Obsidian Entertainment have long been considered the expressive and whimsical RPG creator alternative to Bethesda. Ever since Fallout: New Vegas (and to a lesser extent Alpha Protocol) turned up in 2010, we’ve witnessed the majesty of their craft spread among a handful of fresh RPGs that have truly marked them out in rarified air, lifting up and removing the shadow of Bethesda, and becoming their own powerhouse of hundred hour experiences. 2019’s The Outer Worlds showed us what the studio is fully capable of on their own with a space-hopping adventure with buckets of charm and , and now they’ve set their sights on the fantasy realm with Avowed. Obsidian vows to make Avowed the next big thing in the world of monolithic RPGs, but does it pack enough punch to rival the exemplars of the genre?
The world of a Avowed is plagued literally by a fungal affliction called the Dreamscourge, which has littered the world of The Living Lands with creatures and humans who appear with bulbous-like spores sprouting of their flesh and fur, causing hallucinations and devours the body’s cells until its hosts become mindless zombie-like organisms. Your job as an envoy of the Aedyr Empire is to do whatever is necessary to erase this illness and to restore The Living Lands to vibrancy and good health.
Restoring a land by decluttering and cleansing its rot is certainly a promising way to draw you into the world of Avowed, and the sense of empowerment you’re given in order to undertake such a monolithic task is commendable. Such powers are presented in the form of magic in order to levitate and outright eradicate the infected populace, but hand-to-hand weapons like swords, axes, hammers, spears and maces, and ranged alternatives like bows and arquebuses can also help put the world to rights. With great power comes great responsibility as the superhero movie cliche expression goes, and in Avowed your power to inspire change, as well as your responsibility to detoxify your environment, grants you this seismic RPG for you to ply your craft.
The Living Lands is vibrant, diverse and beautiful, and is also cribbed wholesale from the Pillars of Eternity games. In fact, Avowed‘s lore and world carries references to characters and happenings from Pillars of Eternity, which does embellish Avowed with a layer of substance and intrigue, but it would’ve been nice if Avowed was it’s own distinct experience, because it would save you from any potential befuddlement, or the sense you’re missing something, pinching you with the incentive to play those Pillars of Eternity games in order to figure out the origins of every nod to those games.
Like any typical RPG of yore, you’re flung into the creation screen to build your character, selecting from a range of archetypes, adjusting sliders to tweak the subtleties of your hero’s facial features and race. What bolsters Avowed’s appeal though, is the deeper aspects of customization that aim to make character creation more interesting, with particular set-ups allowing for unique dialogue options and attribute buffs, ensuring you’re open to a wide assortment of choices at your fingertips. Too many options can be exhausting, but you can tailor the hero you want to play as in a multitude of ways that’ll have you tweaking options and frothing at the mouth with intrigue at how your preference specifics impact your playthrough of Avowed, giving you a wholly unique gameplay experience.
You can’t fault Avowed for its ambitions, and with how it’s all presented you will not mistaken it for an Obsidian take on Skyrim. However, Avowed is unlaced by some less-desirable tenets that can make it feel less eventful than the stalwarts of the genre. The opening minutes of gameplay aren’t exciting and involves clearing enemies in rudimentary fashion. Yes, it acts as a suitable tutorial to accommodate you to the game’s controls and generic weapons, but it’s as exciting as sticking mushrooms up your nose. Naturally things open up after the introduction, but it would’ve been nice if Avowed stamped its arrival with aplomb, rather than forcing you to battle through a mostly forgettable opening before the adventure can truly begin.
There’s the lingering sense that Avowed marches in lockstep with other RPGs too, which isn’t at all a bad thing in and of itself, but when there are hundreds of RPGs vying for your attention. Swiping at critters, grizzlies and other demented creatures in the world of Avowed is satisfying in a basic way-especially when you gaze upon your blood-tipped sword as proof of a good slay fest, but the way Avowed builds you into its world could’ve been handled in a more epic way that echoes its particular brand of grandeur. Avowed does improve the longer you play, but more demanding players will wish that Avowed did something spectacular upfront, rather than dragging you through its world in a predictable fashion.
Where Avowed is redeemed is through its combat. Weapons pack a mighty heft to them that can wallop enemies after almighty swings, sending enemies bounding into the air and thudding to the ground. The clashes are typically wild and frenzied too, ably keeping you on your toes, but doesn’t feel overwhelming and you’ll enjoy the slashes and swipes the more time you sink into Avowed.
There’s a great sense of autonomy with how you choose to arm and equip yourself for combat. Fancy becoming an armoured mage with a heavy axe, but also whizzing wizard-like spell abilities and acumen? Avowed can make that so, and it’s welcome to feel this flexibility as you play, offering up more choices with regards to how you want to build your hero and ready him, her or them for combat.
Possibly the most rewarding weapon to brandish is the bow, which you gain access to in the opening segment of Avowed. Not only is the bow a welcoming if generic weapon to find and equip early on, but you will also be rewarded with a great sense of feedback that helps it to stand out from other bow and arrow weapons in other RPGs. Pulling back on the bow is very satisfying, with a sensation that truly captures the physical effort exerted into lining up a precise shot, and thankfully it feels different enough from handling bows in other RPGs, making it quite delightful. Seeing bubbles pop off the screen after successful hits is very satisfying as well, which adds to the liveliness of the rich and verdant landscapes, along with the environment’s flora and fauna.
As you journey through The Living Lands, you’ll rub elbows with many diverse and interesting personalities, some of whom have their own tiffs and quirks you’ll need to contend with by selecting dialogue options that best convey how you feel about their situations and their personalities. Meeting new personalities can become less of a welcoming to the characters themselves and more of an introduction to the factions and politics pervading the world of Avowed, but the game does its best to embroil you in its lore so deeply that you’ll want to keep playing, meeting new characters, and picking who you side with along the way.
As previously stated, Avowed‘s The Living Lands is beautiful and diverse in a way that mirrors the likes of Fable and Kingdoms of Amalur. The palette of colours meshed with Avowed‘s unique art style paint a picture of naturality, but also of a tainted underbelly that can flaunt a myriad of grasslands, forests, caverns, catacombs, ruins, beaches, and bustling villages and quaint townships in front of you. There’s plenty to feast your eyes upon, and while that doesn’t entirely distinguish itself from its contemporaries, it’s nonetheless impressive to see how vast and imbued with life Avowed is.
The dialogue is very hit and miss. Some of the characters you run into on your travels speak exactingly and clearly about what they want and can be understood, but others can be stilted or otherwise warped by the political tensions of the land. Early in the game you’re required to grab a key for a lass who’s locked in a cell, and you aren’t sure of her intentions, but what you can be sure of is that she’s about as trustworthy as a fire extinguisher with a broken nozzle when you’re trying to put out a quickly-escalating fire in a barn. This is to say that both that this cell-dweller is strange, and that the folk of Avowed are either sketchy or determined, but you sometimes won’t know which they are. The soundtrack brings a flare that echoes the sense of drama, mystery and adventure that typifies the kind of all-encompassing experience Avowed is, and you’ll certainly remember its chimes once you’ve conquered everything it has to offer.
Conclusion
If you’ve got room in your catalogue for another giant and glistening RPG, then you can do much worse than Avowed. The glowing and diverse environments give off a unique hue that does look majestic in its own particular way, the combat is satisfying and meaty, and the story is layered with intrigue and political tensions. However, Avowed is let down by an experience that’s a bit too generic and toothless when compared to the stalwarts of the RPG genre. The sacred and special sparkle that fizzes up the best of the genre is missing in Avowed, as it fails to scintillate in its initial hours. Avowed gets better the more you commit to it, but when there are many RPGs that fly out of the gate with memorable opening gambits, it’s comparatively a bad indictment for Avowed to drone along in an uninteresting way until you plough a handful of hours into it. Don’t allow these negatives to diminish the positives though, Avowed is a strong RPG that will please anybody looking for a good and tasty role-playing steak to tuck into, it just deserved to shine as bright as its beautiful setting, instead of wallowing in middle-tier purgatory.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
