Growing up, one of the first RPG’s I ever played was Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic. The second game in particular is one I always think back to, with both my older brother and I clearing the game numerous times, just to create different builds and to make different decisions, the latter being something that Obsidian prides themselves on. Fallout New Vegas shared this to some degree, but man, KOTOR II really knew how to force the player into morally grey scenarios and force them to make decisions that genuinely alter the game. Role playing is something Obsidian rewards their players for, between dialogue and character build. Mentioned already, but Fallout New Vegas is a good example of this. Key players at Obsidian created Fallout 1 and 2, and they went on to create a CRPG named Tyranny that has garnered a bit of a cult following. Obsidian also created the Pillars of Eternity duology, which many nerds consider to be the greatest CRPG’s there are (well, that is, before Baldur’s Gate 3 released...). Clearly, Obsidian are the role-playing GOATS.
Obsidian announced Avowed in 2020, a game I have been eager to get my hands on since the first trailer debuted. Avowed was touted as a high-fantasy RPG set in the Pillars of Eternity universe (the world of Eora), which I have never gotten to experience the world of before but have always been interested in. In the debut trailer, it awed me with shades of Oblivion, and I, of course, immediately made the joke that Obsidian will do anything in their power to dunk on Bethesda. Starfield announced in 2018? The Outer Worlds in 2019. The Elder Scrolls VI announced? Bam, Avowed announced. Aside from the opportunity to be inside of the PoE universe, the Oblivion similarities in the trailer were what really pulled me in.
You see, once the PS360 generation rolled up, my brother and I got to play a game that has long stuck with both of us since – The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It is in my top 10 video games of all time – Yes, it is likely due to the rose-tinted glasses strapped to my face, however, Oblivion did a lot of things right when it came to Role Playing and the allure of high fantasy. The world was gorgeous, the lore behind the world as well as the guilds within it were intriguing, and the class system was incredible, which all of the above left plenty of room for role playing. It is a game I revisit at least once a year, and the magic of Oblivion is something no other western RPG has been able to capture for me since, especially not Skyrim, a game of which I felt just oversimplified Oblivion, while simultaneously smearing it with grey shit. Avowed coming out of nowhere, seeming to be the next Oblivion for me, has had me anxiously anticipating this game for the last 4+ years – and I am excited to report that after 8 hours in, I have.... uninstalled the game. Almost everything about this game falls flat on its face. Seeing how Obsidian simplified a lot of things for The Outer Worlds should have prepared me for this, but this is an oversimplification further than I could have imagined.
First, let's talk about this game from a mechanical standpoint, looking away from the fact that my system, a Ryzen 7 with an RX 6750 XT, struggled to hold 60fps at a native 1080p. Taking a CRPG like Pillars of Eternity and turning it into an Action RPG is a bold decision, especially after Baldur’s Gate 3 blew the world away, but it somehow feels right for Obsidian to go this direction with their current fanbase, especially after The Outer Worlds. However, in The Outer Worlds and Fallout New Vegas’ case, when you primarily use guns, you don’t really need too many fun animations for melee combat. Avowed has more melee weapons than ranged weapons, and is a high fantasy game, where a large number of players are going to be swinging sharp sticks around. Every melee weapon feels about the same – a weightless stick flailing around with around 3 animations each. Your boring, sharp stick comes with an unresponsive parry system too! Mixing these things together, you get a rather lackluster experience in combat overall. I quickly switched to using guns, because at least it's understandable when they do not need tons of animations and you are going to be at a range with them, but the novelty of using guns in ye olde high fantasy setting gets pretty boring pretty quick too. Even the impact from all of the weapons feel.... off.
There is a stagger system in place, but it doesn’t feel like you are causing your enemy to stagger with any of your attacks from gun, magic or melee – you just slowly fill up a bar, get a cool looking power attack when its full, then it’s back to business as usual. Your stamina bar depletes with every action you take in combat aside from casting a spell, so this includes melee actions of course, but also, strangely, guns and wands as well. This makes absolutely no sense to me; the guns in this game already have a long reload time between shots, as they are flintlock weapons, but you also must manage your stamina on top of that. Wands also deplete stamina, while spells deplete your magic instead of your stamina, which left me a bit baffled as well. Regarding your magic and stamina, these can be marginally increased with attribute points when you level up.
Upon leveling up, you also get perk points to put towards your skill tree in this game towards one of three classes. Yes, three classes – This game, an RPG that is in the Pillars of Eternity universe, which has more classes than I have ever even heard of before looking into that game, only has THREE classes; Fighter, Wizard, and Ranger. I still don’t understand why Obsidian simplified the class system to this degree. I could get removing some classes, like Chanter or Druid, but slimming down to three classes with skills that don’t even always make sense for that class feels extreme. Inside of the Ranger and Fighter class trees, there are no perks that add any moves to your melee move set whatsoever, leaving you with the same 3 animations while you trudge through any combat scenario the game throws at you.
You get companions to roll with that you meet throughout the story of the game, and in my 8 hours of playing, I met all 4 of these companions, and had 3 join me thus far. To continue on about the perk tree, much like in The Outer Worlds, your companions in this game have a perk tree as well. They have simplified this as well, with there being about 4 skills to choose from with 2 levels each. On top of the simplified skill tree for your companions, you also do not manage their equipment at all – The gear you meet them with is the gear they have forever, and you have no choice in the matter, unlike in The Outer Worlds. There is a very confusing component to this decision, because your gear’s quality level determines about everything when it comes to combat, so having no visibility to your companion’s gear level makes determining the difficulty you can handle hard to read. Additionally, not being able to equip your companions how you see fit, at least to some degree, limits both role playing, but also combat tactics. For example, one of the earlier companions in the game has both a bow and arrow, as well as a set of daggers. You cannot tell him when to use which from a tactical standpoint aside from telling them to use skills that have a cooldown.
I mentioned gear “quality” level up above. Every piece of gear has a quality rating, things like Common, Epic, Superb, etc. The absolutely asinine aspect of this, however, is what happens if you go up against someone who has a gear quality level higher than you. Let’s say I roll up on an enemy who is wearing “epic” quality while I am using a “common” quality weapon. When I attack said enemy, my weapon will do 35% less damage than it is meant to do, regardless of its raw damage. WHAT AN ABSOLUTELY FUCKING STUPID IDEA. Your level and how powerful the weapon or armor you have does not matter if the quality of your opposition’s armor is a higher quality rating than your weapon, or your armor is worse than their weapon. You literally take a significate percentage decrease in effectiveness over the quality level. I could have heavy armor on, but it will feel like light armor if my opponent has ONE rank higher in gear quality on their weapon. Not only is this problematic for you, but it also makes managing difficulty confusing for your companions as well, as you have no idea what their gear level is, and the game does not tell you.
Something else that disappointed me coming from Obsidian, albeit I only managed to make it 8 hours into the story, was the dialogue. From a developer who prides themselves on dialogue, it felt like it had the Fallout 4 problem of your dialogue choices not really mattering, outside of a few clear decisions. It felt as if, aside from some added flair in the response I would receive, whatever I said didn’t matter and wouldn’t change the intended outcome the game had for that scenario. To be fair, I hear there are some story decisions later in the game, but all other dialogue isn’t really going to change too much, dissimilar to something like The Witcher, Mass Effect, Fallout 1 and 2, etc. This lended to plenty of situations where I was just smashing buttons through the dialogue just to get it over with, something I typically do not experience in Obsidian games.
Avowed is an oversimplification of a lot of things. It feels like a simplification of The Outer Worlds in many ways, as the only other real example of an action RPG from Obsidian, which by extension means it is a drastic oversimplification from their all-time classics like KOTOR II, or even a game like Fallout New Vegas, and although I only have a few hours into Pillars of Eternity so far, a clear trimming of that series, and it left very few of the good parts. This game is consistently compared to both Skyrim and Oblivion by people online, and those comparisons feel cheap. Oblivion came out nearly 2 decades ago and is a clearly better game than Avowed in most ways. Although it feels like it was created for people who like Skyrim, another game that simplified the series it was a part of, Avowed feels far simpler than Skyrim, a game I loathed after Oblivion. I saw a review online that said Avowed is better appreciated as an action game firstly and an RPG secondly, but this game's combat and equipment choices are so poor that it would honestly fare worse with that comparison.
Avowed feels like playing a game with an identity crisis – It isn’t sure which its meant to be bad at – being an RPG or being an action game – It does succeed at being bad at both of them, however. Subpar combat, lackluster or downright strange character leveling and equipment choices, and poor companion writing left me feeling like I wasted my time during the 8 hours I gave Avowed the chance with – a chance Obsidian fumbled miserably. It made me realize two things – One: I should probably be playing Pillars of Eternity instead; and two: Obsidian probably shouldn’t be making “Action RPG’s”. Not only did Avowed miss the mark, but it also shows Obsidian at their worst, hampering even the aspects they are usually the best at.