Avowed Review: The Fate Of The Living Lands Is In Your Hands

Avowed is the latest RPG from famed genre developer Obsidian Entertainment, taking inspiration from the team's more recent work, most notably Pillars of Eternity and its sequel, Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, with which Avowed shares its fantasy setting of Eora. It will rightly draw more comparisons to The Outer Worlds, though, and delightfully inherits some laudable aspects from the brilliant Pentiment, our 2022 Game of the Year.

In Avowed, you take on the role of an envoy, sent by the Aedyran Empire to a frontier continent known as the Living Lands to investigate the spread of a fatal, disastrous plague of the soul known as the Dreamscourge. You're a Godlike, touched at birth by a member of Eora's pantheon – except you don't know which god, an oddity among your blessed kind, who have largely vanished from the physical world prior to the events of Avowed. The Living Lands are themselves voraciously true to their name, a fungi-filled place seemingly opposed to the stubborn settlements that have eked out an existence in the last handful of centuries.

Avowed is a smartly and tightly designed RPG which affords the player a number of conveniences that make it easy to become ingrained in its world. Writing and world-building are particular strengths, both of which elevate the Envoy as a character ripe for actual, narrative roleplaying. Avowed can't avoid some terminal pitfalls of first-person RPGs, but its missteps are so minor compared to its triumphs that they're easily overlooked.

Avowed Leverages Its Setting For Incredible Roleplaying Opportunities

The Living Lands Is Home To Several Mysteries

Ancient ruins illuminated in pink by powerful magic.

Thanks to Pillars of Eternity, Avowed has plenty of built-in history, but it is cleverly sequestered on a new, untamed continent. The Living Lands are rife with intrigue, as is the main character. Intertwined and overlapping mysteries involve the source of the Dreamscourge, an ancient and extinct civilization, and the Envoy's patron deity, which all seep into more tangible issues involving the Living Lands' many settlements and their people. Being an Aedyran Envoy at first seems like it might limit roleplaying, but the complicated relationship it automatically creates with locals helps demonstrate early and often Avowed's best trait: you will make a lot of difficult decisions.

As the Envoy adventures all across the Living Lands, Avowed weaves a mature narrative that touches on many complicated societal subjects: imperialism, race relations, mono- and polytheism, rebellion, environmentalism, criminal justice and incarceration, and much more. For every ethical overture, there are many equally compelling, more personal crises to grapple with, including grief, forgiveness, unresolved trauma, familial disputes, service to one's community, ambition, and emotional growth. Obsidian's writing has long been celebrated, but Avowed grapples specifically with society and its participants' obligation to history and tradition in much the same, compelling way Pentiment does.

Avowed's Emotional Depth Comes Largely From The Envoy's Companions

Living Landers With Their Own Stories To Uncover

The Envoy's status as an outsider is balanced by four companions who call the Living Lands home. They are, unfortunately, a bit archetypal (cliché would be too strong of descriptor); they each have a strong personality that makes their opinions and stances largely predictable. It's a common issue with RPG companions, since there are only so many prompts and responses available in a virtual conversation. A similar sentiment can be levied at Avowed's main story – some of the revelations or major incidents become predictable before the characters figure them out. In both cases, however, any initial skepticism is overcome by surprising and genuine depth.

It's character writing that really carries Avowed through each of its main locales. Side quests feel almost necessary to level up and acquire better gear, but many interactions are charming or at least engaging enough that they never feel like a chore. In fact, many side quests tie directly into the main story, broadening the scope of major conflicts and introducing fascinating wrinkles that might factor into later decisions. The Envoy arrives in the Living Lands as someone with exceptional influence, and even in some of Avowed's smallest stories, that influence is felt, with your decisions as the player having real weight.

Smart Design Makes It Easy To Get Immersed In Avowed

A Tight Scope Means There's Very Little Excess

Avowed screenshot aiming down the barrel of an arquebus at an enemy.

Avowed skipped the opportunity to feature a fully open world, and I think it's much better off because of it. The game consists of multiple openly explorable zones, which cleverly align with its items' rarity tiers. For instance, by the time you get to the end of the first major region, Dawnshore, you'll be facing enemies who are balanced against items at the lower end of the second rarity tier. There's a very satisfying and gradual progression throughout Avowed's entire run, both in finding new weapons and armor, and in upgrading existing equipment.

All weapons are on the same power scale, so if you find a weapon you really like early on, you can continuously upgrade it until it reaches endgame strength.

There are ancillary systems like cooking and crafting, but they're streamlined and simple, so it always feels like Avowed knows what its strengths are; it wants you to get out there and talk to characters or investigate an ancient ruin. If modern open-world games have become partly defined by their bloat, Avowed is their antithesis. I put 60 hours into the game, doing nearly every side quest and bounty I could find, alongside a healthy dose of general exploration between quest markers, and it all felt like a genuinely good use of my time.

Combat Is Hampered By Common First-Person RPG Woes

Combat Isn't Especially Deep, Despite Surprisingly Fun Character Building

Avowed screenshot of a boss fight against an enemy called Sibelius.

Avowed is technically both a first- and third-person RPG, but I would consider the former to be something of the intended experience. It's fun to switch into third-person to admire my outfit and get a wider view of my surroundings, but combat especially becomes imprecise with that perspective. Unfortunately, melee fighting in first-person can feel laborious, even in spite of a suite of interesting abilities in the Fighter skill tree. Just like The Elder Scrolls games, first-person is simply too limiting when it comes to battlefield awareness, and Avowed doesn't feel like it was developed specifically for third-person combat the way a game like Elden Ring does.

I ultimately focused primarily on the Wizard skill tree, but had some fun with slight multiclassing via Ranger skills and a flintlock rifle, aka an arquebus. Magic felt the best combat-wise, and was also generally the most exciting. Dual-wielding wands gave me a good laugh, but a wand in one hand and a grimoire in the other is how I played most of the game. Grimoires let you essentially hotkey four spells that you could otherwise learn by spending a skill point in the Wizard tree. This way, I could sling basic attacks with my wand, and unleash more dramatic spells quickly.

Despite the shortcomings with combat, though, Avowed's weapon variety is commendable. Using grimoires as an example, there are many different types of each weapon: a grimoire exclusively focused on spells of a certain element, one designed to protect you and your squadmates in a support role, or one that gives you magical facsimiles of traditional melee and ranged weapons – a mace that replenishes Essence with each hit, a spear that deals explosive damage when you stab an enemy. Grimoires seem to have the most variety, but Unique melee weapons appear to be more common, providing a greater number of special attributes.

Alongside that weapon variety, though, is some tedium in the combat itself. Like a lot of similar RPGs, many Avowed enemies might be labeled as dreaded bullet sponges. There's also not necessarily a lot of thought that has to go into overcoming an encounter. Sure, there's some timing that goes into dodges, and you start to learn which enemies you should target first, but even using magic devolves into casting as many powerful spells as possible as soon as they're off cooldown, drinking an Essence potion whenever necessary. My strategy for every single boss fight was to use a companion ability to hold them in place for a few seconds while I spammed all the party's remaining skills, rinse, and repeat.

Enemy variety is another area of concern, even if Avowed has a better menagerie than The Outer Worlds. It's disappointing that the Living Lands boast a variety of different landscapes, but they're all populated by largely the same hostile creatures. To be fair, each category of enemy has plenty of permutations – Xaurips have priests, warchiefs, skirmishers, etc. – but there are very few surprises once you've reached the latter stages of the game.

Avowed may not be for you if you suffer from severe arachnophobia or entomophobia; giant spiders and beetles are common enemies in the Living Lands.

In the early stages of Avowed, getting used to how combat works and learning enemy strategies can make for a surprisingly difficult experience. It's not necessarily punishing, but Obsidian has given a second wind feature for a reason – it's easy to get overwhelmed if you position yourself poorly, and getting caught in a tight spot will drain your health quickly. Luckily, for those daunted by that prospect, liberal use of the command wheel can freeze combat and let you assess your situation. Despite my criticism regarding skill spamming, it is satisfying to pin multiple enemies in place with one companion before commanding my other teammate to unleash an AoE spell at the same time as me.

The Living Lands Are Gorgeous & Exploring Is A Treat

Take Some Time To Stop & Smell The Fungi

Traversing the Living Lands feels meaningful and often rewarding. The entire game is hand-made, and no two dungeons feel exactly alike, with hidden chests abound and environmental puzzles everywhere. Fast travel comes in handy, but I never felt like I was hopping all over the map just to complete a checklist. Aside from monetary and material gain, you can even be rewarded handsomely for a bit of curiosity. At one point, I decided to explore a cave I wandered by, got into a bit of a tussle inside, and I was pleasantly surprised to not only have my deeds therein be mentioned later, but find they had a tangible influence on the main story and the lives of many characters.

There are quite a few interactions like this, devoid of quest markers but essentially a hidden side quest. I started to learn that anytime someone I happened to pass by mentioned something, I should probably stop for a chat to see where it led. It also helps that Avowed is a stunning game, visually. The game world is just fun to traverse, with a good balance of encounters, puzzles, and even a healthy dose of platforming and climbing.

Final Thoughts & Review Score

Screen Rant Gives Avowed A 9/10

Avowed's shortcomings are ultimately minor in comparison to its strengths. While combat isn't especially engrossing, it's easy to overlook when the writing is so compelling and the game world so well-designed. Avowed owes a lot of its charm to Pillars of Eternity establishing Eora, but the novel elements it adds to the setting also help give it an oddly intriguing flavor and weirdness. Your character is an anomaly with fungal growths all over their face and hair, and you're investigating a plague that spreads between souls with a large reptilian man, a dwarf scared to return home, a tinkerer who powers her machines with souls, and a bright pink, flirtatious archaeologist.

The best part is Avowed presents it all genuinely and earnestly. The main story has dire stakes, but the central mystery is so long and winding that it's easy to accommodate the dozens of minor characters you can interact with along the way. You're not the main character rolling through town, solving minor squabbles as a side project; the Envoy is uniquely positioned to become entrenched in the societal and environmental issues that face the Living Lands, all of which contribute to the island continent's fate. Avowed's excellent writing doesn't let you easily choose a "good" or a "bad" path, but instead frequently asks you to really engage with and consider the options presented. Helping a companion grow sometimes requires some blunt, hard truths, and many major decisions operate entirely in morally gray areas.

Obsidian Entertainment is loved for its RPG pedigree, and Avowed is yet another feather in that cap. It's not going to dazzle with its combat (even if some of the effects are flashy), but it's a game that makes you think. It poses a lot of tough questions to the player as the Envoy of a colonial power, and it's largely up to you to determine how your influence is exerted. It's an arduous and surprising journey across the Living Lands to deal with the Dreamscourge, but Avowed is fascinating and delightful at every turn.