Avowed

something felt kinda weird about this game for a while, but I couldn't place it. I ended up playing through the first part of the game a few times to try and put my finger on it, and eventually it jumped out with a side quest about laying out offerings for the dead. you can pick dialogue options during the pickup for the quest that let you question the viability of the ritual, a god tells you in your head that they know for a fact the dead don't care about the offerings and it's a waste, your companions chime in and say "yeah I think with people starving in the city this might not be ideal," you can call out the fact that she must have stolen food from the emergency supplies to get the offerings for the ritual, but in the end you have three choices: yes I will do the ritual; yes I will do the ritual if you pay me; yes I will do the ritual (snarky). I realized then all the things bothering me about the game kinda come down to that, you don't have real choices despite the game putting a lot of effort into making you think you have choices. the main enemy for the first area, the lizard guys? you can see them performing rituals, you find their villages with established permanent infrastructure, you find their artwork, tools, clothing, but they're treated like mindless enemies that you're encouraged to kill, they're just exp fodder. you don't have a choice not to kill them besides avoiding them entirely, and when you are offered direct in-game options to ask questions about them, the answers don't actually matter and you're expected to just keep killing them en-mass. When you get an 'alternate route' for completing a quest? you just go to an off-shoot location where you find a note or something that tells you to go back to where the quest is supposed to happen, then you do the quest normally. If you play out even major conversations a few times and try to pick different options, you'll find that NPCs often end up giving you the exact same lines no matter what you say, only sometimes those lines are weirdly out of place or lacking context because they were designed with a different dialogue option in mind. you don't really have choices, every option routes you back to the same path, and the biggest impact you can have is sometimes you dont get as much money or a special item because you hit a different dialogue option. there's a lot of great design in here, in a way I think it might actually be better if they just made it a linear narrative that didn't try to give the appearance of a huge range of choices so the things it does well stood out better. as it is, the world is made to feel weirdly small and artificial, which in a really weird way is made worse by the MMO over-sized scale of everything. why are most of the doors 15ft tall? anyway, everything microsoft is doing right now is evil, I love you obsidian, best of luck with everything

Agréable surprise. J'ai attendu longtemps avant de le prendre, qu'il soit patché comme il faut. Le scénario est intéressant, l'exploration est jubilatoire, on a pas mal de choix cornéliens à faire. Les combats sont dynamiques, les musiques chouettes. 65 heures pour le parcourir de fond en combles, toutes quêtes annexes faites, trésors trouvés, sauf quelques items d'un totem qui ne m'intéressait pas. Très bonne expérience !

Not worth your money, go buy tainted grail fall of avalon instead. TRUST

Avowed isn't the game I hoped for. It fails to translate the rich atmosphere of Pillars of Eternity into an Action RPG. The game suffers from several core weaknesses: - The story has an interesting premise, but the execution is bland. - The companions are mostly useless (aside from a few combat abilities) and talk like they’re constantly in a modern-day intervention — it completely breaks the fantasy setting. On my second playthrough, I skipped their dialogue entirely, even while trying an "evil" run to give things a spin. They're just too boring. - Combat lacks depth across the board. I initially thought it was just ranged combat that felt repetitive, but even as a mage, there’s very little room to experiment. Story, companions, combat, loot, skill trees — it's all very basic. Based on these aspects alone, I couldn't recommend it. On the bright side, the graphics are nice and exploration feels rewarding. Especially on a first playthrough, it feels like there’s something interesting around every corner. Ultimately, the game feels more like a Risen or Elex type of AA RPG rather than Pillars of Eternity or Skyrim. As such, I still somewhat enjoyed it — it's the kind of game you can comfortably play while watching Netflix or YouTube in the background. 6/10 — Buy on sale.

Super unoptimized. Maybe 10 different enemy types. 6 Different weapons. Unique weapons are cool but every enemy is super spongy. Game was designed entirely for melee. Guns and spells were a afterthought.

While [i]Avowed[/i] has many strengths, it also highlights why Obsidian no longer sits at the forefront of the CRPG genre. Its shortcomings are difficult to overlook, especially when compared to the standout AAA RPGs released over the past decade. Let's start with the positives. The world and level design are easily the game's strongest features. Exploration feels consistently rewarding, with richly detailed environments and plenty of environmental storytelling. Traversing the world and reaching hidden locations through light platforming feels intuitive and satisfying. Unfortunately, the quality of the environmental design declines toward the end of the game, giving the impression that development was rushed. Every region relies on the same enemy types, encounter layouts, and environmental templates. By the time you've cleared your fifteenth Xaurip camp, the sense of discovery has long since worn off. Combat is another highlight. Melee, ranged combat, and spellcasting all feel distinct, with satisfying hit reactions and responsive status effects. The game strikes a good balance between exploration, dungeon crawling, and combat encounters. However, enemy variety is disappointingly limited—you'll be fighting the same xaurips, skeletons, bears, and a handful of other foes throughout the entire adventure. One of the defining strengths of the [i]Pillars of Eternity[/i] ruleset is that character attributes are remarkably well balanced, with no obvious dump stats. Avowed preserves much of that philosophy. While it doesn't offer the depth or build variety of [i]Pillars of Eternity[/i] I and II -- nor should anyone reasonably expect it to in a first-person action RPG -- it still provides a satisfying selection of skills and meaningful character progression. The main story begins with a fairly generic premise but gradually becomes more personal and engaging. The pacing is solid, and the overall length feels just right. My completionist playthrough lasted roughly 70 hours. Since the story revolves around one of Eora's gods, however, it misses an opportunity to further develop one of the setting's greatest strengths: its rich pantheon. Aside from collecting god totems, the deities themselves have surprisingly little presence in the narrative. Character writing, unfortunately, is one of the game's weakest aspects. Very few NPCs leave a lasting impression, and much of the dialogue feels stiff and overly scripted. Companion quests vary in quality -- Kai and Marius receive more attention than the others -- but, overall, each companion largely fills a familiar archetype rather than developing into a memorable character. Dialogue choices are similarly disappointing. I experimented with responses ranging from openly hostile to empathetic, yet they almost always led to the same outcome, making role-playing feel largely cosmetic. Quest design is equally conventional. Most objectives boil down to fetch quests, clearing enemies, or following quest markers. Navigation is so heavily guided by the map and compass that there's rarely any opportunity for the player to think through a problem or discover a solution independently. The result is competent but formulaic questing that rarely surprises. Perhaps my biggest disappointment is the world itself. Despite its name, the Living Lands feel strangely lifeless. NPCs stand in predetermined locations waiting to deliver scripted dialogue whenever you approach, regardless of the time of day. There is a day-night cycle, but beyond different lighting, the world barely changes. Towns lack daily routines, NPCs don't travel organically, and the environment never truly feels inhabited. I don't expect every RPG to simulate a world on the level of [i]Red Dead Redemption 2[/i], but role-playing games have featured more convincing living worlds for decades. Visually, the game is competent, though the stylized, comic book-inspired art direction introduced in [i]The Outer Worlds[/i] has never really appealed to me. That comes down to personal preference more than objective criticism. On the technical side, however, the game is in good shape. Since the 2.0 update, I encountered very few bugs, and over the course of roughly 70 hours, the game crashed only once. Ultimately, [i]Avowed[/i] is a good action RPG with excellent exploration, enjoyable combat, and a strong foundation built on the [i]Pillars of Eternity[/i]s universe. Yet it rarely reaches beyond competence. Shallow role-playing, repetitive content, forgettable characters, and an unconvincing game world prevent it from living up to either Obsidian's legacy or the high standards set by the genre's best modern RPGs.

I wanted to like this game. It looks gorgeous and seemed like it would be a great game to play on sale. Unfortunately it's a stuttery mess. I couldn't even turn a full circle without lagging and fighting was like watching a slideshow.

game runs like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, recommend playing using xbox gamepass. unplayable on PC unless you want to lower settings to bare minimum. And even then, I still dont think this game would run worth playing. Game itself is good. But optimisation is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ terrible.