Avowed Review – A Magical RPG

Avowed Review

For RPG fans, the past couple of years have been like riding a rollercoaster. The precipitous highs have been matched by nauseating lows. For every Baldur’s Gate 3, there has been a rebooted Dragon Age, Dragon’s Dogma 2, or some other, equally disappointing release. It’s no wonder that players who venerate Obsidian’s CRPG Pillars of Eternity franchise have been fretting over the transition to the first-person action genre. But they should unclench and breathe a sigh of relief. Avowed is excellent in all the ways Pillars of Eternity has been, and more. 

While direct comparisons between games aren’t usually fruitful, in this case, it can be instructive. Both 2024’s Dragon Age and Avowed carry forward established lore. Both are so-called “open zone” games, with real-time action that can be paused and a rotating cast of companions. But in nearly every way, Avowed does Dragon Age better. The story is richer, the dialogue immensely more intelligent and the world-building denser with content. We’ll get to all that.

Building on the Best

2015’s Pillars of Eternity built the foundation of what developed into an incredibly rich world and depth of lore. Pillars of Eternity, its sequel and now, Avowed, take place in Eora, a large land of diverse environments, regions, races, and cultures. The first game dove deep into Eora’s complex spirituality.  It cast the player as a Watcher, a sort of go-between for the living and souls awaiting reincarnation. Pillars of Eternity 2 was a seafaring tale that broadened the narrative to include faction conflict and political strife. Avowed brings together all these elements. 

For purposes of brevity and avoiding spoilers, I’ll keep the narrative summary brief. You play as an envoy from the Aedyr Empire, sent to a large island called The Living Lands to investigate the Dreamscourge. The Dreamscourge is a supernatural plague that is corrupting The Living Lands. It’s also a bit of a MacGuffin. 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. 

I did a pretty hard eye roll at the notion of another RPG about a menacing plague. It soon became happily apparent that Avowed is really about power, both spiritual and political. The notion of keeping a crumbling world in order through might, deception, or sympathetic understanding drives the story. Whether to defy authority or use it to your advantage is a frequent – and never easy – choice.  As an Aedyran, you are seen as either an uneasy ally or potential enemy, a representative of an unwelcome empire. As a godlike, your power and influence are mysterious, alluring, and threatening.

A Matter of Choice

It is a testament to Avowed’s excellent writing that the game is both comprehensible to newcomers and satisfying to players invested in the lore. There’s a comprehensive in-game wiki, but I rarely found myself diving into it. This was, in part, from having played the CRPGs. But largely, it was because the narrative and dialogue did a remarkable job of filling in the details in a way that rarely felt like an exposition dump. 

There have been a few RPGs lately where the dialogue sounded like lines cut from a Marvel movie, trying too hard for snark and contemporary sensibility. Though it contains plenty of wit and cheeky humor, the dialogue in Avowed is smart, full of character, and weighty with choice. Like in the CRPGs, there are plenty of difficult decisions that resonate hours down the line. Your character’s backstory and developing traits influence the choices you are given, too. Avowed doesn’t have a class-based system. You’re free to mix and match different ranged and melee weapons and magic. Well-done systems like this always result in unique characters that feel personal.

As you play, you can choose to upgrade stats in three different combat styles: melee, ranged, and magic, plus godlike abilities. This is in addition to six typical RPG stats like dexterity, intelligence, and strength. In my playthrough, I focused on dexterity-based melee and elemental magic but was equally fond of the game’s powerful guns on occasion. There are lots of ways to approach combat, including stealth. As the game moved past the opening hours, I died a lot until I found the magical combination of weapons, spells, and companions to succeed in a given encounter.

Companionable Combat

As in the CRPGs, Avowed uses a party-based system, though you only can have two companion characters at a time. These are introduced as you move through the game, so by the end, you can pick your squad as desired. Your companions fill expected roles like tanks, healers, and ranged fighters. Without direction, they do ok dispatching easy enemies. But for any challenging fights, they will need guidance. The game has a real-time pause and a radial menu for selecting actions and spells. Overall, combat in Avowed is incredibly fun and the different combinations of weapons, spells, and companion abilities make for variety from start to finish.

But combat is also where my complaints — albeit minor — reside. There is no lock on to enemies, and companion abilities only become available when an enemy is highlighted, which can be squirrely in groups. This makes giving directions less elegant and more frustrating. None of the game’s systems are hard to understand. In the thick of combat, however, I sometimes felt like I was fighting against the UI. Avowed defaults to first-person view, though it’s largely playable in third-person. There are a few things like swimming that only work in first person.

The companions themselves are well-written, engaging, and worth getting to know. Though there are — and many will find this disappointing — no romance options with your companions, you can still develop relationships either congenial or less so. They have interesting backstories and very specific, consistent personalities. The game’s voice acting is at an absolutely high standard, all the more amazing considering how many characters and lines of dialogue went into the game.

In the Zone

As you pursue the source of the Dreamscourge and assert your place in The Living Lands, you’ll explore a series of distinctive biomes from forests to deserts to mountains and more. Avowed is an “open zone” game with loading screens connecting the game’s zones. Each major zone has a hub city or settlement where the player can find quest-givers, vendors, and bounties for that zone. There are lots of fast-travel options for going back to previously visited areas. Anyone weary of vast but largely empty open worlds will love Avowed. The zones aren’t sprawling but they are dense with content, loot, and lore to discover organically or via quests.

The critical narrative path takes the player through each zone in sequence, but engaging in exploration and at least some side quests is important. For one, character progression and upgrades relying solely on the main quest is very slow. Bounties — which often yield special weapons — and side quests help fill in the lore and speed progression. Still, compared to many RPGs, it takes a good long while to feel competently powerful.

Filled In

With two substantial RPGs providing a foundation, Avowed’s world-building is incredibly strong and the game’s attention to detail and lore-specific art is masterful. I loved nosing around the nooks and crannies of the world. Avowed does a great job of hiding secrets and loot behind and within the environment, and figuring out ways to use spells and abilities to unlock the path to them was always fun. Overall, Avowed looks great and, aside from very occasional pop-in, was a technically smooth experience. In 4K with everything set to Ultra, it ran at a very consistent 60fps. Special props must be given to Venus Theory’s musical score, which combines subtle electronics and acoustic instruments very effectively.

Thanks to its legacy of the excellent Pillars of Eternity games, Avowed is built on a strong foundation. That comes through in every aspect of the game, from its deep lore to its exceptional world-building, characters, and writing. Smartly avoiding the pitfalls of an empty open world, it gives the players densely interesting zones to explore, weighty choices to make, and engaging companions to rely on. Avowed takes the Pillars of Eternity universe on an assured and thoroughly enjoyable journey from CRPG to the action genre.

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