Avowed first released on Xbox and PC just over a year ago, and now having played through it ourselves on PS5, we can’t help but think that it deserves a bit more recognition.
This was Obsidian’s attempt at making an RPG that would appeal to the Elder Scrolls crowd — a no doubt easy sell to the suits at Microsoft, especially with Bethesda’s development timeline trailing so far behind.
Avowed is built on the universe and lore of Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity series, but it takes on the form of an action-based adventure with a heavy emphasis on combat and open world-style exploration.
It’s what we’d call approachable in its design, in a way that many modern RPGs are. Structurally, you travel from open zone to open zone, pick up leads at the nearby city, and then maim your way across the countryside, all while poking and prodding at the overarching plot.
Said plot is interesting but disappointingly predictable. You play as the wholly customisable Envoy — a representative of the great Aedyr Empire, who’s tasked with taming The Living Lands.
This isn’t quite an out-and-out role-playing release like its CRPG predecessors, but meaningful player choice punctuates the main story and a large number of side quests.
Some of these choices are delightfully grey, and thankfully, they prevent the predictable story beats from becoming too much of a burden. It’s easy to forget about clear narrative throughlines when you get to have a direct impact on how fate unravels.
Plus, The Living Lands is a gorgeous frontier setting, fit to burst with brilliant environmental art direction. Seriously, this is one of the most enchanting fantasy backdrops we’ve seen in a long time, and Obsidian’s visual teams deserve huge praise.
It’s a shame, then, that its inhabitants don’t quite live up to the splendour of their surroundings. Avowed’s rigid dialogue system, held back by robotic character animations, doesn’t do anyone any favours — but it’s mostly the writing that struggles to strike a chord.
Now, we’re not saying that Avowed’s script is bad, but it never manages to grab you by the collar. We’ve mentioned this before, specifically in our review of The Outer Worlds 2, but there’s an underlying dullness to Obsidian’s modern creations that it just can’t seem to shake.
So much of Avowed’s chatter is thoroughly unexciting; bland and cookie-cutter to the point where you start wondering if you’ve stumbled into a unapologetically bloated MMO — especially when it comes to quest-givers.
Fortunately, your own dialogue options do add some spice to conversations that may otherwise bore you to tears. In typical Obsidian fashion, your Envoy can be a total dickhead to everyone you meet, and although your standard options rarely affect anything other than the NPC’s immediate response, it’s nice to feel like you’ve got some agency over your hero’s — or antihero’s — personality.
As for party members, Avowed’s small roster is decent — if, again, a little dull and one-note at times. For what it’s worth, we actually like having a smaller group of allies as it allows each character more room to breathe and express themselves.
While we doubt any of these personalities will live too long in the memory, Avowed does an admirable job of making party members feel like they have a say in events. When navigating both the main story and side quests, your allies will make themselves heard.
Sometimes disagreements are inevitable, as your companions will actually push back against certain decisions, depending on their own beliefs and outlook. This friction — though usually short-lived — can be genuinely compelling, because we all know that most RPGs have your allies stand in total silence while you commit potential atrocities.
So, Avowed’s story, its writing, its characters — we’d say they’re solid but rather unremarkable. Why, then, are we suggesting that this is perhaps an overlooked adventure?
Well, it’s all about the gameplay, really. Exploring these often stunning environments, battling all manner of monsters, and collecting unique loot — its a loop that clicks early on, and it’s still engaging 50 hours in.
Indeed, the game’s combat system is great. You can approach it in loads of different ways, coming up with your own fighting styles based on weapons and skill tree unlocks.
That’s obviously nothing that we haven’t seen before, but Avowed leaves an impression through its satisfyingly weighty action, which is full of chunky melee blows and crackling magic spells. Think Skyrim but with some serious kick, and you’re on the right track.
Between big boss battles, tricky bounty targets, and land that’s littered with creatures of all shapes and sizes, combat really is a focus here, which does set Avowed apart from its peers to some extent.
Which brings us neatly to the new difficulty and accessibility features that arrive alongside Avowed’s release on PS5.
For starters, you can now tweak individual difficulty values to suit your needs, potentially sanding down a lot of the title’s rougher edges and streamlining progression for the better.
In particular, the game’s criticised equipment upgrade system — which effectively gates victory against tougher enemies behind the stat-based quality of your gear — can be all but nullified through the new settings. And believe us when we say that’s cause for celebration.
Over the last year or so, it’s clear that Obsidian’s taken plenty of feedback on board, and its efforts are reflected in the scope of the game’s Anniversary Update. It includes all kinds of highly requested features, such as New Game+, new playable races, a new weapon type, a photo mode, and the aforementioned quality of life settings.
In short, there’s no doubt that PS5 players are getting a better, more complete title than what was available 12 months ago.
