Avowed Review: Obsidian's New RPG - Hype or Disappointment

From RPG masters Obsidian Entertainment, Avowed arrives on PC and Xbox. After all this buildup, is this new RPG worth the hype, or is it disappointment incarnate? Some premium purchase holders got it earlier for technical reasons, but wise gamers received immediate access on day one through services such as Game Pass — opening up a gateway into the game. After several hours spent with the Xbox Series X copy, here’s our in-depth review with their objectives on a title-to-title basis.

Graphics and Performance: A Tale Of Two Modes On Xbox

When played on Xbox, Avowed offers players a selection: Quality or Performance mode. Quality mode certainly offers the best visual fidelity overall, with improvements in detail and resolution of some odd graphical quirks, but has a 30 FPS cap. For people concerned about frame rate, it offers a Performance mode that targets 60 FPS, with "targets" being the key word.

Christened uneven-performance mode by some, it cannot sustain a clean 60 FPS, especially across Avowed’s impressively large open-world maps. Closed scenarios do much better in displays, with frame rates much better preserved, while taking in the difficulties of open world resolution scaling, producing a very grainy and ghosting field of view.

The art style of the game is divisive. Avowed avoids the dark fantasy look in favor of a vibrant, colorful palette akin to a game like Kingdom of Amalur, or even older roleplaying games like Oblivion. Whilst some may see this as a refreshing change for an open world, others will conclude that the environments vary from impressive vistas to generic uninspired landscapes that, at times, are verging on glorified mobile game graphics. While visually stunning, spell effects can at times drown out the screen, making things difficult to see in combat.

Character models are in a very rough state. Not all bad, but the overall quality, as well as the human NPC fidelity, is clearly on the lower end of the scale and is a little jarring. The character creation system, which includes an issue race called the "Godlike", can make every player character look slightly "off" or odd, especially given its apparent difficulty at making good-looking human characters, which can lead to comical or "hideous" creations. NPC responses to the player character that are supposed to be immersive can feel misdirected when even base character designs lead to strong reactions.

Story and Characters: Generic with an Uninteresting Plot

The main mystery of Avowed is the presence of the “Dream Scourge,” a plague of the mind and body that is transforming people and animals into frenzied furies. As an Envoy from a distant empire, the player must discover the source of the affliction in the Living Lands. Although that premise offers a hook at first, the execution leaves much to be desired.

While lore based in the Pillars of Eternity universe provide interesting backstory details, the presentation of the main story is drab and disappointing. An ongoing “inner voice,” intended to have an otherworldly ring, becomes a chronic — and esoteric — annoyance abruptly deflating into vague pronouncements in place of riveting story movement. Though vital callouts and spontaneous decisions stem from this voice, it quickly gets used too heavily, and it dulls much of the story experience.

On the other side, the narrative has at least one saving grace — a meaty dialogue system. Faithful to Obsidian’s RPG pedigree, Avowed features an abundance of dialogue, frequently presenting choices that seem authentically in character. Conversations can be made even deeper with skill checks and background picks (such as the “War Hero”), each of which allows for different dialogue options with tangible in-game consequences and rewards. Some side quests even have unexpected consequences for player choices, allowing for a nice layer of reactivity in the world.

But that does not elevate the lackluster story by the characters themselves. Characters, reduced to only four companions, are ultimately disposable and unbelievable in their interactions. Worley called the writing — described as “safe” — limiting for the characters’ development of a distinct or memorable personality. And the addition of stereotypical "girl boss" characters is an ill-chosen and sloppy retro trope. While Lwin (the Inquisitor) does pop a bit more, in both design and backstory, the entire cast falls a bit flat and fails to draw in or engage the player in narrative.

Avowed's story is its weakest element, especially in comparison to narrative heavy-hitters like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. While this post has potential in its writing and lore, the lackluster characters and cautious, unoriginal plot execution come together as a disheartening narrative experience.

Combat, Itemization, Exploration: The Gameplay Mechanics

Combat: Solid Action, But Not Without Its Flaws

Avowed is mostly a first-person action RPG—with a third-person mode that has received some criticism. So while a first-person experience was clearly a goal of development, the third-person perspective, even with its heavily derided animations and "indie game" aesthetics, much of it has the potential to still lead to fun gameplay, especially for those players who would prefer to have a little more viewable area on the screen when fighting.

The combat system has a reasonable selection of playstyles, backed by three skill trees that include both passive and active abilities. Weapon variety is decent too, with one- and two-handed melee weapons, pistols, wands, magic books, bows and arquebuses. The diversity in weapon types drastically reshapes gameplay mechanics, rewarding experimentation and build customization.

The itemization system can be a large factor in how a character progresses. Avowed uses a strict gear quality system that requires gear to be of certain level to avoid massive combat penalties in each zone. This linear track breaks down character customization and exploration freedom, with gear quality mattering more than player skill, stats, or abilities. Crafting and upgrading do offer some mitigation, but the system overall feels so restrictive and unbalanced that it leaves you with less of a sense of player agency when it comes to your character build.

Controls are mostly tight, with a few minor quirks, like run-dodges from the jump/dodge button mapping. Out of combat, movement is free, with the ability to sprint indefinitely and climb similar to parkour, scaling nearly all surfaces that their almost-humanoid character model can grip onto for increased world exploration.

Combat controls, while effective at the most basic level, are stiff. While some may prefer the more old-time gameplay of soft target lock, it can feel a bit cumbersome. With decent freedom of movement during combat, sprinting, jumping attacks, and dodging all come into play, but enemy attack telegraphing is inconsistent and parrying unreliable. With multiple opponents in most of the encounters, such as, the enemies' limited ability variety is sometimes shallow. By contrast, boss fights are more telegraphed and engaging encounters.

While the stamina system, which controls energy-sapping actions like blocking, dodging, and power attacks, exists, it does not feel as punishing. Warrior aggro abilities, for best play, are generic fantasy tropes. The polished UI elements of a pause menu-based ability wheel allow you to relate skills and consumables effortlessly. And with the addition of follower abilities, you can now get a whole new level of combat support to round things out.

Combat has a good heft about it, with hit-stop like Dragon's Dogma for an added sense of weight and feedback. Enemy impacts and animations are largely satisfying. Haptic feedback on the Xbox controllers adds an extra layer of immersion to combat. There is some variety in enemies, though many share certain combat behaviors. Tactical depth is fundamental, limited mainly to selecting healers as primary targets in enemy packs.

Avowed's combat is good enough for an RPG, but not what fans can expect from a game with melee combat involved, more advanced combat systems, or any Soulslike-level depth. That's a huge downer, though and one the combat system, otherwise functional and varied, is struggling to overcome.

Exploration: The Best Part of the Game

Exploration might be one of Avowed's best parts. Even the world map holds regional distinctions, carved into four quadrants of mountainous and desolate regions all designed in their own unique visual themes and visually host to secrets hidden throughout each zone. The map itself is not seamlessly connected, and this design choice arguably works to the title’s advantage, creating specific zones to explore that feel rich in detail.

Verticality is a strong sense of exploration in this game, allowing players to climb, jump, and parkour their way to secret spaces and shortcuts. What Ghost Trick lacks in environmental verticality, though, The Last Campfire makes up for in puzzle-play, with environmental puzzles requiring usage of items or abilities granted by followers to prevent falling victim to obstacles, making exploration rewarding for ingenuity and observation.

The ability to find so many different places across the five distinct regions is impressive in itself, and the dozens upon dozens of buildings/structures you can enter give the illusion of an inhabited world while also encouraging those who are willing to explore further. Unlike more linear first-person RPGs, Avowed encourages exploration that’s more akin to that found in Elixir, creating verticality with hidden treasures and enemies around every corner. Avowed's world design, in particular, is a refreshing change compared to the more incident-driven story structure of The Outer Worlds.

With locations in Avowed that matched the quality of the world we got to explore, this could have been a great RPG. Yet exploration is the one bright spot in an otherwise aggressively mediocre experience.

Sound and Music: Auditory Mediocrity

All of Avowed's mediocrity reflected in its audio presentation. Beyond the fact that the overall quality of voice acting is mixed (some characters are well done, some are weak), Having said that, there are a few odd sounds or strange placements even in or outside of combat, but for the most part, it is all solid. Overall the soundtrack is easily forgettable, doing little to support the atmosphere of exploration or combat and defaulting to generic fantasy background music.

Pros, Cons, and Rating