Avowed PC review — In dreams I walk with you

I was wary heading into Avowed blind. The game takes place in the same universe as Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity series, and I hadn’t played either of them. As such, I thought I might have trouble following along. Instead, the writing was so clear and focused that this never happened. This willingness to ease players into the game comes from many directions, as it’s simply very intuitive, regardless of whether you’re trying to get a better grasp of the world and lore, or if you’re attempting to strengthen your character. In the end, this is a clear winner from Obsidian that made me want to get lost in its world, both literally and figuratively.

Avowed begins with a quick primer. You play as a person called a Godlike, which is someone who has been imprinted upon by one of the world of Eora’s various gods, with signs of this showing on their face. A disease called the Dreamscourge ends up turning people into something akin to shambling zombies (the mindless kind, not the undead kind.) The emperor of the nation of Aedyr sends your character to the continent known as The Living Lands to investigate, only for them to make contact with a strange voice connected to the crystals known as Adra, which ends up changing their destiny.

The story is uniquely terrific, as it weaves a tale fraught with political intrigue and complex situations. Aedyr has been increasing its presence in The Living Lands, much to the chagrin of the locals. You’re able to make choices in Avowed that guide your actions in various scenarios, often leading to surprisingly varied outcomes. The dialogue is interesting and often witty and the game is rarely boring despite just how much talking there is. You also have well-developed companions, although I didn’t love all of them (Marius the Dwarf’s constantly sarcastic, cynical demeanour kind of got on my nerves after a bit.)

Avowed is very much an action RPG. Despite originally being billed as akin to Skyrim, it’s very much in-line with Obsidian’s previous game, The Outer Worlds. The story plays out across a handful of zones that can be explored at your leisure. If you’re trying to make a beeline to the end, it won’t last you long at all, but thoroughly exploring and doing side quests will see the amount of time you put in rise dramatically. Interestingly, the game doesn’t have classes. Your character can use any weapon they find, although how well they use them will be dictated by how your ability points (one granted per level) are dispersed.

While some will no doubt take issue with the lack of classes (which Pillars of Eternity very much had,) I appreciated this aspect, as I enjoyed swapping to new, completely different equipment as I desired. Attacks vary between melee, ranged, or just skills and spells. You’ll find one and two-handed weapons, both melee and ranged. Melee weapons are typical swords, axes, and hammers, while ranged weapons are bows and guns. You can unlock skills via ability points, but magic spells can be used without these, provided you have a grimoire (which will contain four spells) and have the appropriate spell level unlocked.

The game is played either from a first or third-person perspective, of which I prefer the former. One-handed weapons (including pistols and spellbooks) can be used in conjunction with shields or each other. resulting in some fun combinations. Want to dual-wield spells with a gun? Go for it! Attacks use stamina, as does dodging, but not running, thankfully. Run out of stamina and you’ll have to wait for it to recover before you can act again. Skills and spells, on the other hand, use essence, which you’ll often be able to replenish by grabbing purple orbs dropped by defeated foes. Melee weapons can have their attacks charged up for more powerful strikes, too.

You’ll frequently find generic gear wherever you go, but you’ll also stumble upon unique gear that has a couple of attributes, such as elemental damage or that increases one of your character stats. But Avowed doesn’t want you to constantly trade up via finding better gear. Instead, you’ll typically need to upgrade it at your camp by using materials you’ve found while exploring (or ones received from dismantling unneeded gear.) Exploring is a very good idea, as you won’t find unique gear or as many materials without doing so. Most of the game’s zones are decently large and they have a lot to see, but they still feel handcrafted.

You’ll find plenty of side quests to do while simply looking around, and these, unsurprisingly, often have a story focus and can come with dilemmas. One in the second zone has two farmers asking you to do something about the creatures that destroyed their farming equipment, only for you to discover that it isn’t quite as simple as it seems. Towns will also have bounty boards that task you with hunting down a powerful enemy in return for some cash. If you stumble upon these enemies and defeat them without accepting the bounties, they’ll still drop the item needed to turn the bounty in.

I was surprised by the fact that Avowed‘s gameplay was actually fairly challenging on the normal setting. Enemies are aggressive and can easily take you out if you’re not adequately geared up to face them. You will find plenty of healing potions and food all around (and can carry as much of both as you want since carry weight only applies to gear.) Plus, you get a Godlike ability early on that you can use to heal yourself and your allies. However, you do have an ability on cooldown that returns you to life with half (or more if you upgrade the ability) of your health. Your companions, of course, fight enemies alongside you, plus you can direct them to use their skills as well.

Unfortunately, the game’s performance isn’t all that great. It’s decent when out in the boonies, but it drops considerably in towns. With a 3090 TI and a 5700x (not exactly cutting edge anymore, I know,) the fps often dropped to a choppy mid-30s to mid-40s in town, and hovered between 60 and 70 in the wilderness. Even using DLSS and the like didn’t do a lot to mitigate this. Despite how demanding Avowed is, however, I didn’t find it to be especially visually impressive. The textures are great, but character models look decidedly not AAA, especially in the faces, which animate oddly and have less-than-stellar lip-syncing.

With that said, the visuals and performance didn’t really get in the way of how much I’ve enjoyed Avowed. It doesn’t really try to do much differently than other similar games, but the quality of the world-building, uniqueness of its content and zones, strong combat, and engrossing sense of exploration all come together to make for an impressive showing from Obsidian that delivers most of what I want from a game such as this. It also doesn’t hurt that you can turn enemies into ice and then smash them to pieces.

Check out our previous review:

Guns of Fury PC review – I never met a(l) slug I didn’t like |