Avowed, for all its virtues, didn’t make the best first impression on me. While it’s been obvious for a long time that the game would lean into some goofy inclinations, I still found myself somewhat taken aback by the tone at the start. Rather than capturing the darkly comic absurdity ofFallout: New Vegas, one of the defining titles fromAvoweddeveloper Obsidian Entertainment, I felt like I had been thrust into a world closer toHorizon Zero Dawnor what I imagineDragon Age: The Veilguardto be (I haven’t played it, so I’m almost certainly being unfair).Warning: The following article includes spoilers for Avowed.Whether that sensibility is good or bad is a matter of taste, but it immediately felt out of place to me in Eora. It’s been a while since I’veplayedPillars of Eternity, which takes place in the same world, but I remember its characters feeling like appropriate parts of a rich fantasy setting, not people I could encounter at Starbucks. As I approachAvowed’s conclusion, however,I’m happy to admit that the writing has won me over, and I’m slowly convincing myself that it was an intentional gambit all along.
Fantasy Writing Needs To Set Itself Apart
Avowed Doesn’t Immediately Feel Like A Convincing World
To some degree, trying to write a fantasy world that doesn’t sound like our modern reality is a fool’s errand. No one can completely divorce themselves from their linguistic and cultural context, and it wouldn’t be a particularly noble goal even if they could. Even if it comes with a helping of escapism,fantasy is a great place for social commentary, and there’s no reason that medieval and Renaissance inspiration should prevent a healthy dose of modern sensibilities.Baldur’s Gate 3is a good example of splitting the difference to mostly consistent success.
Avowed Map Size Compared To Baldur’s Gate 3 & Other Major RPGs
Avowed is the latest RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, but it opts not to use a contiguous open-world map, making comparisons difficult.
There are layers to this, though, and there’s a reason whyThe Lord of the Ringsdoesn’t fixate on the same comic sensibilities as 1950s television. Some things date themselves way too fast, andsome of the quips and obvious moral scenarios that define the early hours ofAvowedalready feelpasséat launch. Other Obsidian games are also works of their time, to be sure, but there’s a reason whyFallout: New Vegas’s writing has aged better thanBorderlands 1and2.Great storytelling needs to identify and avoid the laziest conventions of its moment.
AlthoughFallout: New Vegasis the onlyFalloutgame officially made by Obsidian, the studio’s legacy is deeply intertwined with the franchise’s history, as key members of Obsidian’s founding staff came from the teams responsible for the originalFalloutgames.
Avoweddoesn’t put its best foot forward in this regard. While I do think Kai’s sillier lines mostly land on the side of being fun, there’s a one-note element to Marius that makes even relatively serious lines sound like they’re played for a sitcom audience.Random NPCs in Paradis mostly feel like gag charactersI would come up with on the spot in aD&Dsession, not fully realized Kith or genuinely clever goofs. While early moral choices definitely have their gray areas, they also feel a bit didactic, and I wasn’t particularly struggling with the weight of any decisions.
Avowed Makes A Hard Pivot That Changes Everything
Things Get Real In Emerald Stair
Thankfully,Avowedevolves as it goes along, and the layers that it develops make it a lot more compelling than I found it at first glance. More interestingly,it also starts to poke at itself. Take Marynna, for example. As a merchant who unfailingly pops up in the dangerous wilds of every region, she’s a cute little element of the Saturday morning cartoon take on a fantasy world. Until you find her corpse in Galawain’s Tusks, that is — a reminder that the deadliness of the Living Lands isn’t reserved for cartographers that you never personally meet.
Avowed Review: The Fate Of The Living Lands Is In Your Hands
Avowed is the latest RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, and it’s an incredible showcase of the beloved studio’s writing and world-building.
The overall darkening ofAvowed’s tone as it progresses is to be expected, and there’s a reason that so much fantasy starts in a charming hamlet and ends in a world-shaking conflict. I can’t shake the feeling, however, thatAvowedis pulling a bit more of an intentional bait-and-switch than the standard approach.
While Dawnshore has plenty of bloodshed, it’s mostly the kind of bloodshed that fits in withFlintstones-style xaurip camps and a surplus of scaredy-cat henchmen.When my inaction against the Steel Garrote led to theburning of Fior mes Ivèrno, I wasn’t shocked because it was an unbelievable consequence, but becauseAvowedhadn’t yet convinced me that it would raise the torch so willingly. It’s still relatively merciful to key characters, but it redefined the immediacy of the game world for me, and much of what comes after feels like it belongs to a different experience than what came before.
Avowed Embraces Its Best Impulses Over Time
Avowednever really gets rid of the cartoon element, and it gleefully embraces it at turns throughout, like the moment whenInquisitor Lödwyn takes off her mask to reveal a secret identity as Skeletor’s second cousin. The game has a sincere interest inexpressing a sense of fun, so I certainly don’t think that it uses its silliness with the sole intent of trickery. Early stories like dealing with smuggled shipments have absolutely nothing on the no-win scenarios that speckle the latter half of the game, though, andmost games that feature brutal decisions start on them a bit earlier.
Avowed: Should You Side With Inquisitor Lödwyn & Destroy The Ruins, Or Ryngrim & Sever The Adra?
Avowed’s main story quest “Shadows of the Past” presents the Envoy with two solutions, but which choice is ultimately the better option?
It’s an interesting progression, and it might have the upside of making me more inclined to appreciate everything past Dawnshore by way of comparison.The intensification also fits with the most natural arc for the envoy, who will likely go from a roughly loyal representative of Aedyr to something of a rebel in most playthroughs.
All the same, I still struggle to understand why Dawnshore is so thoroughly populated with quippy characters who aren’t especially funny.Maybe it’s all an overture at drawing in an audience that would never have playedPillars of Eternity, but I think that could have been done without crafting a world that doesn’t quite feel believable until the plot gets going. I imagineDragon Age: The Veilguardattempts something similar, even if the parts of it I’ve been exposed to feel further off the mark for me than anything inAvowed.
Baldur’s Gate 3proves that you may jump into the deep end without alienating a wide audience, but ifAvowed’s tonal shift is indeed that calculated, I do have to respect how deceptive it is before playing its hand. While the breadcrumbs of darker inclinations lead up to its ultimate balance of levity and weight, even the more frivolous moments in Shatterscarp frequently feel a world apart from anything in Dawnshore (perennially dull Marius aside).Avowedasks to be accepted as a fantasy SNL sketch, and only afterward does it let you in on a game that’s more than that.
This article has been corrected to fix an incorrect reference to Shatterscarp in place of Galawain’s Tusks.
