Obsidian Entertainment returns with a fantasy take on the RPG format it created with The Outer Worlds, but with middling results.

From the outside looking in, has a lot of hallmarks indicative of some of the fantasy RPG genre’s biggest titans. An eclectic cast of party members? Check. A beautiful land to explore? Absolutely. Various weapons and magical abilities to make doing it fun? You bet. Knowing that all the pieces are here to make Avowed a truly great entry into a pantheon that also includes the likes of , , and even developer Obsidian Entertainment’s own : New Vegas makes it even more disappointing that in several regards, it falls far short of nailing the finer details.

The studio’s latest isn’t a bad way to embark on the hero’s journey, by any means, but it’s definitely more irksome than necessary, feeling more like a rough draft as opposed to the shining gem it should – and needed to – be.

READ MORE:

READ MORE:

Starting off with what Avowed absolutely gets right, and the world of Eora’s Living Lands is utterly stunning. Though not a complete open world, its handful of biomes span deserts, forests, swamps and more to show off a diverse set of lands perfect for ticking off side missions, bounties, and the odd companion quest. What you do within them doesn’t change that much over the course of 30 or so hours, but almost all are oozing with enough character that this aspect is easy to forgive. Several times when trekking along a dirt path or sand road in search of my next objective did I find myself stepping back and rotating the camera around in awe at what passing landmark these lands next invited me into. From top to bottom, Eora is an engrossing place to be in.

Much like before it, Avowed is a great example of how placing detail within a focused number of hub-like areas can often be a better route to tackling a single-player RPG while maintaining a sensible scope. Not once while playing did I feel intimidated by the adventure laid out before me, and I was always left curious about where the story would take me next each time I stepped through a new door or off a dock’s edge. Though set in the same universe as Obsidian’s isometric RPG series, Pillars of Eternity, Avowed very much presents an identity all its own, not least due to the more intimate perspective, still using this connective DNA to its benefit as evidenced by the reams of rich lore and character littered around the corners of each map.

Avowed’s major fatal error, however, is, unfortunately, how progression is handled. Sure, there’s the usual handful of skill trees split into categories that help you mould your custom character to your liking, and levelling up earns you points you can place into attributes that can impact your effectiveness in both dialogue and battle. Where Avowed differs from its fantasy RPG peers is in how enemy strength isn’t directly tied to your level. Instead, how hard you can hit and how many hits you can take relates to the quality of your gear, which is split across four tiers: Common, Fine, Exceptional, and Superb. I can see how taking the emphasis off your explicit character level could lead to a more freeform approach to exploration and progression. In reality, though, gear being made so intrinsic to difficulty eventually grates enough to become Avowed’s chief annoyance, resulting in grindy battles and stilted narrative pacing.

Were levelling up your gear from one tier to another a relatively straightforward process, it wouldn’t be a problem, but Avowed makes it so that resources you need to upgrade them yourself back at camp are so scarce that gathering enough of them becomes a chore. Another option is to buy new gear at the level relative to the challenge you’re facing from shops, right? Even this becomes irksome, though, since prices are always extremely high. Your only choice, therefore, is to grind away at side quests and enemies in the pursuit of either buying new or upgrading your existing gear, in effect drawing you away from the core path, as your main mission of ridding the Living Lands of a mysterious virus called Dreamscourge is regularly stopped dead in its tracks. Fortunately, Avowed’s side missions are mostly wonderful. It’s just a shame that in a game where choices are meant to matter, a fairly crucial one is frequently taken away from you.

This one decision permeates almost all of Avowed’s other aspects too, with combat being a primary example. Overall, there are the makings of a fun system here. Being able to swap from spellcasting with a wand to popping off beetles using a rifle or straight-up dominating up close using a broadsword or a more traditional sword-and-board combo, there’s a lot of freedom to be had here when engaging in bouts. Combined with any available companion abilities and your own godlike magic skills, taking on bosses and enemy underlings can be intense and full of variety. That is, whenever your gear isn’t suddenly considered severely underpowered according to the new land you’re in, at which point your companions will constantly remind you to ‘equip new armour’ or ‘find a weapon that works’. Believe me, I wanted to. If only it wasn’t so much of a grind; let alone one I was endlessly berated for.

Sadly, even the companions themselves are a bit of a letdown. There’s only four in total to choose from, of which two can slot into your party at once. Each of them has a bespoke background and motivation that sounds great on paper but, in practice, makes them a bit boring to engage with. Because while the swashbuckling Kai is a great asset in battle due to his ability to brute force against enemies, and Giatta’s nature as an animancer makes her a core asset when wanting to revive the team, in direct contrast to The Outer Worlds, Avowed’s companions are a lot more straight-faced. The result is a lineup mostly devoid of any personality. Yatzli, the sprightly wizard, is the one exception to this rule, full of enough pluck and charming banter that made her a joy to have tag along.

Avowed is mostly sound from a technical perspective, but there were a few glitches related to quests I bumped into during my playthrough. One came early on when I was learning the basics of upgrading/enchanting weapons, and was tasked with plundering a local mill for resources. In the end, I wasn’t able to complete this side mission since one of the two final crafting materials simply failed to spawn. A similar instance happened again a few hours later, this time after facing off against a monstrous boss in his cave. You can only complete a bounty should you take a trophy back to the quest giver you took it from, you see, and this time, it failed to appear no matter how many times I loaded back in. This particular battle was no piece of cake either, so it was a frustrating glitch to see reoccur.

There’s no denying that there’s the makings of a great, less frustrating fantasy RPG locked somewhere deep in Avowed. The world it presents is beautiful and engaging, and the sheer level of weapon variety present can lead to some of the most flexible combat I’ve ever played from a first-person perspective. Full stop. However, beneath such flashy sights lay a deeply problematic and annoying approach to progression that grates more than it satisfies, which, when coupled with throwaway companions and a generic narrative, ultimately leads to a fun but frivolous RPG experience not indicative of Obsidian Entertainment’s best.