I dove into the new Obsidian Entertainment RPG knowing very little about what the game was offering. My knowledge went as far as having seen a few short trailers, but not really paying much attention to them. I’ve never even played a Pillars of Eternity game, the franchise whose world Avowed is set in. When I took my first few steps into The Living Lands I had no idea what type of game I was about to discover, but I was pleasantly surprised with what I found.
An Action-Focused RPG Experience
Image Credit: Obsidian Entertainment
Avowed puts a large focus on the moment to moment combat gameplay, largely to success. It breaks free from common RPG flaws of levelling up and getting better gear being the only pathway to success. While upgrading your equipment is important- skill is also key in Avowed.
Combat is chaotic- often encompassing multiple waves of strong enemies coming at you with little downtime. The best healing skills have long cooldowns and it’s easy to use up all your potions. Enemies have large health pools and can deal huge chunks of damage. This leads to many encounters feeling like a whole gauntlet, which plays to the games strengths.
Dodging and parrying feels satisfying- melee weapons feel nice and chunky, with decent variety. The spellcasting is a huge highlight, offering fast paced ranged attacks as well as more damaging spells with intuitive inputs. Guns and Bows are available too, and while my character didn’t use any of these properly, the few legendary weapons I found and tested out seemed enjoyable. The ability to switch between two different weapon loadouts on the fly keeps combat fresh, and offers diverse build variety.
The skill tree offers quite a lot, but skill points are a rare resource in Avowed. I only hit the maximum level of 30 right before encountering the final boss, and there were many skills on my tree left completely locked, never mind upgraded. To keep your build strong you should focus all your skill points towards a specific goal. By the end of the game my ice magic was unparalleled, complimenting my legendary ice axe melee weapon. Thankfully, respeccing your stats is easy, so you can try out different builds if you so desire. To me, the prospect of all the abilities I didn’t get to try out this run through keeps me excited for if I ever return to Avowed.
On your journey, you are also accompanied by four party members, of whom you can choose any two to join you at one given time. They all offer assistance in combat, even each having a small individual skill tree you can level up. The combat is hard enough that healer Giatta became a mainstay in my party once I unlocked her- though the other three all make a good option for your second spot.
The combat makes up the vast majority of what you will spend your time doing in The Living Lands, with encounters awaiting behind every corner. To this end, Avowed is a great success with how fun the combat feels.
Sadly, the great feel of the combat is partially let down by lacking enemy variety. Within my first couple hours of the game I faced off against people, spiders, bears, skeletons and xuarips. Sadly, the rest of the game only ever doubled that pool of foes. As I approached the end of the game, I was getting tired of facing the same enemies with increasingly bigger health pools, those also beginning to feel too spongy by the final dungeon. To add to this problem, most boss enemies are also just one of these few enemies with a larger health pool, which makes most boss encounters disappointing.
Tight World Design
Image Credit: Obsidian Entertainment
Avowed excels where it avoids common RPG pitfalls. That was true for the combat, and it’s also true for Obsidian’s approach to the world. In an age where modern RPG’s aim for huge scope and massive open worlds, it’s a breath of fresh air to get an RPG that feels more concise in its goals.
In my playthrough, I explored the map as thoroughly as I could and completed every side quest I came across. As I rolled credits, my game time was still under 40 hours (38, to be exact). The game was further segmented into four different open zones- the largest of which taking me around 12 hours to complete- the smallest only 7! Compared to last years Final Fantasy VII Rebirth which I put over 110 hours into, Avowed left my significantly less worn out.
Avowed has no ‘filler’ open world activities, nothing diluting the world map. As you wander around you will find handcrafted locations such as enemy camps, abandoned villages and caves. Yes, every corner you turn is sure to lead to a combat encounter- but every path you follow will also lead to a reward. Chests are hidden in every nook and cranny, always offering something of value.
It helps that all of these locations are quite breath-taking. The graphics and art style are a huge point for the game, and playing on Xbox Series S I experienced no performance issues but a single crash in my 40 hours of playtime.
The loot system is rewarding, upgrading weapons comes often. Unique weapons are relatively rare but always feel like a joy to find- all are powerful and have a place among different builds. And if you find any weapon you don’t want to use- it can be scrapped for more upgrade materials! Exploring the world felt rewarding, and I found myself going out of the way to return to camp solely because I knew I had gathered enough materials to upgrade something.
Avowed doesn’t bury you in quests. Most unique areas in each region have a quest associated, but it’s never an overwhelming amount. Most side quests felt like fetch quests with an excuse to give you more combat- which is alright, though a few were more entertaining than that. Stand outs include the Dawnshore region’s Dawntreader quest, also One Last Drink and The Wasteland Courier both found in Shatterscarp.
Even the main story keeps the pacing up, with only a handful of necessary objectives to fulfil in each region before you can head on to the next one.
Branching Paths
Image Credit: Obsidian Entertainment
The main story of Avowed follows the protagonist, an envoy sent from the Aedyran Empire to investigate a mysterious plague haunting The Living Lands, where the empire hopes to expand. Throughout the game you meet different inhabitants of the continent and uncover the mystery of the strange voice inside your head.
The storyline is passable. Dialogue can be clunky and things happen abruptly, but in the context of the game it is fine. Combat always remains the main focus. The story still has some good moments, but generally I wasn’t too invested in the fate of The Living Lands.
All four of the party members are generic, feeling like characters I have encountered a hundred times before. This doesn’t stop them from being entertaining to be around- especially for the idle camp conversations which are a highlight. However, I found it difficult to care about the mystery surrounding Kai’s past, for example.
The one place that the dialogue surprised me was with the choices. Consistently throughout the whole game, it felt like choices I made mattered. Many encounters can be diffused or escalated to violence- the results of which sometimes still felt much further throughout the game, and for a few tough choices I needed some time to know what to pick. I feel like the ending of the game brought together a lot of my choices in a satisfying way, albeit quite quickly, and it definitely adds to replayability.
The only place that feels a little bit lacking is a full-on evil path. I didn’t side with the villains during my playthrough, but it looked like the earliest time you could was near the end of the third area, though perhaps I am wrong and different choices could lead to this earlier in the game.
An Entertaining Romp
Image Credit: Obsidian Entertainment
Overall, Avowed was a fun change of pace. The story wasn’t fantastic- but sometimes an RPG doesn’t need that to be good. With its shorter, focused runtime, Avowed offers tight exploration and challenging combat, with the game coming to an end just as I began to tire of both those things. To get the most out of your time in The Living Lands, put your journey before the destination. Explore what you come across and traverse at your own pace.
It’s no masterpiece but it’s certainly a fun romp, and makes a fine addition to the Xbox games pass line up. Obsidian Entertainment have already expressed happiness with sales and hinted at more to come- perhaps we’ll be returning to The Living Lands sooner than we think.
Featured Image Credit: Obsidian Entertainment
Third year Journalism student passionate about video-games.
