In 2012, Obsidian Entertainment announced, launched, and funded what became, at the time, the biggest video game Kickstarter project in history: Project Eternity. Four million dollars and three years later, Project Eternity released to critical acclaim and commercial success as Pillars of Eternity, a traditional computer role-playing game, or cRPG, set in the world of Eora. In 2016, off the back of that success, Obsidian announced and funded a direct sequel, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, this time on Fig, and two years later it once again released to critical acclaim. But Deadfire lacked the commercial success of its predecessor, leaving Obsidian in dire straits and ultimately culminating in the developer’s sale to Microsoft later that same year, 2018. Now, seven years later and with a new owner and multiple critically and commercially successful games released under its belt since then, Obsidian returns to the world of Eora with Avowed.
The World of Avowed
In 2020, Obsidian announced Avowed, a new game set in the Pillars of Eternity world of Eora, but rather than creating a third cRPG in this universe, Obsidian opted to follow closer to its Fallout: New Vegas and (much more recently released) The Outer Worlds approach of a first-person RPG. Originally intended to be in the vein of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, with a massive open world and late medieval fantasy setting, Avowed changed during its development into an open zone game. Avowed’s new design much more closely resembles Obsidian’s own The Outer Worlds, but Avowed kept the traditional Pillars setting.
Avowed takes place on the continent of The Living Lands in the far north of Eora, where you play as the envoy of the Emperor of Aedyr, a large nation south of The Living Lands, having been given instructions by the Emperor to put a stop to a plague known as the “Dreamscourge.” The Dreamscourge has been infecting both the Kith (i.e., civilized races) populace and the wildlife of The Living Lands, turning them into “Dreamthralls” and causing other major disruptions on the continent. Your character, named how you please but simply referred to as “Envoy” by the characters in the game, is a godlike, a person who has been “blessed” by one of Eora’s gods before birth. Godlikes all manifest some physical changes, such as wings, horns, etc., signifying which god a godlike belongs to; the problem is, no one is certain who your god is, and neither are you.
The player must select either a human or an elf as their base character head with some preset appearance and then is free to design their character as they see fit with a variety of options in a very thorough character creator. The player is responsible for choosing how the godlike manifestations appear on their own character, though the game does provide the option to turn it off while still having non-player characters react, which is a nice touch. Once designed, the player chooses one of five backgrounds for the character, which does not have any impact on stats or abilities but regularly gives the player unique dialog opportunities based on that background, and NPCs responding to that choice will have unique responses in turn. The final major step in character creation put a huge smile on my face and made me, honestly, giddy: attribute point allocation.
Attributes and Abilities
Avowed has six attributes that you can select from when choosing how to play your character: Might (for damage), Constitution (for health), Dexterity (for speed), Perception (for critical hits and range), Intellect (for essence total, this game’s mana), and Resolve (for stamina). These attributes are imported directly from the prior games in the series; there’s no attempt to pare back the RPG mechanics of Avowed despite its change from an isometric cRPG to a first-person RPG, and it’s greatly appreciated. Every few levels, you’re granted an attribute point, enhancing whichever trait you so choose. Thankfully, for a scaling amount of Copper Skeyts (i.e., gold), increasing only as you level up higher, you can reset your attributes at any time outside of conversations, an improvement over Deadfire.
Unlike its predecessors, Avowed does not restrict the player character to a single class, instead granting the player a single ability point per level, plus some other opportunities throughout the game for more points, to invest in one of three classes: Fighter, Ranger, and Wizard. The classes are straightforward, with fighters being up close using big weapons, rangers being more agile with light weapons up close or ranged weapons from distance, and wizards utilizing a whole slew of magic spells taken directly from the Pillars games. There’s also a godlike “tree” which is unlocked through the story and doesn’t require ability points, and a tab for companions who have their own ability points, but more on them in a moment. Finally, like attributes, abilities for the player and companions can be reset at any time outside of conversations (including combat!) on the same scaling cost system.
Typically, I play Pillars games as a wizard, and so I followed that path initially in Avowed. However, the more I played and experimented, I found that the ranger was my preferred style of play, with magic on the side. The magic spells are still awesome to look at, beautifully designed and fairly powerful, but I found that they were a bit harder to aim and control in real-time without the pause functionality of Pillars. And you can pause, for drinking health potions, using food items, selecting wizard abilities you’ve learned, etc., but the grimoire, which is where your spells are the most powerful and efficient, doesn’t pause the combat for casting. I found myself using a pistol and shield combination until I got a powerful arquebus, which is basically a single-shot rifle, and stuck with that as my primary damage dealer.
Combat, Gear, and Loot
Speaking of my weapons of choice, let’s talk about loot. There is a lot of loot in Avowed, from weapons and armor to food and valuables to sell along with crafting and enchanting materials; the player is going to be looting quite a bit all the time. There is loot from enemies, big chests, small chests, pieces on the ground or a table, and just all over. In a huge quality of life change from typical RPGs of this nature, only weapons and armor have a weight to count against your carrying capacity, and you can send items to your stash at the party’s camp from the item menu while exploring, so it never ends up being an issue.
The weapons and armor can all be upgraded to at least the fourth quality level, “Superb,” but the main focus is on unique items, which get a “Legendary” quality level, making them very powerful. Upgrades are done by collecting materials from the world, like plants, as well as from enemies and chests, like wood, metal, and leather, or by breaking down the weapons and armor. You can also upgrade the materials to the next tier; if you have a lot of pelts, they can be upgraded to tanned hides at a 4 to 1 (or 3 to 1 with a ranger skill) ratio. This allows you to make use of older materials throughout the game. The biggest issue I had with this was that I felt like some items were always in abundance, like metals and pelts, but I was perpetually short of the various wooden branches. I always managed to scrounge up enough, but sometimes it made upgrading my gear take longer, and therefore making certain fights more difficult or causing them to take longer. You can also enchant your unique weapons, which enhances or alters a special bonus that weapon has.
Combat in Avowed is pretty fun, if simple. You have two weapon sets you can freely swap between, consisting of a weapon in each hand, or a single two-handed weapon, and you have your abilities, be they magic spells or otherwise, and your companions and their abilities. If you’re playing with an aimed range weapon, like a bow or a gun, you can aim down sights, causing a weak spot to appear, and hitting it will cause a critical hit. Other weapons do not have this, so you’re relying on your perception attribute to score crits. And each hit, no matter the weapon, feels great, with incredible sound and visual effects, especially for finishers.
Abilities cost essence to use, which does not regenerate without specific gear equipped or consuming a potion/food. The same is true for health, which requires equipped gear, consumables, or some specific abilities to regenerate. Combat can be challenging on occasion, even playing on the normal difficulty, especially if you’re fighting enemies with higher quality gear than you. Enemy quality is on the same scale as your own weapons and armor quality, and there is no scaling; you could very easily wander into an area where you are going to get overwhelmed, so be wary, and keep that gear up to date.
Companions and Writing
As mentioned, companions and their abilities assist in combat. There are four companions, each with their own class and a unique set of four abilities. The player has the freedom to choose which ones to unlock and upgrade as you level up. Companions’ strength is tied to your own progression, without attributes or gear of their own, which is a streamlining of the Pillars systems, yet more designed for this style of game. Similar to that is the reduction to a max of two companions in combat at any given time, or one before you’ve unlocked a second.
It’s a tad disappointing given how involved your active companions are in the whole game. You can ask them for their input in conversations, and they’ll chime in with their own thoughts or experience in cut-scenes, and they have specific abilities to help with exploration. Oh, and they are all so well written. They are funny, and each have their own personality and quirks, which truly made me excited to bring all of them along whenever I could, and it’s part of the reason to play Avowed again, just to see the various interjections and interactions of the companions. And a special shout out to Brandon Keener, who was the voice of Garrus Vakarian from Mass Effect, as Kai; Kai may just be scaly-skinned Garrus, but I’m totally okay with that.
In fact, I’d say that just about every character in this game is well written, excellently voice acted, and feels like a real person. Obsidian has outdone themselves with the charm and wit they put into this game. The Pillars universe is dark and foreboding, and they managed to keep that underlying tone while inviting the player in with open arms and a sly smile. I had my concerns about the tone of the game when I saw the re-reveal of Avowed in June of 2023, but playing the game completely washed those concerns away. It’s a bit more colorful than the Pillars games, but Obsidian manages to work that into the lore by setting the game in The Living Lands, and when you’re dealing with the evil forces at work there, the color scheme is the last thing on your mind.
And I’m not surprised they managed to pull this lore explanation off because Carrie Patel, the game director of Avowed, is one of the original writers on Pillars of Eternity and the co-Narrative Design Lead with Josh Sawyer on Deadfire. The woman knows Eora, inside and out. From the moment the intro video began until I beat the game and the credits rolled, I felt like I was in a 3D version of Eora.
The overall thrust of the plot is a lot of fun, with an engaging mystery that, while not the most surprising in terms of twists and turns, is huge if you’re a lore nerd for Pillars. And, as with most Obsidian games, the player is responsible for making choices that impact the story, the world, and the people around you. In my playtime, I only managed to get a single run through the game, so I can’t speak as to how many endings or how great an impact the player has on the overall story. What I can say is, there are definitely choices throughout the game that you will see reflect in the world as they happen. I won’t say more than that so as to not spoil them, but you will notice certain changes and/or specific events occur, or not, based on what you do on more than one occasion. It’s also fun to have skill checks in the conversations, allowing you to talk your way out of situations.
Graphics and Exploration
Visually, the game is gorgeous. Avowed isn’t going for a hyper-realistic art style, but neither does it look like a cartoon. Obsidian walks this fine line between the two, resulting in character models that are incredibly detailed but clearly fantasy characters, with sometimes over-emphasized attempts to lip-sync with the words being spoken. The world you explore is equally striking with diverse biomes; no zone resembles the other, and a single screenshot could tell you which zone the character is in. Not all of the zones are winners, though, as some of them can be a bit tough to navigate, even with the generous fast travel system, and they can eventually wear out their welcome after the many hours spent exploring.
And there is a lot of exploration. Each zone is chock full of quests, both main story and side quests, but also hidden quests with no map marker and no reward, just little tasks a random, no-named NPC will give you that you can do just because you want to. It’s a nice little touch; not every little thing you do needs a grand reward as just a small piece of dialog to really fill in the world and make it feel lived in can be enough. Aside from the quests, there are loads of treasure chests and secrets everywhere you go, with powerful unique weapons and armor as the reward for discovering them. You can also climb and clamber around the world, up cliffs, and over buildings in a way that is surprising for a first-person game, and it works very well. None of it is necessary to do, but you will probably be rewarded for looking behind that waterfall or climbing that tower.
Bugs, Glitches, and Crashes
Now, unfortunately, I need to talk about bugs, glitches, and crashes. Obsidian announced in 2024 that it was delaying Avowed into 2025 to give people space to play the games launching that year and to polish Avowed. Well, Avowed definitely needed that polishing time and, quite frankly, could have used a bit more. The game is never unplayable; it runs incredible smoothly on my PC rig at 4K with no upscaling, all settings to the max, and only the most occasional frame drop or stutter, and I never encountered any game-breaking bugs. That said, there are more bugs than I would have liked, and their consistency is really what hurts the game.
I encountered a few visual glitches, there’s some bad clipping of armor, and there were some awkward dialog transitions, all of which not being a huge problem. However, what was a problem was the game not recognizing certain decisions I made, saying I let someone live when I killed them, or thinking I lied about something I didn’t. As I said, this game does have consequences for choices, so the game mis-tracking my choices sometimes was frustrating. Additionally, a few side quests were broken if you approach them in the wrong way, like talking to the wrong person first, and sometimes you wouldn’t get a reward because of this. It’s not end of the world stuff, but for a completionist, this can hit you where it hurts.
The biggest, most frustrating, and completely unacceptable problem that I experienced, however, was the game crashing, seemingly for no reason. I played on PC, so there is a litany of potential causes. Throughout the entire review period, I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 36 crashes to desktop. Despite being in contact with Obsidian, I was never informed of what was causing the crash and never provided a solution, and I have no way of knowing if this will happen to anyone else. Thankfully, the game autosaves when you fast travel and complete quests, there is a quick save function, and saving is permitted virtually anywhere and anytime while exploring, so progress was never lost, but it was important to call out this “fatal error” that repeatedly made me relaunch the game.
I absolutely loved Avowed. It is almost a sensational game but, in the end, is held back from that status by a slew of technical issues. Even still, Avowed is superb, with true RPG goodness, real choices, deep systems, fun combat, and a true understanding and reverence of Eora.
Thank you to the teams at Obsidian Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios for providing a review code for Avowed. You can find Seasoned Gaming’s review policy here.
