1.5/5 ★ – Lord_Hazenberg's review of Avowed.

Yeah this game sucks. Who would’ve thought the once venerable western RPG trio of BioWare, Bethesda, & now Obsidian would release 3 terrible games all within 2 years of each other. There will be story spoilers below, because I need to talk about how atrocious the writing is. I expected Outer Worlds with a fantasy skin over it, but I had no idea how much I would’ve rather gotten that than what Avowed ended up being. I played on the Series X with performance mode. Had 4-5 hard crashes and several visual bugs such as; missing textures, blurry NPC faces, & chickens moving in stop motion. It took me around 20 hours to beat the game & finish most of the side content. The gameplay is pretty average first person action game. Very similar to Dead Island or Dying Light controls. Companions have abilities to access hidden areas. Enemy encounters were very annoying though with many spawning out of thin air to keep fights going longer. At least normal difficulty was extremely easy, so I didn’t have to worry about getting stuck on anything and having to redo the terrible quests. RPG mechanics have been neutered to hell. NPCs cannot be interacted with outside of quest givers, so they don’t react to being hit because you phase through them. Stealth is pointless because there’s no stealing or pick pocketing, therefore there’s not even a crime system. Cities are barren with most buildings blocked off and almost no characters around besides merchants who all hang out right next to each other. You also cannot change your companions gear or appearance, so they’re borderline useless in combat the entire game. There’s no skills system either, so we’re back to Fallout 4 levels of stream lining with 1 perk point per level. Gear doesn’t have requirements either and you can respec from the inventory screen, so there’s zero consequences for your choices. With no skills means no speech checks either because there’s no charisma or speech stat. Speaking of the dialogue, good god almighty is it atrocious. I completely understand the Veilguard comparisons where you’re given 4 different flavors of agreeing with everyone, and the few chances you’re given to disagree the game scolds you for daring to question its omniscient writers. Unreal 5 must be a curse too because I have yet to play a good game made in that engine. The art style is an eye sore much like Outer Worlds, the voice acting sucks, & didn’t even notice a soundtrack. (STORY SPOILERS BELOW) Now for the story. It might be one of the worst “RPG” stories I’ve ever seen. Found out the director & entire writing staff were all liberal white women and goddamn does it show. You’re an emperors envoy sent to assist in curing a plague on a wild continent that your empire is colonizing. The game uses that prompt to then treat you as a villain simply for existing. So many dialogue choices are boot licking pussified apologies to all of the racist NPCs who hate you for having the audacity to tell them that getting torn apart by wild lizards is worse than being governed by a white guy. So naturally I agreed with the “villains” every chance I could, because this game has the preachiest & most insufferable bunch of douche bags for a cast I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting. Your two male companions are weak cowards whose problems you have to solve, meanwhile the two female ones are highly respected and the best in the fields when you meet them. All they do the entire game is bitch at you, and you can’t get rid of them until the last 5 minutes of the game if you pick the “evil” route. Instead you have to pick the dialogue options to apologize for existing. Your first “big” choice is confronting your killer (a rebel fanatic opposing your empire) after you died in a cutscene earlier in the game. The game’s excuse to try & guilt you into sparing him you ask? He saw your face in a dream before he killed you, and then the game tells you he’s changed & won’t hurt you again. So I killed the moron, and am met with the message of “You chose war instead of peace. Blood demands blood.” As the “good guy rebels” proceed to hang an innocent NPC you saved in the tutorial. They literally cannot even follow their own logic, because blood was repaid when I killed my killer. But then they kill again and you never see the rebels again. You aren’t even given the opportunity to retaliate because how dare you not play the game how the writers wanted you to. There’s the non binary female goddess that your character is forcefully attached to for the entire game, so the devs could rip off BG3’s dream visitor plot. She represents the land itself as its fighting back against the evil white man and his armies, and by fighting I mean turning everyone into mindless mushroom monsters. This game has the audacity to pretend she’s a good guy by the way. Finally there’s the best side quest in the game. Smuggling in illegal fantasy abortion herbs for a prostitute. I tried to turn her in to the governor, but the game won’t let you. Your male companion scolds you and you’re given new dialogue options that all agree with abortion. And then your thanked at camp later by the same companion where you are once again forced to say how great abortion is. Then it turns out later in the game, that companion is gay! Big shock. The guy who won’t procreate loves it when women kill babies, and he’s written by the director of the game so he constantly spouts what the game wants you to do. What a joke of a game. (END OF STORY SPOILERS) TLDR; I played this game for free off a Microsoft rewards month of game pass, and I want a refund. Avowed isn’t just bad, it’s insulting. It feels malicious whereas Starfield felt incompetent. Forcing the writers preachy beliefs down your throat, then chastising you when you don’t follow their script. All taking place in an ugly, empty world that took 6 years to make.