Avowed Dev Says Missable Content Is Core to What Makes RPGs Special

As we get closer to the release of Avowed, Obsidian Entertainment is sharing more tidbits about the game as well as what they think is core to the RPG genre. Speaking to Gamesradar, Obsidian’s Region Director and Senior Area Designer Berto Ritger said that missable content is what makes them special, hinting that the same design guideline will apply to Avowed.

I think the core of RPGs that makes them special is missable content, to be honest, and it makes the experience feel so much more personal to how you play the game. If you talk to somebody like, ‘Oh, I found this thing under the docks. There’s this little secret under there on the eastern side of the docks that you can find. And you can also climb up to the top, and there’s stuff up there.’ But if you find that, and your friend doesn’t, they found something else, and it creates a very interesting dialogue about the game.

We want to draw your attention to things that we want you to engage with. The lighthouse is very tall, and so everybody’s going to see a big, tall thing and want to go climb. And so we want to support that as well. And you can do that, and you can jump off into the ocean if you like. And so we try to draw your attention that way.

During my recent hands-on preview, I didn’t exactly stumble upon lots of missable content. Then again, it was just the first area of the game, Dawnshore. That kind of stuff might be reserved for the latter areas. However, I did enjoy my time with Avowed:

Overall, this hands-on experience definitely left me hopeful and eager for the final version. It’s unlikely to be a big success on the scale of Skyrim or Baldur’s Gate 3, but it looks like another fun and engaging role-playing game from Obsidian that improves on their previous first-person title. All the worldbuilding work done for the Pillars of Eternity games will certainly pay off, too, both for returning fans of the isometric cRPGs who get to enter Eora from a wholly different perspective and for newcomers who will feel the depth and uniqueness of this fantasy setting.

The game launches on February 18, 2025 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X.