Avowed Hands-on Preview – Eora from a Whole New Perspective

Five years after the launch of The Outer Worlds, I’ve finally got my hands on Obsidian’s next roleplaying game, Avowed. Microsoft reached out earlier this month with the opportunity of a digital preview event for the press, where we had the opportunity to play a small slice of the game, around two to three hours, starting from the very beginning.

Which, as is often the case with games, begins with a shipwreck. The player character, who can be customized through a fairly in-depth character creation process, is the personal envoy of the Aedyran Emperor, sent to investigate the so-called Dreamscourge plague in the Living Lands, a sizable island located north of the Empire. Players can choose to be either humans or elves (the main races of the Aedyr Empire) and male or female. They’re also defined to be Godlike, which means they were touched before birth by one of the gods of Eora, giving them mysterious powers and abilities. Godlike also receive unique facial features that can be customized or even removed, although even if you do remove them completely, the non-player characters will comment on them anyway.

Moreover, players can tweak their attributes from the start, immediately revealing the game’s strong RPG roots. Pumping up Might or Intellect isn’t just a choice related to combat, either, as you’ll often find dialogue options opening up depending on certain attributes. For example, having enough Might could scare away thugs who try to strong-arm you, whereas high Intellect can provide insightful dialogue response options. It’s something I have always loved in roleplaying games, and I’m happy to see it appear here.

Speaking of dialogues, they’re rather dynamic in that choosing one option might advance the conversation and lock you out of the others, whereas most games allow the player to simply go back and try every option. Facial animations aren’t great, though. I don’t know if they’re final, but they might be, considering there’s less than three months before Avowed launches.

Going back to the story, the shipwreck occurs because the ship the envoy is on suddenly gets bombarded by a nearby fort. Only the envoy and the ship’s captain make it out alive and have to find out why exactly a fort of Aedyran soldiers would fire on them. Unsurprisingly, the reason is that the soldiers were infected by the Dreamscourge themselves, slowly turning on each other as chronicled in several notes. Eventually, the player finds the soldier’s leader still alive but completely mad; he’s effectively the first boss fight in Avowed, and the encounter made me hopeful that Obsidian heeded at least some of the criticism on The Outer Worlds.

My biggest complaint with that game was the underwhelming combat and boss fights. Here, though, both seem thoroughly improved. Combat is definitely more satisfying, both due to improved hit feedback and smoother animations, and it’s more challenging, too, at least when played on Hard difficulty. It also features a Skyrim-like dual wielding option that lets you freely mix and match most weapon types, each featuring different damage and stun properties as well as different stamina costs.

In the demo, I checked out greatswords, warhammers, greataxes, dagger and shield, sword and shield, mace and shield, wand and shield, sword and grimoire, and wand and grimoire. Each felt its own thing, and some options are undoubtedly better than others depending on the enemy you’re facing. I do, however, have a reservation about grimoires. Whereas wands function more like magic versions of bows with quick or charged zaps, their attacks based on stamina like melee weapons and bows, Grimoire abilities are powered by Essence, the game’s version of mana.

This puts it at a distinct disadvantage compared to the other weapons because Essence does not appear to recharge itself over time, like in most RPGs. You’ll instead have to chug potions, of which there is not an infinite amount. To compensate, the Grimoire spells should be extremely powerful, but that didn’t look the case, at least in this build.

I was also happy to find out that, unlike The Outer Worlds where you had to raise your Inspiration stat to manually use your companion’s abilities, this is available right away in Avowed. The only companion in the demo is Kai, an aumaua who deserted from the Rauataian navy and sought a new home in the Living Lands. It’s too early to tell, of course, but he’s already shaping up to be an interesting character, and his tanking abilities make him useful right away in combat. He’s not at all afraid to chime in during dialogues, too, and he’s voice-acted by Brandon Keener, who played the beloved Garrus in BioWare’s Mass Effect series. One-to-one conversations with companions will only happen in camps, which can be set at specific spots. Camps also feature crafting and enchanting stations to upgrade gear.

Following that boss fight, the envoy makes it back to the main island, accessing the area of Dawnshore. This is where I could explore a bit more freely, and the exploration is highly reminiscent of The Outer Worlds. Don’t expect this to be a sprawling open world game by any means, though there will be a few secrets to find here and there. By the way, I would recommend playing in first-person view, as the third-person option felt clunky. You can toggle them via the menu, not in real time as in Bethesda games.

Graphically, for an Unreal Engine 5 game, Avowed looks good but not great, even with all the graphics settings pushed to the max and ray tracing turned on. There seems to be something off about the lighting at times, and the art is also a bit of a mixed bag, though it might grow on the player after some time. The performance is already fairly solid, however, and NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution and Frame Generation have already been implemented.

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.

Avowed launches on February 18, 2025 for PC (Steam, Xbox app, Battle.net, PC Game Pass), Xbox Series S|X (and Xbox Game Pass), and Xbox Cloud Gaming.