Avowed Anniversary Edition Review – New Races, New Mechanics, Same Obsidian Magic

Avowed Anniversary Edition Review

Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed was released almost exactly one year ago. To celebrate, the developer is marking this milestone by both bringing the game to PS5 and dropping an Anniversary update. This review is based on playing the new PS5 version, but it obviously includes both the Anniversary update and all the smaller changes and content from the past year.

Return to The Living Lands

You can read my review of Avowed here, but let me summarize the story. You play as an envoy from the Aedyr Empire, sent to an island called The Living Lands to investigate the Dreamscourge. The Dreamscourge is a supernatural plague that is corrupting the Living Lands. While finding the true source and cure for the Dreamscourge drives the narrative and action, the game’s themes run much deeper. As a godlike, your appearance and abilities set you apart, but which god you have been touched by is an important mystery to be solved.

Obsidian is, of course, the developer behind the hugely popular Pillars of Eternity franchise, and Avowed explores the same universe. Through a cast of well-written, interesting characters, Avowed explored faction strife, politics, and spirituality. There was a lot of dialogue. But it was, in turn, witty, smart and insightful. In other words, a typical Obsidian Entertainment product. While the Pillars of Eternity games are turn-based CRPGs, Avowed is a first-person — or third-person, if that’s your preference– action RPG.

Coming back to Avowed a year later, my feelings haven’t changed. On PS5, the world still looks richly detailed, and the characters and companions have strong personalities. The narrative still shines. The art direction and music, voice acting, and visual effects are still impressive. Many patches and additions have changed some systems in smaller or larger ways.

Ring in the New

Most of the changes to Avowed have focused on mechanics and RPG systems. Over the past year, Fighter and Ranger classes have had skill tree overhauls, and levelling all classes has been made more flexible and faster. Dozens of new active or passive abilities have been added or modified. The map’s fog-of-war mechanic has been changed. It’s a long list of little changes, almost all of them for the better.

The Anniversary Edition adds some genuinely game-changing elements to the original experience. First, there are three new playable races — Dwarves, Aumaua, and Orlans — bringing the selection on par with Pillars of Eternity.  The already excellent character creator has been tweaked to allow visual remixes at camp, so you can change things up at will.

Big picture, there is now a staggering number of difficulty modifiers to really dial in the perfect experience. There’s now New Game+, which carries over gear and abilities. Wizards now have a new quarterstaff weapon, and a new Photo Mode allows players to capture the action and scenery. Related to the camp, you can now dial in the time of day when you leave it.

Best of the Old

Obsidian continues to play with Avowed’s camera, animations, and third-person movement. Coming back to the game, I definitely noticed improvements. Jumping still feels a bit floaty, like the character is wearing anti-gravity boots, and the third-person camera still has moments in combat where it doesn’t feel entirely natural. I still wish the UI — especially for spellcasters — was just a little less messy or more intuitive.

One year later, Avowed is still an impressively polished and confidently presented game, at home in the Pillars of Eternity canon and at home in the action RPG genre. The new Anniversary Edition and 12 months of updates, tweaks, and changes have only made Avowed better. To the extent it got lost in the shuffle last year, it absolutely deserves attention from new players and PS5 owners. Players returning to Avowed will find a game that is now even better.

***PS5 code provided by the publisher for review***