#Avowed

[fyeahobsidian]

Avowed Companions | Giatta and Kai

[edeer]

AVOWED

[tekehu]

Adra Pillars in Avowed (Obsidian Entertainment, 2024)

[ampleappleamble]

set entirely within the Living Lands!

takes place shortly after Deadfire!

dynamic rock-paper-scissors combat requiring weapon switches!

context-sensitive ability and spellcasting button!

skill trees instead of classes!

no romances with your companions!

[pierrotdameron]

Avowed - Official Gameplay Trailer

Explore the Living Lands, a mysterious island filled with adventure and danger. As an envoy of Aedyr, you are sent to investigate rumors of a spreading plague with a secret that threatens to destroy everything. Can you save the island and your soul from the forces threatening to tear them apart? Avowed coming in 2024, Play Day One with Xbox Game Pass.

[greyjediluke]

Avowed coming Fall 2024 PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Gamepass

[crpgguy]

i think they should give you three matthew mercer voiced companions this time to spice things up

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

[fukutomichi]

Summer Game Fest 2023 Favorite Upcoming Game Announcements - Part 1

[adraveins]

time to break out the theory again for no reason except more (not) Pillars (of Eternity 3): Eora Has / Had A Soul, And You Can Pry That From My Cold Dead Hands

[fyeahobsidian]

"Originally we were pitching, in essence, our Skyrim," confirms Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart in an exclusive interview with PC Gamer. "But that is not what Avowed, as it currently exists, is going to be. "I think over the course of time as we worked on it… Bethesda makes an awesome Skyrim. Mojang makes an awesome Minecraft, and Turn10 makes awesome racing games," says Urquhart, referencing a handful of Obsidian's sister studios at Microsoft. "What we do is we make our awesome RPGs, right?"

...

For Avowed, the focus is going to be specifically on your companions, and how their story relates to the driving narrative of the game. "We could go off and create an 8km x 8km open world and then deal with all the consequences of that—because that makes it a different style game. But we want to tell more confined stories that the player can experience with their companions, and then move from part of the world to part of the world. And, like I said, in the end, that's us."

[edeer]

AVOWED

[tekehu]

The Living Lands of Eora in Avowed (2024)

[ampleappleamble]

hey guys what's up how's it goi– *trips and all these links fall out of my pockets*

oh uh haha whoops

[pierrotdameron]

[...] As the game begins, your character arrives in a remote corner of the world of Eora called the Living Lands as an envoy of the Aedyr Empire, where you've been sent to investigate a mysterious plague. "Not everybody in the Living Lands is super thrilled to have an imperial presence in this far-flung land," she said. "So adventure ensues."

[...] CEO Feargus Urquhart told me that in scope Avowed is more akin to Obsidian's past RPGs like The Outer Worlds in size than it is a sprawling open world a la Skyrim, though that was actually Obsidian's initial pitch. When the developers sat down and focused on what Obsidian does best—stories and companions, in particular—the more compact scale came naturally.

The way you interact with other characters in Avowed will be similar to The Outer Worlds, where your dialogue options reflect the tone you want to want to use. "We try to hit a sweet spot when we're writing dialogue options where we invest enough personality for those options to be fun and interesting, but also leave enough space around them so that the player can really invest whatever headcanon they built for their character into that option," she said.

Patel wouldn't spill much about Avowed's story, but did give me some of the basics on what form of RPG to expect from Avowed: 

You have an established role as the imperial envoy, but your "personality, appearance, and philosophy and vibe you bring to that role is up to you as a player to decide"

You can play as a human or an elf, but not other races

It's purely singleplayer—no co-op

The world is lightly systemic: think water and lightning interactions, but not the ol' bucket-on-the-head trick

You'll have two companions with you at a time, with their own combat specialties and, of course, personalities

There are several ability trees to progress through, and you won't be locked to a particular class or playstyle

You will level up, but the focus is on unlocking abilities rather than putting points into stats to grow stronger

Early in development, when Obsidian decided to prioritize a story "more focused on depth than breadth," the first-person combat ended up benefitting, too. Patel said that it was an example of a piece of Avowed that was surprisingly fun in their first vertical slice, a time when the team has to decide on what to commit more resources to and what to scale back on. Combat became a key focus, which should be music to the ears of every Elder Scrolls player who's always found the sword-swinging a bit wimpy. "Our combat has come along really, really well, and the bones have been there since the beginning," she said. 

Patel cited a lot of time spent tuning the feel of swinging a sword vs. a mace vs. an axe to make combat feel right, but the options available to players seem like the more significant element at play here. You're free to dual-wield weapons, wield both magic and melee simultaneously, and as in Pillars of Eternity, there are some old timey guns available. When I brought up how bored I am of game loot with imperceptible stat differences from one sword to another, she said that's been on their mind, too. 

"The way we've tried to approach that is erring on the side of fewer but meaningful upgrades. If you're upgrading your weapon from one tier to the next, you should feel the difference. If it's a small number change next to your item name, that's not going to feel as meaningful as going through an upgrade process, trying your weapon again and realizing it's doing a lot more damage. Fewer but more meaningful upgrade tiers."

From today's trailer, magic looks like it could be the bit of Avowed that really gives it its own fantasy flair. There's some excellent hand animation at work when the envoy draws runes in the air to conjure a fireball and later lifts a pulsing void skyward, sending a pile of guards orbiting weightlessly around it. I want a whole lot more of that, and I'm excited that I can mix magic with melee without being railroaded into a class. 

"In most of our games companions have been optional, which I think offers a wonderful degree of choice to players, but it means there's a limit to how deeply you can tie them into the core story. With Avowed we decided companions are going to be core. They're going to be part of the experience. And that means we can invest so much more in them and tie them much more closely, and personally, to the events and the parts of the world the player is encountering."

And can they die? 

This time there was a pause. "You'll have to see," Patel said. Until 2024, then.

[caernua]