Avowed is a new first-person semi-open world RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, best known for Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, and, more recently, the wonderfully unique Pentiment. With Avowed, they’ve brought the world of Pillars of Eternity into the third dimension. Set three years after the events of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, you play as a godlike (special beings touched by the gods) and envoy of the Aedyran Empire, sent on a diplomatic mission to The Living Lands. True to its name, The Living Lands is full of deadly creatures, outlawed magic and untamed nature.
At a glance, an obvious comparison point for Avowed would be Skyrim. And for the most part, that is spot on. You’ll explore distinct zones with their own towns, enemies and quests, lend your support to particular factions, recruit companions and, of course, loot and upgrade gear. Avowed is beautiful and fun, but isn’t without its flaws.
Let’s start with what Avowed gets right. My biggest concern was that it would share a connection with the Pillars of Eternity games on paper only. Especially coming off last year’s tonally disorienting Dragon Age: Veilguard. Thankfully, this is not the case here. Avowed very much feels like a direct continuation of the Pillars story. The world building, the quests, the writing and perhaps most impressive, the environments, feel directly pulled from the two Pillars games.
Given the Pillars games are isometric point-and-click RPGs, it’s especially delightful to see Avowed’s environments replicate their tone and style so well. The subdued green of adra pillars, the ominous purple glow of animancy, familiar enemies like Xaurips and Delemgans, it all acts as connective tissue between the games, to the extent where you wonder if perhaps the Pillars games were 3D all along. It’s the distinct architecture, though, that really struck me. The odd, ceramic-like temples and laboratories of the Pillars games are wonderfully realised here, and make Avowed’s world a truly unique one to explore.
Another element Avowed nails is the first-person combat. Often games with first-person melee combat struggle to offer depth, quickly becoming a matter of clicking the enemy until they’re dead. Here, through fantastic sound design and clever animations, weapons like axes, maces and swords all pack a real punch. Similarly, swishing a wand or casting spells from a grimoire feels intuitive, impactful and fun.
You can dual-wield weapons, and can swap between two loadouts on the fly. My skill points went towards the Wizard class tree, with my primary loadout being a grimoire with a wand and my secondary a pistol with an axe. The former got a lot more use than the latter, but it was still useful to have a close-quarters option when my foe managed to close the distance. In this sense, I can’t speak to how Avowed plays with a melee-only character, but I can confirm that sitting back throwing magic missiles, fireballs and shards of ice remained fun throughout.
Avowed uses a gear system that requires you to use various materials to upgrade your weapons and armour through various quality tiers. These go from common, to fine, to superb etc. The damage you deal and receive is dictated more by your gear than anything else, so staying on top of upgrades is essential. This system works well enough, but it lacks depth. There is some customisation available with unique weapons and armour (usually gained by undertaking side quests) but it’s bare bones.
This means that Avowed’s main incentives for going off the beaten track and exploring – collecting resources and finding unique gear – are tied to systems that lack nuance and just aren’t all that fun. The result? Even just moving the main story of Avowed forward can feel like a grind sometimes. This isn’t a dealbreaker because the combat, looting and questing are entertaining in their own right, but it also makes the world feel somewhat mechanical. My character isn’t delving into this ruin or following this river for any specific reason, they’re just hoping to get some gear to a higher quality tier so they can finish off that side quest.
Visually, Avowed is a mixed bag. Unreal Engine 5 has its moments, particularly when the game presents you with a stunning vista. Early on, there’s a moment where you turn a corner in an underground tunnel to see a huge cavern open up before you, with waterfalls and ancient ruins clinging to its sides. Sights like these are truly spectacular, and make The Living Lands feel like a storied place with a secret history to uncover.
When you zoom things in, however, Avowed can look decidedly wonky. This is no more obvious and impactful than with character’s faces. They’re low-detail and sort of muddy-textured, leading to a lot of NPCs just looking off somehow. I experienced a number of visual glitches, the most prevalent and distracting of which were fire spells not animating correctly and character’s clothing and hair jolting around when skipping through dialogue.
On your adventure through The Living Lands, you’ll be joined by a number of companions. In combat, they have a couple of active abilities each, mostly for crowd control: rooting an enemy to the ground or stunning them, that sort of thing. Otherwise, they’re kind of just there. There isn’t any nuance to utilising them in combat, and you can’t change their weapons or gear.
As far as their individual stories go, I would say they’re slightly less forgettable than the companions in The Outer Worlds, but not by much. Kai, the first to join you, is voiced by Brandon Keener (Garrus from Mass Effect) which adds an indirect but welcome nostalgia to proceedings. Unfortunately, good acting is just one aspect of a memorable companion or party member. They need to feel like actual people, with wants and needs that may not necessarily mesh with your character’s journey, and this is an aspect I found lacking with the companions in Avowed.
There’s a particular tone and rhythm to your companion’s interjections that makes things extremely rote and exhaustingly sarcastic. You know the kind of lines I’m talking about. You’ll be out exploring and one of them will pipe up with something like: “really? You see a dark, scary tower and your first thought is to go toward it? If you say so.” The same issues crop up when talking to the various denizens of The Living Lands.
In dialogue scenes, it’s laughably obvious when the “companions provide an opinion” section of the conversation has arrived. Rarely did these moments feel natural, like this character would actually feel the need to jump in at that point. Because of this, I never felt surprised by anything my companions said or did. Much like their utility in combat, they barely feel necessary. There have been so many fantastic games with fantastic parties in the last few years that Avowed really struggles to impress in this department.
Thankfully, this isn’t a problem with the writing across the board. The story, which is delivered somewhat sporadically, does manage to be engaging. As a godlike, the mystery surrounding which god you belong to is enticing, especially as a fan of the lore. Similarly, the political connotations of being a representative of a colonial empire in a land it has not yet finished colonising allows for some charged encounters with weighty decision-making.
That said, large swathes of the game pass by with no significant plot beats happening. Instead, the bulk of Avowed’s narrative can be found in the location itself. Through visiting the various regions of The Living Lands, completing side quests and delving into caves and reading letters and missives and notes and journal entries (you get the idea) a picture begins to form.
Nature is coming alive and taking back the land from civilised settlement. The various communities in The Living Lands are struggling internally and with each other to deal with this problem. Weighing the resources and protection a colonial power can bring against the lack of autonomy and freedom. As someone who loves the Pillars games and the world they’re set in, oftentimes this type of storytelling was enough. For someone new to the world of Eora and it’s people, I wonder if the lack of a strong, overarching narrative may be a difficult problem to look past.
Avowed is an interesting project. While it builds upon an already established IP, the genre shift is so significant that it perhaps makes more sense to treat it like a debut game in a new series. From this angle, Avowed is an impressive achievement. It presents a cohesive world with gorgeous vistas, impactful choices and weighty first-person combat. But this is Obsidian we’re talking about, a studio known for their high quality writing and commitment to deep RPG systems. As a huge Pillars of Eternity fan, I’m thrilled to continue spending time in this world and mythos. That said, I think I’d struggle to point to any one element of Avowed that feels like it has that old Obsidian magic shining through. Here’s hoping “pretty good” is enough to guarantee an ‘Avowed 2’.
Rating: 7.5/10
Avowed was reviewed on PC with a code provided by the publisher.