In a similar way to how Obsidian's The Outer Worlds played very closely to a space-faring Fallout, Avowed sticks closely to the sensibilities of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Its fantasy world isn't as expansive and seamlessly stitched together, but you'd be forgiven for confusing the two at a glance, especially when you're engaged in its first-person combat. Avowed lifts some of the best aspects of the seminal RPG and improves them, especially when it comes to its refined combat. These changes extend to a move away from traditional leveling in favor of a gear-focused approach, as well as the option to experiment with wild weapon combinations. But not all of Avowed's experiments are successes, leading to an uneven role-playing adventure that surprises as much as it frustrates.
Washing up on the shores of the Living Lands, you play as one the Godlike: a select few kissed by the grace of a god at birth and left with some distinct (and sometimes frightening) facial features to show for it. On a mission from a distant monarch whose influence within the Living Lands has many of its inhabitants up in arms, your job is to track down the source of a plague that's turning the land's people into mindless, bloodthirsty creatures, before it manages to make it back home. Although it is set in the same universe as Pillars of Eternity, Avowed does a good job of immediately siloing you into an area that requires little knowledge of what is happening across the ocean, but does reference some historical events from time to time. A glossary of important names and places is available as they're brought up in conversation, providing a handy guide that contextualizes some attitudes characters have to certain factions and events around you.
Avowed makes a strong initial impression, quickly establishing your Godlike status but with the odd quirk of being the first not to know which god chose you. This isn't the main purpose of your mission, but that changes after a surprising event in the early hours of the game that sets the stage for a more intriguing answer to the plague ravaging the Living Lands. This setup is ultimately squandered, however, with the two big narrative hooks coalescing with one another in routinely expected and uninteresting ways, making the broader strokes of the story largely forgettable. The conversational writing does have its moments of charm, with equally serious and snarky retorts letting you inject some levity into otherwise dire situations with great comedic effect. But the severity of the plague you're trying to stop and the personal journey of finding out why you're the only Godlike without a god is not as captivating as it could be, taking steps along a narrative path that rarely deviates into surprising avenues.
Your choices shape parts of the world around you and dictate some directions the story goes, and these do manifest in some interesting ways. A character I saved from a cell in the first hour of the game reappeared hours later to help me complete another side quest without having to pay a large sum of money or resort to violence. The reappearance was surprising but natural, slotting a character into a pack of bandits that would've otherwise been a problem if not for me showing some compassion hours earlier.
Another instance saw me also avoiding a confrontation by playing some side quests in a specific order, with the conclusion of one (and the choice I made at the end of it) unlocking some dialogue options in a latter part of the chain that guided the conversation down an amicable path. These moments stand out particularly because of how naturally they occur, giving your actions a sense of place in the world without having to signpost instances where your choices may or may not matter. This applies to the main quest too, albeit with more distinct black-and-white choices. These are clear forks in the road that determine reactions from characters around you, but their binary nature makes them less elegant (and thus, less interesting).
Core to some of Avowed narrative failings are its uninteresting companions. Kai, the first you encounter in the game's opening hour, joins your plight after little more than an introductory conversation, and very quickly is devoted to the cause without enough time to establish why. Others, like the animancer Giatta and quirky mage Yatzli, have more recognizable motivations when joining your party, but none of the four in total stand out as particularly interesting or complex. They're far more exciting in what they bring to the experience in terms of combat and abilities, but never manage to drum up the same interest in their backstories and evolving relationship with your character.
Avowed moves you between a handful of hubs throughout its narrative, which are all visually varied and stunning to look at. The inviting forestry and idyllic coasts of Dawnshore contrast the desolate deserts of Shatterscarp, with eye-catching pops of color and warm lighting inviting you to take in the sights around you. These areas act as large hubs that you can explore freely once unlocked, each with their own faction-aligned city to explore, side quests to undertake, and secrets to uncover. Getting around in Avowed is surprisingly satisfying thanks to a keen sense of verticality to exploration. It leverages a simple, yet effective, platforming system that lets you reliably make daring jumps and last-ditch lunges towards an inviting ledge to mantle up onto. This is emphasized by some straightforward but nonetheless fun platforming puzzles strewn around the map, often with either interesting loot or great views at the end. Avowed eschews the janky platforming of its influences with something that feels more purposeful, and its world is designed incredibly well to support it.
Avowed lifts some of the best aspects of the seminal RPG and improves them ... but not all of Avowed's experiments are successes, leading to an uneven role-playing adventure that surprises as much as it frustrates
This sense of refinement translates to Avowed's combat, which again feels like an improvement over its clear influences. You're offered a variety of options when building your offensive arsenal, from standard swords and shields to dual-wielding magical grimoires and elemental muskets. Avowed entices experimentation with numerous weapons by offering two loadouts that can be swapped between at any time, letting you switch from up-and-close slashes to ranged spellcasting with the press of a button. Action feels crunchy and impactful, too: An axe feels like it's burying itself into the enemies at the unfortunate end of your swings, while magical explosions shower the screen with eye-catching effects that emphasize their power. Slight pauses when executing powerful finishers (once you've whittled down an enemy's stamina bar) lets you revel in the violence, even if other actions such as parrying don't feel as tightly animated and satisfying to consistently pull off. Combining your unlockable abilities with the varied ones companions bring to the table gives combat a layer of complexity that is satisfying to engage with.
The feedback that combat offers entices you to see how each weapon type works and looks in a skirmish, which makes it surprising that so few are found in chests, offered as quest rewards, or just lay strewn around the map. Merchants offer opportunities to purchase new weapons but at heavily inflated prices, forcing you to use what you're lucky enough to get your hands on. It's fun to make some combinations work--using a sword and pistol makes for exciting combat that lets you deal lots of damage but forces you to evade a lot too--but ability upgrades stifle that, encouraging you instead to prioritize specific weapon types. These upgrades are ones you'd find in a traditional RPG where you're building toward a specific build, rather than ones that encourage you to make weird but interesting combinations work. It's difficult to make some of Avowed's most-interesting combinations synergize when it's far more effective to stick to one-handed weapons and buff their damage and critical chances, instead of spreading your limited ability points across multiple types that make you a jack of all trades.
Worse still is the imbalance in Avowed's progression that further reduces your options when constructing a viable class. Instead of scaling enemies with traditional numerical levels, foes are instead defined by the tier of gear they're wearing. In order to take on more challenging enemies, which come thick and fast as you progress from one hub to another, you need to continually upgrade your own equipment. The big problem is just how scarce most crafting materials are, making it difficult to keep just one piece of armor and two weapons up to date with the enemy scaling around you. Merchants are equally greedy with materials as they are with new weapons, giving you few options to continue trying to get your existing equipment to a new, higher tier or expediting the process with a new weapon entirely. This further pushes you into focusing on just one weapon type and class, to the point where the second loadout became completely irrelevant before I found myself halfway through my journey.
Although doing side-quests help with accruing money, quest rewards do little to help with the grind for materials. For the most part the payouts don't put a dent in the large price tags on the most-exclusive offerings from merchants, while equipment rewards rarely fill the gap. Finding a weapon with unique attributes is often a bittersweet one, given how hard it is to pivot from your existing loadout that you've already committed to upgrading and potentially restarting that process at your current tier with new gear. You can choose to respec for a flat fee, letting you rebuild your class around a new, higher tier weapon, but you have to be equally careful doing this too given how difficult it is to accrue a meaningful gold balance. Even if you prioritize side quests and as much optional content as possible in each of Avowed's hubs, it's never nearly enough to prevent your companions from screaming the same barks during combat pleading with you to upgrade your armor and weapons to survive.
It turns the impactful combat into drawn-out skirmishes where you're vulnerable to a quick flurry of attacks while slowly chipping away at an enemy. Large groups become incredibly dangerous when even just one or two enemies are a few gear levels above your own due to the time it takes to dispatch them and how easily they can flatten you. Combat encounters also scale in a manner that suggests you should be keeping up with ease, as larger waves flood skirmishes and quickly overwhelm you and your two companions in tow. Checkpoints are not as forgiving as you might expect, sometimes throwing you back multiple encounters that you might have tediously slogged through just to have to suffer through them again. These hurdles were prevalent on the game's default Normal difficulty setting, with a total of five to choose from at any time. I tested what impact knocking things down to Easy had and although it improved my odds at survival in many late-game battles, it still didn't alleviate the tedium of whittling down enemies with vastly superior gear. Avowed doesn't owe you a straightforward power fantasy, but it is woefully balanced currently, to the point of persistent frustration.
On multiple fronts, Avowed holds so much promise that it struggles to follow through on. While its combat feels impactful and gives you options to experiment with, it's hamstrung by an overall reliance on gear upgrades and scarce resources that prevent you from fully enjoying the creative freedom it initially advertises. Its world is fun to explore and navigate, but its story fails to wrap this in a captivating tale with a satisfying conclusion. It's an experience that routinely swaps between exhilarating moments and frustrating slogs, and often leans towards the latter the closer you get to the game's climax. Avowed might present itself as the new age of the fantasy role-playing games that it borrows so much from, but it's unlikely to have the same lasting impact.
