy’ seems to be an apt description here, and that includes a bunch of design-level negatives and unfortunate shortcomings. My biggest worry is that it might struggle to find a big-enough audience because it never fully commits to a distinct vision of a modern single-player action-RPG: It’s not too large, but it’s not super deep either. It’s flexible, but punishes experimentation with progression systems that belong somewhere else. It can be frustrating for too many reasons. Regardless, fun combat, strong characters, an intriguing main plot, and a polished presentation carry it to the finish line with ease and could even leave you asking for more.