Avowed Is a Triumph of Roleplaying Games That Explores the True Nature of ‘Freedom’

The studio that brought us some of my favorite CRPGs of the last decade, including the criminally underrated Tyranny, used its storytelling chops to offer a witty, engaging, and emotionally compelling tale. Obsidian’s last first-person RPG, The Outer Worlds, fell into the trap so many satires do, where in trying to ream the subject of its ire—namely capitalistic excess—it failed to offer much pathos. I can’t remember all but a few characters from The Outer Worlds, but the companions in Avowed are rich with nuance. I still feel like the game’s first companion, the affable Kai (voiced by Brandon Keener), is there in my head, offering his sardonic wit at times both dangerous and weird.

That doesn’t mean everything always comes together. The combat is satisfying, though there are rough edges concerning gear scaling. Not every quest will offer loads of choices or interesting dilemmas. It’s a big game, and there are so many reasons to explore its several open-world environments, but there’s not much in the way of emergent storytelling that’s the bread and butter of a studio like Bethesda.

Still, this may be Obsidian’s most polished release in years. I suffered two crashes during my roughly 50 hours playing it on PC. I encountered a few bugs, whether it was NPCs getting stuck in geometry or music cutting out randomly, requiring a restart. I didn’t find any quest-defying or game-breaking bugs, but it is a very large game, and I couldn’t cover every inch of every map while I was playing. At least, it ran surprisingly well on my Nvidia RTX 3070-based laptop. This means more people will be able to play it on high settings. And, if you don’t feel like reading the rest of this review, you should absolutely play Avowed.

Avowed was developed by Obsidian and published by Microsoft. It will be available on Xbox Series S/X, PC, and Game Pass on Feb. 18.

Avowed’s Sun-Drenched Setting Is Surprisingly Relatable Even With the Roving Enemy Mushrooms

Avowed is set in the same setting as the developer’s Pillars of Eternity setting. It’s a land called Eora, where you’ll find all the typical Tolkien-esque fantasy species plus a few surprises like the large-framed, scaly Aumaua and the small, fur-covered Orlan. The main ingredient that sets Eora apart from similar settings is “The Wheel.” Essentially, it represents the rebirth cycle, though without messy moralism or karma getting in the way. Souls are tangible things, and when a creature dies, its soul gets cycled and put back into the world, whether that’s as a sentient being—collectively called Kith—or a snail or a bush.

With souls being so literal, that may also cause strange occurrences. Souls may be split in the process of returning to Eora. Souls and soul energy—called “essense—can be harmed or taken to power machines in a pseudoscience called “animancy.” In Avowed, you play as a “godlike” a being touched by one of the setting’s many deities in the womb. You can choose what fungus or gnarled roots grow from your brow, but it marks you as different and powerful.

You can choose several backgrounds, whether as a Noble Scion or War Hero. No matter what you pick, your character lands a position of importance as a dignitary of the Emperor of Aedyr, the largest land kingdom in Eora. As his “Envoy,” you’re tasked with traveling to the Living Lands—a large island of wild vegetation and wilder people—to discover the cause of a plague known only as “the Dreamscourge.” The Emperor has designed to make the Living Lands a part of his domain, and such an infection may harm Aedyran endeavors or—worse—spill out and impact the people living on the main content. You can imagine how frightening a plague that impacts your very soul would be.

Like any good RPG, there are multiple crises happening at once. There’s the man vs. nature side of things as both regular folk and empires try to carve out a space among the wilds. Then there are the people already residing in the Living Lands. They are deserters, outcasts, and adventurers who don’t take too kindly to an overruling entity muscling in. The Aedyrans are a colonizing force offering convenience for some while pushing those who want to live under the whims of a capricious and arbitrary ruler.

Things are complicated, and players are meant to understand both sides of the conflict. Sure, nobody likes a gentrifying force, but—then again—taxes help pay for roads. They can offer more security than any band of thugs who seem to think they might make right in every circumstance.

There is a lot to get your head around, especially if you haven’t played any of the Pillars of Eternity games or gone down a Wiki rabbit hole before launch. Thankfully, the game doesn’t throw too many terms at you all at once. Thankfully, there’s a glossary you can reference any time a character references a setting term in dialogue. It works just as well with the controller as with the mouse and keyboard, and I’m thankful Obsidian decided to keep that consistent with its other recent RPGs. It’s the kind of system that should absolutely be standard in today’s games, and it makes me incensed that I still see games pretending players can spend hours looking at the in-game glossary as if they expect any of it can be on tomorrow’s test.

The Living Lands themselves are a complicated place. There are multiple biomes, from lush forests to desert badlands. There are some weird creatures ranging from roving lizard people to walking mushrooms. Then again, the Living Lands breed bears like rabbits. I couldn’t possibly count the number of bears I murdered (always in self-defense, mind you) throughout the entire adventure. You’ll be doing a lot of combat in Avowed, but you’ll become extra acquainted with bears of many shapes and sizes.

Avowed Says Screw It, Be a Gun-Toting Wizard

There’s a fair bit of the DNA from Obsidian’s last big semi-open world RPG, The Outer Worlds, in Avowed. Some encounters are messy, but the systems are much more snappy than many other first-person RPGs from studios like Bethesda. Attacks regularly snap to enemies who stagger with most hits. Status effects can build up until they erupt in massive jets of color. There’s certainly a chance for strategy and careful maneuvering, but it’s made to be more flashy and fun than cerebral.

Characters are unbound by any classes or prescribed builds. Your stats may emphasize two-handed, one-handed, or ranged weapons, but the game doesn’t restrict how you equip your character. You can roll around with a flintlock pistol in one hand and a wand in the other. Or you can put an axe in your offhand or stick a grimoire there to blast your foes with a wave of flame. Grimoires are the only items that require you to take certain perks to unlock specific spells, but otherwise, the game doesn’t care how you play.

There are certainly players who will find specific builds they prefer, but Avowed will let you pay a small fine in currency to respec your character whenever you want. The different perk trees for “Soldier,” “Ranger,” or “Wizard” may have an ability that fits your playstyle, and you’re incentivized to pick and choose. I was focusing on a character that dodged incoming attacks while peppering enemies with pistol shots, but I still took an ability that let me use a shield to stagger opponents.

I found there was some cheese amid all those abilities. One perk lets you turn invisible at the cost of the essence—essentially your mana. This lets you deliver super-high damage sneak attacks regularly, with a mere 10-second cooldown. Combat on normal difficulty was still hard enough that I never felt like I was cheating, but there are more combos with specific weapons to make combat too easy. That could be an issue, especially considering how much combat you’ll do in your adventure.

There are light and heavy attacks, and both melee and ranged weapons can be charged up to deliver more powerful blows. There are multiple weapon types with unique properties, which are more complicated by different weapon tier ranks and unique gear. If you do enough side quests and explore, you’ll eventually have an entire hoard of special weapons. The game expects you to upgrade the items under your care constantly. That’s not extra apparent right from the start of the game. If you’re like me, you’ll spend all your gold on a “Fine” pistol only to come across a higher-tiered unique weapon of the same type less than 10 minutes later.

The game isn’t too concerned about your character’s current level, but it does care about the level of your gear. The game is structured into several open-world levels, but depending on where you go, you may encounter rank 2, 3, or 4 enemies that will necessitate having “Fine” or “Exceptional” quality items. Lower-tiered weapons won’t hit nearly as hard or stun enemies on hits. Your armor won’t take the brunt of opponents’ attacks, either. Higher-level encounters are certainly doable, but they’re far more tedious. Enemies become bullet sponges, which incentivizes cheesing them with long-ranged attacks.

Avowed’s combat is frenetic, though relatively simple. It only truly works when your gear is leveled to the area, but by the time it is, you’re already moving on to the next area. It was difficult keeping all my weapons to a standard, especially considering I was looking under every hole and crevice for crafting resources.

The systems are so open that it seems like Obsidian shrugged, handed you the car keys, and said, “Go nuts.” Eventually, I settled on a character with enough buffs to pistols I could shoot fast enough to take out most enemies with relative ease. Fun, yes, though it didn’t help keep up the difficulty. This is a breath of fresh air after playing enough RPGs like Baldur’s Gate III or Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, where character builds are so important. It’s so open that it makes me wonder why the developers even bother keeping systems like encumbrance. Who cares if I’m carrying 20 common daggers? I will end up breaking them all down for parts to upgrade the weapon I want to use.

There is Room For Roleplaying in Avowed, Even Without Any Kind of Speech Skill

The design for this game is like a kid who rolls a ball of clay in a sandbox. The clump gets stuck with the loose dinosaur toys and lollypop sticks discarded by all the other kids in the playground. It’s a kitchen sink design molded into something wholly its own. You will find all the trappings of an action RPG—at least one of those more recent ARPGs that emphasize the “action” above the “roleplaying.” Yet, Avowed’s story and capacity for roleplaying were the two elements I found most compelling in my more than 50 hours with the game.

Obsidian’s latest RPG is a mixture of common RPG and action RPG concepts, but instead of boiling away the roleplaying systems to entice the crowd of hack-and-slash nuts who have played and finished Skyrim more than a dozen times, it just lets the player inhabit the character. Often, the best way to play a well-written RPG is to max out your speech skills. That’s how you acquire the most interesting, witty dialogue while offering the most choice for ending conflicts non-violently.

There is no speech skill in Avowed. There’s no social skill whatsoever. Instead, you get checks depending on your current number in several stats. A high Perception could offer more insight into a character’s demeanor. A high-strength skill could be a means to intimidate or show your worth. Depending on your background, you also have a few more special lines of dialogue to choose from.

This isn’t a game about choice, but Avowed asks players to inhabit the world and see it through the eyes of people who honestly live there. There are few moments of tongue-in-cheek jokes or lampshading for a setting that—at its core—is full of weird and esoteric fantasy concepts. You are the Envoy. You are a person the emperor would choose for a very sensitive mission. You can be an adherent to Aedyran ideals, an apathetic sycophant, a rebel in waiting, or a pragmatist trying to make the best of the situation. You can’t play a dullard or a maniac. Why would the Emperor of Aedyr send a lunatic to take care of a deadly plague?

At points, I was given a choice to expand my character’s background. One sidequest tasked me with discovering why a farmer’s worker zombies were wandering from his farm. I found an artifact fallen from the sky, forming a crater that had long turned into a lake. Pulling it out, an elder mage offered to throw it into the ocean, finding it dangerous. With a skill check, my character also knew this mage traded in memories. I offered one of my own in exchange for that artifact.

I didn’t lose a memory I made in the game, but one from my character’s past. I could choose from a friend who betrayed me, a terrible accident I caused, and more calamities that some would wish to forget. This is roleplaying in its most distilled form. This is the type of characterization you would see from modern free-form tabletop RPGs. I don’t need a lengthy background sheet to explain my actions. I explain my character’s background by playing the game.

I wish those beats were more common. My Envoy was a noble scion, and I could choose to let out short quips about maidservants and a poisonous court during some dialogue exchanges. I only wish I could expand on those elements and see more of them represented by NPCs. However, there are entirely optional sections of the game where you delve into the memories of people’s past who also resided in the living lands. These sections are like a choose-your-own adventure, where you spell out the history of entire civilizations and cultures. They are narrated beautifully by the unknown deity in your head. They’re illustrated with such attention and care, they don’t just feel like an extraneous aspect of the game, they help complete it.

All these roleplaying bits are the jewels molded to the child’s clay ball. Even when the game is so focused on combat, where the game is ambivalent in how you equip your character and what perks you choose, the game always knows when to draw you in for a short conversation that piques interest or lets you embellish your character’s arc. If the Living Lands are colonized by those seeking freedom, then this RPG finds ways to free itself from the conventions of a purely mechanical roleplaying game.

Some Choices Matter More Than Others in Avowed

I won’t discuss specifics for the latter parts of the game to avoid spoilers. What defines the story is the main relationship you develop between your character and the “voice” in your head. It’s something you start hearing as soon as you step foot in the Living Lands. Despite the political turmoil around you, it becomes clear the Dreamscourge is somehow connected to this voice. This being has a deeper connection to the island than anyone possibly expected.

The Aedyran colonists are providing extra security to the island, but not in a way that wins the people living there to their side. Adding to the woes is the Steel Garrote, a paladin order that acts more like a secret police force than a champion of the empire’s ideals. The Garrote is led by Inquisitor Lödwyn (a character making a return from Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire), who is so zealous in her campaign to tame the Living Lands that she actively ignores the actual Aedyran ambassador.

There are points in the main story that feel very structured, though I’d need to play the game multiple times to find out how much. No matter what, you will encounter and recruit the same four companions. Still, I had the sense that depending on my decisions, I could have avoided a major calamity mid-way through the game. I also sensed that my companions were responding to my background, choices, and overall demeanor. My character often took the side of the local populace, which made me rather popular with local characters but not so much the Steel Garrote. I would need to play a whole new campaign to learn if being a stickler for Aedyran rules resulted in any differences in how things play out.

Even though you don’t have a choice in companions, they are still magnificent characters that are simply a joy to be around. I already mentioned Kai, but looking to avoid spoilers, I can only say you meet my second favorite later in the game. She’s a pink-colored Orland named Yatzli (Anjali Bhimani), a debutante, feisty, and surprisingly amorous creature whose enthusiasm was a nice contrast to some of the more taciturn members of the crew.

Though I took about 50 hours for my playthrough, I imagine you could finish the game in roughly 20 hours if you hustle and somehow manage to get around the item scaling limitations. The main areas have enough side content to pad out a runtime without making the experience feel bloated. After taking more than 80 hours to get anywhere close to finishing Metaphor: Refantazio, this was a small breath of fresh air, especially for an open-world game.

Avowed Can Hold its Own Against Other RPG Greats

Avowed is a game of sweeping themes that keeps its characters and events grounded. There were moments in the game that were so surprising and touching they will be etched into my brain for years to come. Obsidian managed to thread the needle of interesting open-world design without sacrificing the players’ ability to express their character.

I can imagine some players may demand more mechanical responses to their choices, but I may prefer Avowed’s approach. It’s the kind of game that lets you inhabit the world, explore its themes, and do it with little interruption to force you to do mental math to create the perfect character build. It’s a kind of freedom I want to explore again.