Avowed XSX Review
Summary: An early contender for RPG of the year
4.5
Fresh Off the Boat
Avowed is a game that is elevated by its setting. Although it takes place in the same world as Obsidian’s superb Pillers of Eternity series, Avowed sends players to a new and intriguing part of Eaora during the equivalent of the age of discovery.
Yes, it’s still a fantasy adventure with plenty of swords and sorcery, but you can fire a pistol while you mumble that incantation. You’ll be discussing settlers’ rights vs the interests of your colonial masters before clearing out that lizardman camp.
The Living Lands are vast, varied, colorful, and full of wonder and life, but, underneath the fantastical trappings, there’s a daring allegory exploring a period of history that many of the countries involved still don’t want to contemplate the ramifications of.
Players step off the boat and into the rather fancy shoes of the Aedyran Envoy, the right hand of the King of Aedyr (Think fantasy Britain) sent to the Living Lands to investigate a mysterious fungal plague that drives those infected to acts of mindless violence and rots their soul.
As well as being able to wield supreme executive power at a whim, your character (That I gave the most pompous name I could think of) is also a Godlike – someone who has been touched by one of the world’s many gods while they were in the womb. However, unlike most Godlikes who know who their patron is from birth. Yours seemingly abandoned you. Leaving you with some fantastic foliage growing out of your head, but none of the superpowers.
Avowed opens with a fantastic tutorial level that sees you shipwrecked after the galleon you’re traveling on is blown out of the water by Aedyran soldiers in a fort who should have just waved you through.
Exploring this small island is a fantastic way to introduce most of the game’s major mechanics and basic enemy types and how high the stakes are. On the beach, you meet your first temporary companion and grab a nearby dagger. Minutes later you’ve chosen your first upgrade, navigated your first complicated conversation with a prisoner, and decided whether to leave them locked up or take them with you.
It ends with a thrilling boss fight that reveals what will happen to the rest of the Living Lands if the Dreamscorge isn’t stopped. (It’s not good.)
Then it’s onto the Living Lands proper. Your first stop after stepping off the boat at Claviger’s Landing (and meeting your first party member, Kai) is the Aedyran settlement of Paradis home to the local Aedyran ambassador and Avowed’s main antagonist the diabolical Inquisitor Lodwyn.
Lodwyn and her band of zealous crusaders, the Steel Garotte, have been working as enforcers for the Aedyr Empire since they steamrollered their way onto the Living Lands. However, their increasingly violent attempts to ‘tame’ the unruly lands and their settlers have made them unpopular with the locals, and have not helped the Aedyr’s reputation either.
If you haven’t twigged yet, Avowed is, at times, a slightly on-the-nose, exploration of the misdeeds of empire, colonialism, and the terrible things people do when they think god is on their side.
Your main moral dilemma, although there are a lot, but, thankfully no bar telling you how ‘good’ you are, is whether to keep being a loyal vassal of the empire or to try and help the material conditions of the people eking out a living in this new and hostile world.
It’s compelling stuff, complicated further by the intrusion of an imprisoned god that wants you to free it, that has invaded your dreams, to the point where you occasionally tell it to F off because you’re trying to sleep.
It’s all propped up by some superb writing especially when it comes to interactions with your companions who form the emotional core of the game, and despite being made up of a fishman a dwarf, a squirrel woman, and a fantasy Spaniard, feel like people you know. Each is incredibly well-fleshed out and believable with hopes, dreams, an often shady past, and something valuable to say.
Every member of your tight-knit party is a godsend in combat and an absolute joy to interact with. Whether it’s idealistic scholar Giatta, who acts as your incredibly helpful healer, Grumpy old tracker Marius, who is handy with a bow and arrow (and finding hidden chests), everyone’s witchy aunt, Yatzli, who is a dab hand at wrecking fools with huge fireballs, and former soldier turned mercenary Kai, who goes toe to toe with anything stupid enough to cross you and burns anything in his path.
Sometimes I would just stand at camp to listen to them giving each other beauty tips and bickering about who keeps farting in their sleep. It’s brilliant stuff. The more you get to know your companions, the more rewarding it is. Not just from learning more about their pasts, and motivations, but they’ll offer to train you (bumping your stats in the process)
Make sure to bring them along when you reach the region of the living lands they’re from because it can also help you smooth things over with the locals, who are suspicious of both Godlikes and colonial types (you unfortunately are both).
The Living Lands are huge, varied, and absolutely jaw-dropping at times. rather than one single map avowed is split into a series of massive regions each more distinct than the last. You start in the foothills of Dawnshore where the Aedyrians have gained a foothold, to the overgrown wetlands of Emerald Stair, home to a group of renegade researchers, and then onto the harsh, yet stunning deserts of Shatterscarpe.
Exploration is rewarded at every turn; heading into that cave, checking out those ruins, or even poking around in a back room of a pub will almost always reward you with some extra crafting resources or a simple weapon to flog to a nearby merchant, or break down into even more upgrade materials.
This is augmented by your ability to clamber all over the environment using basic parkour-style platforming that makes for some great little set pieces, as you tiptoe along beams, avoid traps, and clamber up the occasional cliff or tower on the hunt for rare loot and collectible. This also lends itself to a great sense of verticality to the living Lands that I don’t think I’ve seen in this type of RPG before.
As you progress you’ll also find shortcuts and secrets hidden behind walls you can either power through with the right equipment or blow up with a well-placed grenade There are also Iron bars that are susceptible to frost, briar to burn down, and locked doors that need powering up with a quick zap of electricity at nearby power boxes.
There are always multiple ways to approach any situation, obstacle, or battle in Avowed, and like all good RPGs it gives you the tools you need to explore the world and lets you approach things however you want. Its leveling and progression systems may seem simple, but the three leveling trees governing Warrior, Ranger, and Wizarding abilities, allow for numerous playstyles. Whether you want to be a powerhouse wielding a big shiny axe, a spell-slinging sword fighter, or an old-timey gunslinger. You have the means to tailor your character to the way you like to play. It’s so open-ended that I often pondered where to place that next ability point for far longer than I usually do.
In a clever twist the legions of Dreamscorged, angry spirits, and Xaurips (legally distinct lizard men) you battle while on your adventure aren’t tied to your level but how good your equipment is. This makes for nice peaks and troughs in difficulty, as each new area presents a fair challenge as you scramble to upgrade your equipment to take on the increasingly vicious flora and fauna. Though admittedly this does start to ease off towards the end of the game when you have higher tier gear.
As well as bog standard tied equipment that runs from common-legendary, there is also a treasure trove of unique weapons, armour, and trinkets to find that confer all kinds of buffs and bonuses, from increasing your resistance to status effects to providing bonuses to your characters stats.
If that’s not all they can also be enchanted back at camp to give them additional special attacks that often help turn the tide in combat.
Moment-to-moment combat is incredibly slick. You can switch between two weapon load-outs with a quick press of Y, to change your tactics on the fly. I usually had a grimoire, packed with powerful element spells, and a trusty axe and shield. Allowing me to soften up that horde of Seraphon Xaurips by raining shards of ice on them, or hurling explosive fireballs at them before going in for the kill with my axe.
Fighting feels kinetic and crunchy, and there’s something incredibly satisfying about successfully parrying an incoming attack and then returning the favour with a powerful blow of your own. Likewise attacking with spells has a nice feeling of risk and reward as it takes time to conjure more devastating attacks, something you don’t always have when a rabid mushroom monster bears down on you.
Soon you’ll have a whole bevy of abilities, a larder full of food for providing buffs and restoring your health, and at least a half dozen orders to bark at your comrades. What could have been an incredibly clunky interface, instead is governed by a well-constructed wheel system that you can access with a quick press of LB. Whatever you need is only a couple of button presses away and commanding your party is an absolute cinch.
It doesn’t have to come to fisticuffs though because your character is also a master negotiator. Therefore it’s possible, and the game even encourages you, to try and try and talk your way out of sticky situations and find something resembling a reasonable resolution to your problems.
What you say is often just as important as the way you say it, while having previous experience thanks to which background you picked (I chose disgraced scholar/ occultist) or your base stats like perception, intelligence, and resolution will open up new conversation options that you can use to hammer your point home further.
Winning a debate often feels as hard fought as a tough battle, though it still feels realistic since some people will never be convinced by your way of thinking and others won’t want to talk at all based on your previous actions in the region.
That being said, I did have the best time murdering my way through the camp of a faction that I loathed. It may have caused trouble for me further down the road. But you know what? It was worth it, and I did try to warn them first.
When you’re not getting sidetracked by another side mission, bounty, or tracking down another blasted cartographer; you can take a load off at camp. These are essentially fast travel points that also let you upgrade or enchant your weapons and armor, check in with your party, and do a spot of cooking (for fun and profit).
In a nice twist, you can also jump to camp and then get transported back to where you were exploring previously, which comes in handy when you want to upgrade your equipment before a tricky battle or spot a secret hidden behind a character-specific barrier, such as illusions that need to be dispelled by Y. Thankfully the others are all element based and can be removed easily enough if you keep an elemental grimoire to hand.
Word to the wise though, you’ll want to manually save regularly. Especially when you know there might be trouble on the horizon. Avowed does auto-save. But when is a mystery known only by its temperamental gods, and as a result, you occasionally end up miles away from your current objective.
On the plus side though. Avowed does autosave just before every point in your adventure where your decisions will have a major impact on the story, even labeling the saves ‘point of no return’. It’s a small touch, but a welcome one, especially for those of us who like to see what could have happened, or seriously regret your decision.
Final Thoughts
Avowed is a phenomenal exercise in world-building, with some of the best dialogue and character progression I’ve seen in a game. The choices you’re presented with throughout have a real impact and weight to them, and the Lviing lands are an absolute joy to explore. Not just because they’re beautiful, but because they feel alive, and packed with stuff to do. There’s always something happening, some new thing to hunt or find, or settler who needs your help.
Although the gameplay doesn’t necessarily bring anything new to the table (It’s very Skyrim in the best possible way), every system and facet of the experience, from fighting for your life to selling your spoils has been polished to a crystal sheen and executed almost flawlessly. Every care has been taken to make the whole game feel as frictionless as possible. So you can get to the important business of cracking skulls and saving the world from the Dreamscourge.
If you’re looking for a deep and engaging action RPG that feels both comforting and familiar yet fresh and exciting. You can’t go wrong with Avowed.
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