Avowed Review - Drywall-Flavored
For the last decade or so, I have been using the hapless Kingdoms of Amalur as a reference for the lack of imagination in RPG design. It was technically sound but flavorless like cardboard and duller than numismatics. It wasn’t made by AI, but nowadays, I would say that it felt like it was. Enter Avowed, the new gold standard for generic fantasy role-playing. AI had nothing to do with it either, but I somehow wish it were. The pain of disappointment with the once great Obsidian entertainment would be, ah, duller. The holy studio that once made Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity had devolved over the years. Acquisition by Microsoft tends to do that to the soul of a developer, but judging by Avowed, it feels like they had been acquired at least twice in a row.
The pale remnant of their once-legendary competence shines through the streamlined design. Avowed is a derivative, but tightly constructed game, with reinforced edges so nothing spills over. It’s probably the easiest RPG to get into in years, and extremely suitable for total beginners. It achieves that without being condescending. You won’t find yellow climb markers and breadcrumbs waylines here, but you’ll have a super easy time anyway.
Another Chosen One
Avowed is a first-person RPG-lite based on Pillars of Eternity lore, built around a “chosen one” template. You are a “Godlike”, individual born with a mark of a deity from Eora’s pantheon. You might know about Woedica, Eothas, Berath, and the rest of the celestial gang from PoE and its sequel, but even if you don’t, Avowed will feed you with the necessary info through myriad lore-logs seeded through the world. Being special like this, you were brought up in the royal court, and now, the emperor plans to cash in on that investment, sending you to fix the mysterious illness on remote shores.
The newly colonized island of Living Lands has several problems, with your aggressive empire being a distant second. The mysterious Dreamscourge is ravaging the country, twisting and corrupting all living things. Again, you might know about Dreamscourge if you have played Pillars of Eternity. It was called a Hollowborn disease there, but in Avowed, it got a new name and a facelift. Failing crops, zombified peoples, rabid animals, and distressed civilians distrusting their deliverer. It’ll take a ton of effort from you to start getting appreciated. Along the way, you’ll meet a few companions. Together, your merry gang will quest and loot, scouring the fragmented, faux open world, parkouring over difficult terrain, and plowing through occasional quest instances.
Going By the Numbers
It’s all very straightforward and, as I said before, very accessible. Each zone has the quest hub, plenty of distressed civilians, a bounty board, and vendors. Completing the main quest opens up the way to the next one, until the inevitable conclusion. Technically, one of several conclusions, as the game has at least ten different endings. The story, such as it is, bends and forks in a subtle, often not obvious way. On the other hand, surprises and twists are utterly predictable, as the game never deviates from the most obvious staples of pulp fantasy lore.
Your companions, four in total, are a bit more interesting than the story, but often in a way that feels out of place. They joke in a bizarre, often vulgar way that tries too hard to be simultaneously edgy and safe. Were they trying to emulate Chris Avellone on the sly, or is it a GenZ thing I don’t know about? Talking to some of them unlocks their permanent bonuses, so you’ll have to expose yourself to their charms, God help you. With a few exceptions, NPCs are dull and uninteresting, with placeholder distresses. OMG, the mine is infested with spiders; WTH the patrol got lost in a really dangerous area; FFS the family heirloom got lost. Please…
The Kinetic Joy
The only pleasure most people will extract from Avowed will be the mechanical, kinetic joy of combat. It’s simple, straightforward, and flexible, powered by an efficient, semi-classless system. The game allows you to specialize for standard archetypes via talents and allocation of stats, but it never cuts you off from trying whatever weapon you want. I played as a vanilla fighter with 1H and shield, but I kept a magic grimoire and a flintlock pistol as my secondary loadout. I needed electrical magic to power up an occasional door switch, but a pistol was a pure guilty pleasure.
The only thing that could be (massively) better is the weapon upgrade system. It relies on resources found through looting foes and chests and disassembling gear, but there’s not enough of it. The danger presented by mobs is derived from your (cryptic) gear score, where the level of your weapon determines whether you’ll get your arse kicked or not. Frankly, anything is better than level numbers over their heads, but this system prevents you from having a truly varied arsenal. You’ll be compelled to save high-level resources for your dominant weapon and armor, as it directly affects the global combat difficulty for you and your party.
All that means that there’s no real incentive to be creative or experiment with different builds, even if the core of the combat system was designed with flexibility in mind. It’s like Obsidian compartmentalized the design, delegating the combat module to two competing teams who refused to talk to each other.
No Preaching and Screetching
Some people will dismiss Avowed as yet another flat game from a lazy Western developer, and they will be half-right. The blood of Numenor which enabled the past greatness in Obsidian is largely spent by now. What remained is the inertia fueled by light entitlement. At least there’s no holier-than-thou preaching and screeching here as was the case with Veilguard.
Are you the right audience for Avowed? You might be. The game serves as a solid comedown substitute for the drug that is Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. The timing of its release couldn’t be better in that regard. So, if you have nothing better to do, you might as well fire up that Game Pass and try it.
Highs
- Combat and parkour are pretty solid.
- Very suitable for total beginners.
Lows
- Dull story full of placeholder moments.
- The game offers identical sets of challenges from beginning to end.
