Avowed is good

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As a big fan of Pillars of Eternity, I was really excited for Avowed, despite the fact that I couldn't really figure out what it was going to be prior to release. It looked like a big first-person RPG, had some Arx Fatalis vibes, and was apparently set in the world of Eora, expanding the Pillars universe.

I played it on release, and I must say that Avowed is a solid action-RPG that I enjoyed tremendously. During my 66 hours of play, it did not frustrate me even once, which is honestly shocking. Avowed certainly doesn't revolutionize the genre and it's definitely not a life-changing experience, but I don't think every game needs to be that, and the fact that I had a great time playing it is enough for me to recommend it.

Avowed is an action-RPG, and it plays more like The Outer Worlds than anything else, which makes complete sense. There are no hard-locked classes in Avowed: multi-classing is encouraged and expected, as you can invest your talent points into the fighter, ranger and wizard skill trees without any restrictions. Equipment has no requirements, which means that you can try out a new build or a new style of play whenever you feel like it. For a fairly modest price you can get all your talent points back — and stats too! — and shuffle them around if you want to switch gears. I changed specs several times throughout the game according to what I felt was most fun in that particular chapter. I spent the bulk of the game with a dagger in one hand and a grimoire in the other; a bow was my second weapon set. Towards the end of the game, I got a super powerful arquebus that alerted all enemies in the vicinity when fired, but hit like an absolute truck, so I reinvested my talents to accommodate my latest love for the arquebus. Avowed is extremely flexible in this regard and very forgiving; you don't have to stick to whatever build you chose at the start of the game for the next 50 hours; you can try everything the game has to offer throughout your adventure and then decide what fits your style best.

Narratively, the story of Avowed picks up after Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire, although I wouldn't say it's a direct continuation of any sort. I would say, however, that you're likely to enjoy Avowed more if you have played and loved Pillars of Eternity like I did. Playing both Pillars is certainly not a requirement though; it's completely possible to enjoy the game without any prior knowledge, especially considering that various characters fill you in on the details of what transpired in Pillars when it's relevant to the story. It just felt super awesome to know all the references, factions, recognize recurring characters and somehow still remember the details of Deadfire politics without extensive reading of books, notes and dialogues.

When it comes to the narrative focus of Avowed, I think it makes sense to remember what both Pillars of Eternity zoomed in on when it came to their respective stories. No spoilers if you haven't played them yet!

Pillars of Eternity is a very personal story about you, the protagonist, suddenly awakening to the power of a Watcher — a person who can see into the souls of men and access memories of their previous lives. For the bulk of the game, you're learning the lore of the world, of gods and souls and reincarnation while also trying to understand how to live with this gift. Simultaneously, you and your party of random but very interesting characters try to investigate the Hollowborn plague — babies born without a soul, just empty husks. The first Pillars touches on politics and various factions within the world, sure, but the scale remains pretty small throughout the whole adventure, as the Plague is localized in Dyrwood, a region in Eastern Reach.

Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire, which is a direct sequel, picks up five years after the events of the first game, and since you're playing the very same character, you can even import the save files to carry over all your story-relevant choices and relationships. Deadfire also starts as a somewhat personal story: you pursue a certain someone who destroyed you home to ask them why. However, as soon as you track them to the Deadfire Archipelago, you are immediately thrown into the most insane whirlwind of politics I've even seen in a cRPG. It is INTENSE, and it certainly takes some time to just get your bearings among the four factions fighting over the Deadfire and figure out how to forge alliances that best align with your personal goals. Another big part of the Deadfire story is the religion of Eora: gods, where they come from, what goals they pursue and how the soul reincarnation system — the Wheel — came to be.

Avowed, as I see it, takes a more balanced approach: it is a personal story against a political backdrop. You play as an Envoy of the Aedyran Empire sent to the Living Lands — a mysterious island far away, to establish Aedyran presence there and eventually pave way for your Emperor to take over the land. You're also a Godlike — Godlikes are well-established in the Pillars universe and denote a representative of any race whose soul upon birth was touched by one of the gods. The Godlike take on the God's features and usually possess some sort of power associated with them. You're a unique Godlike because no God claimed you as their own. You grow up lost and confused — a no one's Godlike — but rise up the ranks of the Empire until the Emperor sends you to tame the Living Lands.

Upon arrival you learn that the island is plagued by something called the Dreamscourge — a mysterious disease that makes people sprout mushrooms from their bodies, talk weirdly and eventually get consumed. So, the tasks at hand are not only to bring your Emperor's will to the skeptical people living independently in the Living Lands, but also figure out the source of the plague, because what good are Aedyran authorities if they might turn into mushrooms. Oh, and also try to figure out who you are, if the possibility presents itself.

I play games, and especially RPGs, for stories, and whatever Avowed might have lacked in gameplay, it made up for me in the main story. I loved learning about the Living Lands, seeing people trying to forge their own fates in the wilderness that no one yet claimed. Inevitably, I was faced with the question of whether or not I even want to fulfil my duty and see the Living Lands become a part of my Empire and whether or not it will benefit the local communities in any way.

Avowed also played a trump card that I can never resist: there is a whole storyline about the indigenous people of the Living Lands who lived there hundreds of years ago and one day just disappeared without a trace. The modern settlers call them the Godless because the archaeologists and historians who spent decades researching the ruins and items left behind by this civilization never encountered any evidence of them worshipping any kind of deity, which is unthinkable in the world of Eora, where Gods are revered and also very real. This is probably my favorite type of story, and I was really excited to see it unfold and to find out more about these ancient people.

The story certainly takes time to unravel, and it morphs throughout your adventure and becomes more complex, as you try and form your opinion on the situation that gains more and more context. Honestly, I think the story is very unique. I won't spoil anything beyond that, but I am sure that among all the stories about the chosen ones, and vengeful gods, and uprooting the order of the world and whatever else I have played, I've never played a storyline quite like this one.

I like that Avowed puts you in a position of authority which is quite rare in RPGs in general: you're either a no name prison escapee of some sort, or you have a background but people hate you for it, or at least do not respect you very much. In Avowed you're the Envoy of Aedyr, and whether people like you because you represent change and the possibility to finally end the turmoil, or dislike you because you're introducing law and order that almost all people here purposefully escaped years ago, you've got power. Aaaaand you have to make story-relevant choices every chapter, and most times these choices absolutely suck :D I remember just leaving my desk and pacing around the room when presented with such a choice in one of the chapters because both options were horrible and I basically was trying to figure out which one was the lesser evil. I hated it, it was amazing :D

In Avowed you can have up to two companions in your party out of four available. They are all very different and have their own stories, motivations, and, most importantly, opinions. They will comment on the situations during dialogues, and you'll be able to ask for their counsel if there is a choice to make. However, make no mistake: there's no pleasing everyone. Whatever choice you make, there will always be a member or two in your party who will hate it, and they will pull you to the side in camp to tell you what they think about you, and about the situation, and about the Empire, and everything else. Avowed doesn't have a relationship scale or any stat you can actually ruin by repeatedly choosing options that a certain character would hate, but in the moment it still hurts. To be honest, even though I found companion interaction really sweet, and listening to them talk to one another at camp unprompted was one of my favorite things, I am not terribly impressed with this aspect overall. Then again, after playing Metaphor: ReFantazio the bar I have for companion quests and interaction is so incredibly high, I am not even sure how to judge it now in other games.

I found the exploration in Avowed to be creatively done, although it takes time to notice its uniqueness. The minimap objectively sucks and the map has no pins available, so I spent a lot of time just looking at the map trying to stay my course. It's honestly wild that there are no pins, but according to Obsidian's recent roadmap, the game will get them sometime during summer. At least the players who'd join later will enjoy them. 

However, what the minimap does show you are the various crafting ingredients: mushrooms, berries and plants, and corpses. You might think it's a little bizarre, but it's actually genius. Every time I tried to get to a corpse or a plant marked on a minimap, 80% of the time I ended up discovering a hidden passage, a cave, a grotto, a little overgrown nook that I need to burn through, a ledge or a cliffside that I never would have noticed otherwise. At first glance, the architecture of the levels in Avowed is nothing to write home about, but if you zoom in and intentionally look around, and pursue those minimap markers — it will definitely become something to write about, just like I am doing now. I vacuumed clean every chapter just because I loved getting into hidden places. Of course, there is plenty of treasure to discover too, but I honestly enjoyed the process more than the reward. And this style of exploration also works great with your ability to parkour!

Instead of the usual abundance of loot and unique items you can find in chests or after defeating enemies, Avowed experiments with upgrading basic items to their more advanced versions throughout the game. Of course, there are unique legendary weapons with cool names, but they are not particularly numerous and are fairly hard to come by. Instead, you buy a basic dagger, a bow or a set of leather armor and then upgrade it in camp using materials you found in the wilderness, taking it through multiple tiers three stages each. Basic weapons and armor can be upgraded all the way to Superb quality while unique items can be taken all the way to Legendary. This decision is certainly controversial because the most frequent reward you get is a bunch of upgrade materials, which is not really encouraging at first, but I enjoyed this change. First of all, upgrading weapons and armor does make an instant difference to your arrack — or defense — and second of all, it means that if I enjoy my special dagger from Act 1, I don't have to part ways with it in Act 2 because it's no longer strong enough. I can just upgrade it and continue using it. Of course, unique equipment that you find in later chapters is stronger than the items from earlier in the game, but I won't say that the difference is so huge you need to abandon your favorite bow. Oh, and you can stick the outer appearance of any armor on any armor you wear, which is really neat. I found a set of armor that had really good stats for my style of play, but I didn't like how it looked so I just transferred the look of the armor that I liked onto it.

Upon release Avowed certainly received some criticism, so let's briefly discuss two points that caught my attention. Hilariously enough, they are so incredibly subjective that if I hadn't decided to play Avowed way before its release, they would've become selling points for me.

1. You can't kill wildlife.

You sure can't. The wildlife in the Living Lands is immortal, and I think it's great. Animals are absolutely everywhere, as expected from the lush, overgrown Living Lands, and if they could die, it would have discouraged me from using AoE spells. And AoE spells are one of the most fun and impressive parts of the game's combat. I usually do not have a desire to kill wildlife in any game unless I have a quest, or it's a survival thing so the fact that the boars and birds are all immortal not only didn't bother me, but I consider it to be a plus. Another criticism stemming from their invincibility was that you can't skin wildlife and craft stuff out of their parts. This is a bit much — it's an RPG and not a survival game, and even though many representatives of the genre do include this type of crafting system, I don't see it as any sort of requirement.

In my opinion, the problem of Avowed's wildlife is not that you can't kill it, but that it moves in 10fps for some perplexing reason. That's what we need to bring to the developers' attention not the fact that you can't skin a boar.

2. Cities are boring and there aren't many of them.

Every chapter of Avowed features one city or some sort of settlement where you go to check the bounty board, for your main and side quests and the story. They are fairly small, it's true but I personally consider it a big plus. It just so happens that I do not like city exploration in RPGs whatsoever, and I never have. It's exhausting and overwhelming for me to talk to 20 people in a row (just like in real life), get a whole bunch of quests, make sure that I have sufficiently explored everything and didn't miss a block or something. I just don't like it, and usually I try to leave as soon as possible because I am here to explore the wilderness, get lost in the woods, climb a mountain. Not get stuck in a tavern for an hour, although sometimes I do like to wander around and see what people are up to. I understand how to someone who loves city exploration Avowed might not be up to par, but it's just as subjective as my point of view. Besides, I think smaller and fewer cities are actually lore accurate. The Living Lands are inhabited by groups of misfits who never found their place in the mainlands, so they fled to the island in search of new beginnings. They are numerous — but they are settlers who just build whatever they can so that their society functions. In couple hundred years — maybe there will be a couple of bustling cities. But it would be weird to have them now.

But of course, all the love that I have for Avowed does not at all blind me when it comes to the game's flaws. My biggest criticism for Avowed lies with the companions and their quests. If you've been following me for some time, you might know that I play party-based RPGs also for forging relationships with companions and exploring their stories. It's a big priority for me.

Unfortunately, the pacing of companions' quests is incredibly inconsistent. Only Kai, your first companion, has a really fleshed-out story and something to do in each chapter. Others just tell you what worries them or what their problem is, and it doesn't really lead to any quest or any action you can take. Then, a few main quests down the line, they might drop some more info, or finally a quest, but it's all rather unpredictable and confusing. As I mentioned, Kai has a solid personal quest that unravels throughout multiple chapters. Marius, the second companion, appeared to have no quest of any kind until the very last chapter, and then I was thrown into one of the most psychologically intense sequences I've ever played through. Giatta's quest is closely related to the main quest so there is nothing really to pursue separately. Yatzli shares her worries with you as soon as you get her as a companion, but it doesn't really lead to anything, and you're left wondering if it's at all possible to solve her situation until the very last moments of the game.

I quite enjoyed the companions as characters — they are well-placed into the history of the Living Lands, have detailed backgrounds, a lot of interactions with you and with each other, loads of opinions about everything, and when you do get to their personal quests, they are usually well-written and pretty intense. My problem, I guess, was that they happen too suddenly with little to no introduction if we don't count the initial statement that the companions make. I'd much prefer if I had something small to do with each of their stories throughout our adventure so that the grand resolution wouldn't feel so sudden and overwhelming. I hope I'm getting my point across :D

Otherwise, I think Avowed is great! It looks beautiful: all the mushrooms light up at night; the Living Lands are lush and overgrown, and it does feel like you're exploring a wild untamed land that fights the people that want to make it their home. It might not be the action-RPG to change the landscape of the genre, but I found it extremely entertaining and also really smooth to play. I think it is a very kind and welcoming game for the newcomers, so if you've never played an action-RPG and want to try one, Avowed would be a great choice. If you're an experienced player, however, you might want to raise the difficulty up a notch because I played on normal and only ever died of fall damage :D

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