Three Early Impressions: Avowed

I discovered something interesting when I went back and looked at my “most anticipated games” lists I’ve done the past few years.

At the start of 2024, Avowed was my #8 most anticipated game of the year. Midway through 2024, I said it was my #9 most anticipated game for the rest of 2024. The game was then moved to 2025. I ended up listing it as my #13 most anticipated game of 2025. I think this roughly encapsulates how I tend to feel about Obsidian games. They aren’t really earth-shattering games for me, but they always deliver really solid experiences. They are basically an 8/10 machine. They are a great developer, but it has been a long time since they released something that I would consider in my top 5 games of any particular year.

Despite the fact that I was still playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, I was excited enough for Avowed that I wanted to experience it, so I jumped in when it officially released last week. Thus far, I feel like my expectations were mostly in line with what I have experienced. I am having a very good time playing Avowed. This is a very solid experience in so many ways. The only thing that is surprising to me is that the good elements of the game are not things that I would normally expect as much from Obsidian, and the weaker elements of the game are things I’d generally expect better of from an Obsidian RPG. I’m roughly 1/4th of the way through the game, and this seems set to be yet another 8/10 from Obsidian, and that is certainly not a bad thing. Here are my three biggest impressions from the game so far.

The Best First Person Open World/Zone RPG Combat Since Cyberpunk 2077

First-person RPGs aren’t exactly known for having stellar combat. I didn’t care for the combat in Outer Worlds all that much. Starfield was OK for a Bethesda game, but it’s still not that great when compared to many others. I do not like the combat in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II either. Obviously, there is plenty of great first-person combat out there, but it just doesn’t tend to come within the games that are true blue RPGs. People still play Skyrim today despite some terrible combat. The combat doesn’t need to be the focus in a game like this for people to love it.

So, I am pleasantly surprised to say that Avowed has my favorite first-person combat in this genre since the outstanding Cyberpunk 2077. There is so much cool stuff here. Avowed feels much more combat focused than any past Obsidian game that I’ve played, and I think that the confidence they have in this system is a big reason why.

First off, the game gives you a very nice array of options. There are plenty of different melee weapons, and then if you want to go ranged, there are bows, guns, and magic. Best of all, you can fast swap between two loadouts so you can approach different situations in different ways. I am mostly focused on magic, but I have a melee loadout I swap to if enemies close in on me.

I am usually someone who leans on melee in games like this. I’m just more comfortable with it, and it tends to feel best to me. I also don’t like when I’m focused on a ranged build in some games and then have to deal with limited options when enemies get close to me. But every clip of the magic I saw in the build-up to the game looked really fun, so I went with a magic build this time around. I’m really happy that I did so.

The basic magic attacks feel very snappy and impactful. Much more than you’d expect. The feel of using magic actually reminds me a lot of Hogwarts Legacy, which has its issues, but the basic attacks with magic felt pretty good in that game. From there, you have other spells you can use by either equipping a spell book or by learning them “innately” through a skill tree. The skills so far are pretty basic, but they all feel great to use. The sound design and impact animations when you rain icicles on your foes or blast a giant fireball at them are all excellent. I’m having a lot of fun with it. I have not focused as hard on the melee, but it has similar strengths with both sound design and animations.

My only issue with the combat so far is that the evasion mechanics are fairly awkward. Evasion and jump are tied to the same button. When you are moving forward, it works as a jump, and if you move to the side or backward, it works as a dodge. I’ve had quite a few times where I was trying to dodge to the left or the right, and it ended up not working. It was likely because I was pushing the joystick forward a touch while I tried to go sideways, but this is not an issue I have with most games. I really don’t love how this works. A lot of the battlefields are quite crowded, especially in the city, so I’m always running into things I don’t see as well because of the first-person view. I was actually initially using a gun and magic, but the evasion mechanic being kind of cumbersome was what inspired me to switch to a melee weapon and a shield for my second loadout.

I will also say that I turned the difficulty of the game up to hard after the first few hours. The game doesn’t scale with your level (which I’m happy with), but doing this means I have come across some encounters that were dang near impossible when I was earlier on in the game. I am actually a big fan of this, as it was really rewarding to come back and be able to smash those foes after they wrecked me early on.

I remember Avowed getting criticized for spending too much time talking about its combat in some of the previews they did months before the game came out. Now that I’ve played the game, I understand why they went this route Combat is the shining star of Avowed, and one of the big things that allows it to stand out from the crowd, including the newly released Kingdom Come: Deliverance II.

The Story And Characters Aren’t Really Doing It For Me

Avowed takes place in the world of Eora. This world was established by the two Pillars of Eternity games from Obsidian. I never played those games, and I wonder if someone who is already familiar with the lore of this world would be more interested in the story right off the bat. But in my 10 hours in or so, almost nothing about the game’s plot has really pulled me in.

The game tries to throw several plot hooks at you to get you invested in the early going. You are investigating the “Living Lands” in Eora to investigate the origin of the “dreamscourge,” which is a plague that is infesting the continent. There is also a voice in your head that begins to talk to you, and one other thing that I don’t want to spoil. The last plot hook that I’m not spoiling takes place about two hours into the game, and it is the one thing that I was mildly interested in. It seems like it has already been (mostly) resolved by the end of the first area, though. The other two plot threads just haven’t drawn me in. The “voice in your head” plotline is almost always overly cryptic and genuinely annoying. This voice in your head constantly stops you for conversations that go absolutely nowhere. I’m finding myself skipping through these segments the more I play.

I will say that I am slowly getting a little invested in the politics of the world the more I play. I give Avowed a lot of credit for doing its darndest to allow those of us who aren’t familiar with the world of Eora to jump into it as quickly as possible. Whenever any faction or concept gets mentioned in dialogue, there is a screen you can pull up to look up definitions at any time. It is very helpful. The way the people of the Living Lands perceive the Aedyrans (the area you are from) and the politics of different factions from Aedyr is the one thing I’ve enjoyed so far.

There are also elements of choice present throughout the game, as you’d expect from Obsidian. I haven’t encountered anything earthshattering here yet, but there’s been a few cool choices, and one in particular that has been referenced several times since I made it at the end of the first zone. It remains to be seen how this will alter the story, though.

I also am really not a fan of the silent protagonist. After playing other big RPGs with player choice in Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, it’s jarring to select a conversation option and not hear any dialogue after. It makes my character not feel real at all in a way that bugs me.

We will see how things develop, but as I enter the second zone, I am relatively pessimistic that the story is going to turn around for me. It’s fortunate that most of the other elements of the game are as solid as they are because the story has been a big bummer so far.

Avowed Is The Assassin’s Creed Game I Didn’t Know I Needed

Avowed is clearly inspired by plenty of past Obsidian games. Many people would look at this game from afar and assume it is also inspired by Skyrim, even though the game is actually way different from Skyrim in too many ways to count.

In reality, Avowed is much more inspired by Assassin’s Creed or Dying Light than Skyrim in some ways. I did not expect Avowed to have parkour elements, but it does, and they are actually quite fun.

The first “zone” in Avowed is really not big at all. I don’t think it would take more than a few minutes to run in a straight line from one end of the map to the other. But it’s not that simple, as Avowed is absolutely packed with secrets. Many of those secrets are hidden with verticality. There are dozens of ledges and other things that you can climb in this game. Whenever you see a ramp that lets you jump to another ledge, or whenever you see a tower in the distance, odds are, you can parkour your way around and find a chest at the end of that path.

This creates a lot of situations for organic exploration with meaningful rewards attached to them. Outside of leveling up, one of the easiest ways to get stronger in Avowed is to upgrade your gear. So, finding chests with upgrade material is always very satisfying and fun.

Occasionally the verticality and general twistiness of the maps can make getting to objectives a little annoying, but it’s a very fair trade off for being able to see something in the distance, deciding to explore it, and then finding great loot. Avowed is the definition of being not big but dense. I barely notice or care that the areas in the game aren’t very large when there’s so much to find everywhere I go. They really nailed this, and I would love to see this continued to be expanded on in a potential sequel.

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As of this article, I just got into the second of what appears to be four zones in the game. Thus far, I think the gameplay is more than good enough to offset some of my disappointments with the story in particular. I always like to joke that Obsidian is an 8/10 machine, and Avowed appears to be right in that 8 zone for me yet again. I can’t see myself going much lower than a 7.5 with how good the core systems are, but I also can’t really see myself going over an 8.5 with the story being pretty lackluster for me so far. It seems like a no-brainer to play on Game Pass for anyone who likes this type of game. I’ll have a full review when I finish!