4/5 ★ – Jack_Outside_The_Box's review of Avowed.

Obsidian Entertainment have earned a well-deserved reputation in the industry. As a developer they have produced some of the most well-received RPG experiences of the modern era. Star Wars, South Park, Fallout, Pillers of Eternity, Outer Worlds; the list goes on when it comes to the numerous well-regarded franchises they’ve made games for. While they may come off as the smaller fish when compared to the likes of Bethesda or other studios, the general consensus is you can always bet on Obsidian to deliver something with a definitively unique quality to experience. Personally, Obsidian is responsible for one of my all-time favourite video games; Fallout New Vegas, so I happily tout them as a developer worthy of supporting each and every time they release a game. On that front, let’s discuss the studio’s latest RPG release, shall we? Developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Xbox Game Studios as an exclusive title, Avowed is a role-playing adventure game set in the Pillars of Eternity universe. The history behind Avowed’s development is fairly long, with it originally starting out as an online shared-world experience akin to Destiny. Soon after Obsidian was bought out by Xbox in 2018 the general identity of Avowed soon shifted more towards a single player experience. By 2020 the game was revealed officially but didn’t end up releasing until 5 years later after a few more internal revisions and delays. On February 18th 2025, Avowed released on Xbox and PC consoles and aggregated a fairly solid 80 critical score on Opencritic. While sales figures aren’t really known presently, it’s reported Xbox and Obsidian are happy with the general response on the sales front for the game. Set in the fantastical world of Eora, your player character is titled the Envoy. Born with a physical deformity represented in the form of fungi, you are a godlike, a mortal blessed by one of the many gods who govern the fabric of life to represent them and their values. Godlikes show their affiliation with their respective god through their deformity, but in your case, the god behind your blessing is not known to even the most well-versed scholars. With the choice to define your early roots, you are adopted into the Aedyran Empire and grow to become one of the emperor’s closest confidants. In the wake of the empires desire to reach out and colonize, you are sent to a continent known as The Living Lands as an envoy to the Aedyran emperor with the hopes of learning more about a mysterious plague which is spreading through the region called the Dreamscourge. Upon arriving to The Living Lands, you soon discover the local settlements are not too fond of the Aedyran’s attempt to colonize the land. Despite the political tension however, that’s not your biggest problem as your presence in the land awakens the connection to the god behind your affliction. Between the political turmoil, the rapidly spreading Dreamscourge and your vivid interactions with a mysterious god, it’s fair to say you have your work cut out for you as you work to shape the very fate of The Living Lands and maybe even the world itself. The narrative scope of Avowed is ambitious to say the least. With the game existing within the confines of a universe with well-established lore, it’s fair to say if this is your first time diving into the world of Pillars of Eternity, you’d be forgiven for feeling a little bit out of your depth. I think that’s why it was a smart choice to focus the story so much on a relatively secluded environment in the form of The Living Lands. It essentially allowed Obsidian to focus the narrative and offer the player the ability to influence the game with their decisions without worrying about the ramifications it may have on the wider world around it. Don’t get me wrong the game still pulls on established lore on key points but I think Obsidian knew this may have been an issue as they implemented a really cool codex/lore feature to utilize during dialogue segments to help you get integral context and backstory behind referenced names or events. I’ve never seen a feature implemented like this so it’s much appreciated and I hope other developers take cues from it in the future. The way the narrative juggles the political subplot of the Aederyn presence in the Living Lands along with the Dreamscourge and the mysterious god’s continuous interaction with you is a fairly sizable challenge which I don’t think deploys itself as cohesively as Obsidian might have hoped. These three key plotlines all revolve around one another but their presence doesn’t feel consistent until the later areas of the game in all honesty. I think in Obsidian’s attempt to intertwine so much of these plotlines together they end up edging the pacing somewhat too. I don’t want to dismiss any of the games core narrative intent though, because I get the desire of making these elements all relate to one another, but the payoff isn’t at all that cohesive by the time credits roll. I think the best elements of the game’s narrative comes from the side elements. There’s a lot of people you will come across in Avowed, all with their own dilemmas they are trying to face and your ability to engage and solve their problems produces some really good side stories to soak up. The best representation of these are the companions you come to recruit. With only 4 companions to recruit in the game, it is clear that Obsidian were able to flesh out each of these characters on a fundamental level and their personal quests were some of the best examples of Obsidian’s keen quality for crafting grounded and nuanced characters. Where the narrative and the gameplay interconnect however is through the choices you are presented with. As a mute character, you have the ability to respond to many dialogue situations with considerable range and options. This is a really key element of a good RPG experience as it allows the player to define their player character’s presence in the world on a deeper level. There’s so much personality layered into the dialogue system which I would be remiss to not acknowledge as it’s a key example of how dialogue options should be presented into these kind of RPG’s. The key takeaway though is the depth behind your choices in the game. I wasn’t exaggerating when I noted you will influence the world in big ways. Whether you intend to or not, you have to make critical decisions throughout the course of the story which have genuine ramifications on the state of these settlements you visit. One thing Obsidian get down so well in their games is the complexity and weight behind these decisions too. This isn’t like Mass Effect where it’s a good choice and a bad choice, the choices you are presented with in the game have good and bad ramifications either way and you need to decide what truly feels right based on your own justification. It’s stuff like this that really puts Obsidian ahead of other developers, because they truly get the potential behind player choice and the importance of weight behind it. When you’re not chatting away with the locals though, your primary form of engagement in the world will be through exploration. It has to be said, the depth and scale behind the games five central locations is very impressive. Obsidian really worked their butts off designing and rendering these locations to offer you so much reason to explore. A clear expectation of the player is we want to go off the beaten track and wander around. The difference between a good and bad game is how it rewards the player for doing so. Avowed rewards the player at every opportunity for their curiosity by offering them dungeons to explore, ruins to dive into, ridges to climb and throughout all of them are resources and gear to acquire which will ultimately help you towards developing and levelling up your character. I love how much of this game feels tailored to reward you for being curious although I wish it didn’t make it feel like a requirement to progress half the time. I think sometimes the games guilty of holding you up from moving onto the next area because of how much resource and XP is tied behind having to explore and build your character up. It helps I wanted to do this stuff, but for a player who’s maybe less inclined to dig so much time into exploring, it may have been appreciated with it being presented more as an option and less as a hard requirement. Combat is also a double-edged sword so to speak. I think the flexibility and options presented to you for combat is appreciated. Like with any good RPG game, you can tailor your character in terms of levelling and skills to be proficient in a lot of specific roles. You can be an axe-wielding warrior, an arrow flinging rogue or a storm calling mage, the game gives you all the choice to define how you wish to play. There’s a lot of potential behind the skills and gear you pick up too, giving you even more ways to individualize your playthrough and combat style specifically to how you like. My only gripe is with how unresponsive a lot of the combat feels. Don’t get me wrong, you attack an enemy you see their health drop, but you never feel like you’re actually hitting something that’s there. There’s not much in terms of response from enemies to the weight or speed of your attacks. Plus, I think the way the later enemies in the game can soak up a lot of damage but output even more onto you can come off as a bit unfair by the late stages of the game. It also comes back to the point that if you’re not forcing yourself to collect resources and upgrade your gear constantly, you’re going to get swamped continuously which can be frustrating. Visually the game also touts a very distinct and impressive art style. The environmental design alone warrants this game being given a go, because you’ll honestly be enamored by the impressive detail littered all throughout the games environments. I’ll never forget the first time I walked around Emerald Stair at night and witnessed the purple radiance of Fior mes Iverno lighting up the sky; or exploring the Garden and seeing the contortion of nature erupting all around me in a almost overwhelming beauty. It’s not just the world design either, it’s the many different races you’ll come to meet and the way their faces are able to express a range of emotions constantly during dialogue. Avowed’s original score also helps give a lot of personality and aura to the world with its very ambient tone and style, it’s a great all-around soundtrack from the YouTuber Venus Theory. Avowed may have a few weeds that stick their ugly heads up from time to time, but I think the wider expanse of its luscious garden makes a far bigger impression at the end of the day. It’s not a game which is going to redefine the landscape of RPG’s for many years to come, but all things considered it still stands tall as a genuinely impressive experience with a lot of content and depth to appreciate. If you’re not sure, it’s on Game Pass so you’ve got no excuse to give the game a try at the very least.