Summary
Despite knowing nothing aboutPillars of Eternity, I’ve been excited aboutAvowedever since it was firstrevealed back in ye olde 2020. While some weredisappointed to hear that it wasn’t trying to be the next Skyrim, as a big fan ofThe Outer Worldsand its tighter handle on what Obsidian does best, I was more than happy to hear that the medieval RPG was keeping things focused.
I checked it out briefly at Gamescom and it ended up shooting up my most anticipated list, but this newest preview session offered a near-final build of the gameahead of its launch next February. Though it was only a small snippet of the first three hours, it was enough to give me a good idea of what to expect, ease some of my concerns about the combat, and ultimately make me more excited than ever about getting a new RPG from Obsidian.
My preview kicked off right at the very beginning of Avowed as your Envoy, the King of Aedyr’s most trusted liege, is sent to a city called Paradis to figure out the cause of a nasty disease called Dreamscourge that’s infecting people and animals alike. Beyond giving me a bit more context on the main plot and purpose of my hopeful hero, it also gave me the chance to create my own Envoy from scratch instead of using a pre-made build.
Stepping Into The Boots Of Aedyr’s Envoy
I’m admittedly very boring when it comes to creating characters in RPGs and usually just make myself, but that isn’t quite as easy in Avowed. As a Godlike who doesn’t know which God they belong to, your protagonist has to choose from several distinct markings, ranging from coral reef blemishes sprouting from your face to massive pink butterfly wings over your eyes.
You can choose to disable the Godlike features from your Envoy if you like, but NPCs will still act as if you’ve got one of the markings. You might as well rock it.
After settling on the Godlike marking that gave me branches sprouting out of my head, I customised my character’s stats and background, which work similarly to Fallout and give you unique dialogue options depending on your choices. As someone who already knew he wouldn’t be bothering with swords and axes, I went for a scholar in the hopes of getting a wand as early as possible.
That sadly wasn’t the case for quite some time as Avowed’s prologue section, which has you washing up on a shore after being shipwrecked, outfitted me with a dagger and shield to walk me through the basics. I was quickly reminded of my apathy towards the melee combat, but managed to find an alternative in the overpowered bow, which I stuck with until finding a Grimoire that let me cast spells in between my stabbing and poking.
Characters And World-Building Are The Heart Of Avowed
Even when Avowed’s combat wasn’t keeping my wand-obsessed interest, it was immediately apparent that Obsidian’s penchant for crafting interesting worlds and well-written characters was here in full force. Despite being lost in the ocean of jargon (which can thankfully be checked in a glossary mid-conversation) flooding into every conversation, the notably human-feeling dialogue meant that I near-instantly fell in love with my kindly shipmate and fellow Aedyran, Garryck.
Before long, we encountered a rude smuggler at the fort who had killed a guard. She asked us to free her for a chance to escape the island on her boat. While, in typical Obsidian fashion, I could have just left her to rot and taken the boat for myself, my heroic-leaning Envoy decided to give her a chance and escape the plague-ridden island together, which led us to the docks of Dawnshore. It was here that I was reunited with Kai,my favourite character from the first preview, who joined my quest to figure out what was happening with the Dreamscourge.
I mentioned this before in my Gamescom feature but Kai is voiced by Brandon Keene, who played Garrus in Mass Effect. His gruff charm hasn’t missed a beat and he’s bound to be my main companion.
Although Kai was clearly egging me on to pursue the main quest, I took some time to explore the port, picking up a wand and revolver in the process. I also got my first taste of a side quest in Avowed, which had me helping an elf whose home had been invaded by Xaurips, who I killed only to find out that they wanted to be her friend since half of her soul was in one of the lizard creatures.
Wands And Guns Are The Best Way To Play
Beyond serving as a reminder of how wonderfully weird Obsidian can get with its missions and making me confident that the side quests here will be worth pursuing, my gun-and-wand-toting encounter with the Xaurips finally sold me on Avowed’s combat, just like it did when I played as a mage in my last preview.
While enemies tend to rush you and can quickly overwhelm you, the mix of whipping basic spell shots with my wand, using my unique Rush ability to tackle enemies, and then blasting any stragglers with the surprisingly powerful revolver was much more satisfying than simple swordplay. I carried this build through to the main quest, which ended with a challenging battle against a Dreamscourge-infected bear and also awarded me a new Godlike healing ability.
My time with Avowed sadly came to an end shortly after defeating the bear and reaching Paradis, but the trek to the city surprised me with how open the world feels.Avowed’s scale has been compared to The Outer Worlds a lot recentlyand, while it clearly isn’t trying to match the scale of a Bethesda game, that’s a bit of a disservice.
One of the collectibles I found while roaming around the world is basically Avowed’s version of the Vault-Boy bobbleheads from Fallout.
There was plenty to see and do in the areas I explored, with challenging enemy encounters that I was too under-levelled to fight and optional collectibles littering the space between the docks and Paradis. I understand why Obsidian is curbing those expectations early, but there’s a lot more to Avowed’s world than I was expecting.
Going into this seemingly final preview of Avowed before its launch in a few months, I already knew I loved its characters and writing, even if the combat felt like it wasn’t adding much. While I still don’t like the Skyrim-esque sword fighting that already felt outdated way back in 2011, what I played this time around reminded me of Avowed’s strengths, gave me a happy alternative to slashing, and hinted at a larger world that’s been downplayed a little too much.
I just hope that its position in an incredibly stacked month doesn’t take too much attention away from what is looking like another banger from Obsidian.
