There’s a tradition when writing previews of games that says one must hold back on judgments, as a game is not yet finished and could see enormous changes before it’s released. I am, however improper it might be, going to ignore this principle on this occasion, because after spending at least six hours with the opening section of a preview build of Avowed, I already absolutely adore this game.
It’s quite normal for PR companies to spin fantasies around the game they’re sending you, and Microsoft unquestionably did this when sharing this build of Avowed and saying it should last about two hours. I mean, perhaps if someone knew where they were going and refused to deviate on the way, that could be true. I’ve been playing three times that long, still have large sections of the available map in fog, incomplete sidequests, and tough battles I’m determined to win. Beside the main plot, I’ve explored elaborate, labyrinthine spider caves, fought three boss fights, helped a wayward soul find her twin, burgled a dozen houses in a sprawling dockside town, leapt from rooftop to rooftop in pursuit of gull-stolen trinkets, and battled hordes of xaurip beasts for the hell of it. That includes none of the 27 stages of the two main quests. Two hours!
Avowed is Obsidian’s action-adventure RPG follow-up to its wonderful third-person Pillars of Eternity games. Set a couple of years later, it whisks us off to a new region of Eora called The Living Lands, a rough, pirate-ridden region whose people have heard rumor of the events that took place in the Eastern Reach, but know only snippets of what occurred in the Deadfire. In this way, Avowed is a game that’s rich with background detail for those who played the two isometric RPGs, but extremely welcoming to newcomers for whom all those references are just expository color.
There is a new plague spreading the lands, called the Dreamscourge. The infected begin to experience terrible dreams which, after a while, bleed into their waking lives, leaving them unable to discern reality, and becoming unintelligible and violent. It also causes fungi to start growing all over their bodies. This is afflicting people, animals, even vegetation, and the leaders of the oh-so civilized Aedyran Empire have sent you, a Godlike (people who are touched by the gods at birth, giving them unique abilities), to the Living Lands as an envoy, to find out more.
On your journey to an area called Dawnshore, you’re shipwrecked and lose all your crew but for one person, Garryck, a furry blue guy who’s adept with a sword. Washing up on the beach of a small island (let’s call it Tutorial Island), you aim for a stronghold that should be on your side, but seemed to be responsible for the ruining of your ship. On arrival, all you find is carnage, a bloodbath of dead bodies, as if they all turned on each other. Through exploring and engaging with those still alive, you eventually find a way to reach the port of Dawnshore, with an eventual goal of entering the town of Paradis. But before you do, you need to find the ambassador you were meant to meet, who’s gone missing somewhere in the wilds.
The Aedyr is unseen (at least so far—this preview is limited to the game’s first main area, Dawnshore) but quickly becomes apparent as analogous for various Earthly empires that believed their civilization superior to those abroad, sending people out to attempt to establish colonies and spread their enlightened ways. (The letter given to you by the Emperor reads, in part, “We grant you the privilege and immunity to dispense our laws as you see fit and to remove all obstacles by any means.”) You, as an Aedyran, and also a Godlike, are therefore quite understandably met with suspicion and sometimes intolerance, as you explore the not-actually-lawless lands. And, this being an Obsidian game, you can lean into your reputation, try to defy it, or just outright not give a shit either way.
The two companions you meet and explore with on Tutorial Island are very abruptly taken from you on arrival in Dawnshore (both for good narrative reasons), and you’re immediately paired up with Kai, a former soldier from the Rauataian Empire, a rugged and weather-beaten land of blue, scaled people with a (mostly untrue) reputation for being mercenaries. Kai just happens to be a mercenary, but an extremely calm and gentle one, voiced by the mellifluous Brandon Keener—Garrus from the Mass Effect games.
This is all viewed from a first or third-person perspective (and surprisingly, both feel right), in a game that feels chunky in a way RPGs haven’t for too long. It brings back memories of Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Arx Fatalis, but in a far more elaborately hewn universe. The world around you feels delicately crafted, with you as a powerful force within it. Any fears (or hopes, I suppose) that this might be an Obsidian attempt at a Skyrim can be put aside—Avowed is far more concentrated, less wildly open, a much more focused game.
However, there’s still a great sense of freedom. This most immediately stood out to me with its classless approach. At the start of the game, there’s a solid (although shamed by Baldur’s Gate 3’s) character creator that lets you design your Godlike envoy (note that the screenshots here were supplied by Obsidian, and I made someone far more interesting than the generic character shown!), and pick a background archetype that leans into a class (hinting at rogues, wizards, fighters, etc), but this choice actually has far more impact on your conversations than your aptitudes. Instead, as you gather different weapon types, you can experiment as you see fit, dual-wielding most types, and you’re encouraged to have two completely different setups, which you can swap between on the fly. I began with an axe, tried grimoire spellcasting, tested heavy weaponry, and eventually settled on a combination of axe and wand in one loadout, and bow and arrow in the other. You can then plug ability points into these weapon types as you level up, and respec for just a small in-game currency cost.
It’s also rather pertinent to return to that opening point: perhaps I could have finished this in two hours, but there felt no reason to. I was able to head off in multiple directions, seek out entirely off-script areas, have in-depth chats with characters who play no major roles in the plot, and even after finding where the demo build ends, reload and find whole other sections I’d missed. It’s not that overwhelming agoraphobia of an Elder Scrolls game, but nor is it a linear experience by any means.
On arrival at Dawnshore, I realized that while there was a quest marker somewhere in the far distance, I wasn’t being pointed in any other specific directions. Instead, given the enormous map and vast blank space waiting to be filled in between me and my goal, I was being deliberately left free to explore. I felt liberated to poke about the towns, find routes onto rooftops to see if I could sneak into buildings, and then climb a huge, dilapidated lighthouse Kai pointed out, just because it was there.
Despite this, perhaps even because of it, the gorgeous world sometimes feels oddly inert around you. You’re equipped with hefty weapons, but unless marked as breakable, wooden crates and all plant life resists your blows. It occasionally has that feeling of an old 1930s cartoon, where anything that was going to move was painted differently than the static backgrounds, except here delineated with glowy markers. Wooden obstacles blocking doors are inexplicably indestructible, and while you can wield fire magic, you can only set something on fire if it’s marked as such.
Still, you can set fire to all the enemies, and that’s not nothing. Combat is very much what you choose to make of it, I discovered, with options to carefully combine Godlike abilities, pause the action to issue commands to Kai, and then meticulously fire off incapacitating spells before rushing in with a sword. Or, you know, just spam the wand button and glug health potions. Weapon builds really do significantly affect how fights play out, and it’s very much about discovering what works for you, what sort of action-adventure battling you prefer.
I was also rather delighted by the game’s willingness to let you run away. Even boss encounters, like an onslaught of spider minions before their big mommy comes out, don’t lock you in the cave where they occur. If it’s too much, turn and sprint away! Or use this to your advantage, funnel them to a narrow corridor and pelt them with arrows, shepherd them so you can set fire to as many at once as possible. It really does seem to encourage experimentation, and not fuss about whether you might cheese something if they don’t bolt all the doors.
It’s too early to make any calls on the storytelling. This is very much the establishing moments of what’s clearly going to be a large and unfolding tale, and so these opening hours have a lot of heavy lifting to do in terms of getting you up to speed. All the writing is as good as you’d hope from this studio, although at the same time, I can’t say I met any characters I’d regard as especially memorable. Again, this is all set before you even enter the game’s first main city, and Kai—largely by having Garrus’s voice, admittedly—is immediately charming.
My only real point of concern was what felt like the narrative rushing too quickly to bestow me with the accolades of being so utterly unique, so special and chosen, that are de rigueur for RPG games. I am a Godlike, and as such have cool toadstools growing out of my face—but so do all the plague victims, so that’s not enormously special. Instead, the only action that triggered the solemnly delivered platitudes about my magnitude was telling my early companions I’d heard a voice after touching a stone. I feel like this should earn perhaps a raised eyebrow, maybe even concern, rather than seeing me immediately declared as having Christlike significance. Things calmed down after arriving in Dawnshore, however, where people were more likely to assume me an asshole than their savior. But still, it felt a touch ham-fisted.
But really, honestly, the only thing that matters is how much I just want to keep playing. I don’t want to be done yet! So much so that even though I’ve technically “finished” this build, cruelly cut off as I entered the city of Paradis, I’ve gone back to explore what’s left. I found a whole new cave dungeon that I’d missed before! I discovered I’d gathered enough items to improve my armor, and am only a couple of one particular plant away from being able to upgrade my wand a second time! I’m determined to squeeze out every last drop of this snippet of the game, and am now infuriated that I have to wait until February 18 to be able to play any further.
Avowed feels rock solid, deep, and hugely cared for. This has “labor of love” oozing out all over, and if it can deliver a story as strong as those in the Pillars of Eternity games, we could have an all-time classic on our hands.
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