Avowed Review: Immersive world with immense replay value
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was easily the most I’ve fun I’ve had with an Xbox-promoted title. That’s why Avowed was something I was looking forward to, primarily because it is an Obsidian Entertainment game. And yes, I thoroughly enjoyed The Outer Worlds so another Carrie Patel game was right up my alley. There are remnants of TOW scattered throughout Avowed albeit in subtle ways. More on that later.
I’ll admit, I’m not familiar with the game's source material (Pillars of Eternity), but that didn’t stop me from putting a few hours into it. I tried to cover as much side content as I could in my first play through, but despite my best efforts, I missed some parts. Avowed has a ton of replayability and with one run under my belt, the second one will go down a lot easier. So, does it live up to the hype? Let’s find out.
Performance
As is the case with every Unreal Engine game, Avowed will push your system to its limits. On my rig with a Ryzen 7 5800X3D, GeForce RTX 3080 Ti with 48 GB DDR4-3200 CL 16 RAM, my FPS hovered at between 40 and 60 FPS at one rung below max settings with DLSS quality enabled. Occasionally, there were frame drops in crowded areas, but this is to be expected of an open-world game.
Frame drops aside; I witnessed a fair few crashes during my 20-hour stint. Thankfully, Obsidian was quick to acknowledge the issue and promised a fix at launch. One of them was during the dreaded ‘shader compilation’ portion found on just about every Unreal Engine game. At the time of writing this review, detailed PC system requirements have been revealed, but based on my experience so far, Avowed should run easily on lower-end systems with some compromises.
I tried running the game on my Steam Deck OLED, and it wasn’t playable by any measure. Even at the lowest settings, I was struggling to maintain even 30 FPS. Perhaps this will change with the day-one patch scheduled on Feb 13 or the next one on Feb 17. Plus, the game lacks a dedicated benchmarking tool that, once again, feels out of character for a game launched in 2025. And no Photo Mode. Not that I care for it too much, but it’s odd to see a game ship without one.
Story
In Avowed, you wake up in the middle of a desert with no idea about how you got there. Later, a doctor wakes you up and starts calling you Courier. Just kidding. But the actual story isn’t too far off. You wash up on a beach after your ship sinks and then fight your way through the tutorial section and square off against what I liked to call a bargain bin Soldier of Godrick.
With that out of the way, you enter the Living Lands where your job is to figure out the cause of a mysterious plague (Dreamscourge) that causes people to hallucinate and look fungus-y. As an emperor’s envoy and a ‘Godlike’ being, you’re instantly recognized and asked to see a local commander, after which the plot truly begins to unravel itself once you die and come back to life. All along the way, you have a nagging voice in your head that speaks to you in riddles.
A good chunk of the first act is spent tracking down your assassins. Act 2 is one of the more forgettable one story-wise, but there’s one series of side quests you absolutely cannot miss. Throughout the game, there are plenty of side quests to keep you occupied for hours. Plus, some rewards are too good to pass on. I’d go as far as saying that you can’t rush the main story because of the sheer amount of EXP lost by avoiding non-essential content. And some side quests even influence the game state/ending later on. In conclusion, don’t skip them. While most of them are marked on a map, some aren’t, so make sure you talk to every NPC you can find.
Because Avowed already has an established setting, there’s a ton of lore scattered around for nerds to pore through. In most segments, the game maintains a strict medieval RPG tone, but it has its light moments and a healthy dose of smutty one-liners. Those who played The Outer Worlds will feel right at home. Right before the credits roll, you’re shown the consequences of your actions via a hand-drawn presentation with a narrator.
Gameplay
Avowed has an elaborate character creation screen with dozens of customization options for just about everything. If you want to make your character look a certain way, you can easily spend hours tinkering around. Outside of character creation, there are a ton of customization options everywhere. You can even switch off everything in the HUD and play it Morrowind style for max immersion.
Strictly speaking, Avowed has only three classes. But you can pick one of five backgrounds, which gives you unique stats and dialogues. Moreover, you get unique ‘Godlike’ abilities as you progress through the game. Once again, this depends on your play style, dialogue choices and story path. Unlike other RPGs where you have to pick one path and commit to it, Avowed lets you switch between classes with relative ease. Stats and skills can be re-specced on the fly, even in the midst of a heated battle. That, combined with a quick-save and quick-load option, lets you save scum your way through even the most difficult dialogue checks.
I liked the game's approach to exploration. Instead of letting you prance through the whole map at once, the Living Lands are segmented into regions that are unlocked with story progression. This incentivized me to maintain a balance between story and side content because after a point, there’s literally nothing to do in an area. But you can easily spend a dozen-odd hours in a single region because there’s plenty to explore, and some hidden items are really difficult to find without a guide. Keep your ear out for audio cues because one play if there is a treasure nearby. Makes the loot acquisition part easier.
The map scaling for each area put me off because in-game distances are way shorter than shown on the map. And, for some odd reason, Avowed doesn’t let you put your own markers on the map, which is…odd for an open-world game. Myself and others have asked the developers to add it as a QoL upgrade and I sincerely hope it gets tacked on to the above-mentioned day-one patch.
Lastly, some of the game’s platforming felt off. Somehow, the player managed to grab ledges that looked otherwise unreachable. This isn’t a bad thing because it gives your more leeway to explore, something you’ll be doing a lot. But hey, you don’t lose stamina for sprinting.
Combat
Avowed lets you experience the Living Lands in first or third-person, with a dedicated key to toggle between them. Personally, I’m a fan of the latter, but some veteran RPG players might prefer the former. My inner Souls-like fan scoffed at the idea of creating a magic/ranged character, so I picked up the biggest stick I could find and started bonking everyone with it.
That worked well in the early game, until it didn’t. Now, this is just my opinion, but I found melee combat to be somewhat underwhelming.
Even on easy mode, I couldn’t one-shot many trash mobs even with an upgraded weapon. As always, your mileage may vary, it being a role-playing game and all. That, of course, changed when I gave up my bonk stick for a rifle. Ranged combat with the right companions (more on that later) trivializes even the most annoying of bosses.
Weapons and armour come in five tiers (Quality). You start out at ‘Common’ and end up at ‘Legendary’. Pay attention to the icon above enemies’ heads because that will suggest what tier of weapon/armour you require to deal with them. For example, if you attempt to kill a ‘Fine’ enemy with a ‘Common’ weapon, you will hit like a wet noodle. Similarly, you’ll take more damage from higher tier enemies than your armour. This mechanic also carries over to spell casting, and you’ll need to keep leveling up your favourite spells.
An item’s tier determines how much damage it does/bocks/reduces. Then there are ‘unique’ items that come with special properties. Their progression system is identical to that of regular weapons. If you found a nice unique weapon in the early game you liked, you can hold on to it until the end by upgrading its quality, although after one point, you’re better off reserving upgrade materials for more potent gear.
Companions
Adventuring alone is hard and in a game like Avowed, you really could use someone to make your Living Lands journey a tad more exciting. You start off the game with some random schmuck whose only job is to lead you to Kai, the first ‘real’ companion. Kai is your generic goody two shoes type, Marius is the Stoic dwarf who as seen stuff and is okay with morally dubious choices, Giatta is your healer archetype who just wants to nerd out, and finally, Yatzli is your DPS wizard.
Kai instantly reminded me of Sarah Morgan from Starfield. And not in a good way. He’s the party tank with the ability to revive himself when he dies. Super useful if you want someone to soak up damage. Giatta’s suite of healing spells comes in handy when you’re out of healing items. Marius has excellent single-target burst and an AoE disable. Of the four, I found Yatzli’s spells to be the most effective because they synced pretty well with my build.
At a time, you can have only two companions with you, with the remaining staying back at camp. That’s where you can engage in conversation with them, and depending on your actions in some quests, even unlock some passive bonuses. Each companion boosts a different stat, so keep an eye out for any pending dialogue prompts on your screen. Interestingly, you can’t romance any of your companions, which is, once again, odd for an RPG of this genre.
Your companions aren’t the silent type and will keep pestering you with prompts mid-combat and offer unsolicited advice in the midst of puzzles. It is technically possible to venture solo, but I really wouldn’t recommend that because Avowed is designed with team play in mind.
As a fantasy RPG, Avowed is up there with the greats. It has a ton of replay value, the story, and lore are engaging, and there’s plenty of scope for expansion. But, from a technical standpoint, it is somewhat lacking. Its crafting feels shallow and unrewarding. Raw materials gathered in the wild are good for only two things: instant consumption or food items. There are just two tiers of gear, with very little incentive to use non-unique items. Gear crafting is completely non-existent. I could go on, but Avowed lacks the depth of a proper RPG.
Obsidian clearly put a lot of love into the lore and storytelling, and I really wish that much effort went into other parts of the game. And that’s the difference between a good game and a great game. Avowed is good, but not quite great. It feels like a game from 2011 with modern-day elements baked in. Now, that isn’t necessarily bad, but it lacks many quality-of-life features from both eras. Still, it is worth experiencing at least twice just for the plot and storyline. You can play it on Xbox Game Pass starting on February 17 or later today if you get the Deluxe Edition.
Source(s)
Own
