I’m currently deep into Avowed, and am really loving it.
One thing to remember with the rush of day-one reviews is that the reviewer is often rushing through content as quickly as possible in order to get the review written in time, and I’ve found that a lot of the reviews for this game have suffered because of this.
For me, it’s a triumphant expansion of the Pillars world, and a deft translation from traditional CRPG to first-person action (certainly much more successful and thoughtful than Betheda’s “Oblivion with Guns” approach to Fallout).
Mechanically, the two games that feel most similar to it are The Outer Worlds and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, but Avowed feels more… accomplished than either.
Combat is weighty and satisfying, with great feedback, a definite step up from The Outer Worlds and more in-depth than Veilguard.
And while a lot of reviews have stressed that the game isn’t strictly speaking “open world”, this is splitting hairs as far as I’m concerned. Each of the main areas is absolutely massive and densely packed, and would be considered open world in their own right if they were each a game unto themselves.
Narratively, it’s very much in-line with the excellent writing already established in the Pillars universe. Writing it off as you being the chosen one with an “irresponsible amount of authority” is almost entirely missing the point.
The Godlike have always been an intriguing part of the Pillars universe, and the story surrounding your character and their relationship with the world is compelling, especially if you’re already familiar with how gods, souls, magic and religion work in this universe.
They’ve also very carefully translated their RPG mechanics from the Pillars games to Avowed, maintaining a lot, if not all of the flavour, while making them work in a more action-oriented game.
To be honest, I think there are things that actually work better in Avowed than in the previous games, such as area-of-effect and most importantly, consumables such as potions, food and grenades.
Often in the Pillars games (and CRPGs in general), consumables will just sit in my inventory taking up space, as I save them for difficult fights, then end up never actually using them.
But in Avowed, thanks to how easy and immediate they are to use, I am constantly taking advantage of them, and they have noticeable effects on the outcomes of fights (at least on Hard difficulty; I’ve heard they’re less consequential on Normal.)
Finally, based on the strength of the story in Avowed, I’m already planning to replay the Pillars games as a Godlike, as it has reignited my interest in the setting.
There’s lovely little narrative touches for previous Pillars enjoyers, where NPCs gossip about the events of the previous games, but get various aspects wrong (allowing for the multiple possible outcomes of those games to essentially be “cannon” in Avowed all at the same time), or dismiss them outright as being unbelievable (such as Deadfire centering around the god Eothas manifesting in the form of a Kaiju-sized statue of living Adra and stomping through the archipelago, sucking up the souls of those he stomps through on the way to his destination.)
It helps reinforce the idea of this setting lacking any form of widely accessible instant communication, while also hammering home the interesting idea that while your character from those games felt like they were saving / destroying the world, nobody on this side of Eora knows who they are/were, and widely dismisses their accomplishments as wild fantasy.
It does have its issues, such as a dumbed-down companion system in combat that is only marginally better than that of Veilguard, and companions who comment on the last mission like they were there when you actually chose to leave them in camp.
But overall, this is a stellar RPG, and shows Obsidian really finding their feet in the 3D action RPG space.
I only hope it doesn’t mean that this is the last we’ve seen of their more traditional CRPGs such as Pillars and the criminally ignored Tyranny.
There’s part of me that hopes that Microsoft saw the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 and realise they have a studio that could deliver tham a similar success story. But at the same time, I’m also aware that they appeared confused by how successful BG3 was.
A new Tyranny with the interactivity of BG3’s world and the more established and experienced writing team of Obsidian would be sublime.
