As a seasoned RPG enthusiast with over two decades of gaming under my belt, I must say that the Avowed demo left me utterly captivated. The richness and depth of the world Obsidian has crafted is simply astounding, reminding me of the days when I used to roam the lands of Morrowind or Oblivion.
In contrast to what many people talk about when it comes to Avowed’s environment, the Living Lands, it’s not an open-world game as one might expect. Instead, the world of Avowed is constructed from multiple “open zones” – expansive geographical areas that are linked together with other vast regions, similar to how The Outer Worlds, a previous game by Obsidian Entertainment, was structured.
In the initial aspects of Avowed’s realms, it’s evident that Obsidian has prioritized creating a space brimming with intriguing experiences. Whether you’re pursuing side missions distributed by diverse characters within Paradis, the largest city in the Living Lands, or simply meandering to discover hidden gems, there are numerous incentives for exploration. Scattered throughout the area are bandit camps, ruins, partially-destroyed shacks, and clusters of fallen soldiers beside massive bear carcasses. The Living Lands is rich with tales waiting to be uncovered and secrets yearning to be revealed, making even aimless wandering in the wilderness feel like a thrilling journey.
Berto Ritger explained in an interview with TopMob that our open areas are spacious yet manageable for our team to meticulously design each aspect, ensuring a balanced level of detail. He emphasized that we’re aiming for more than vast, empty landscapes; instead, there will be moments of tranquility and stillness, but always with something interesting to engage the player. Moreover, he mentioned striving for diversity in these elements to prevent repetition. In other words, you won’t find the same dead potion bottle in every hand throughout the environment.
During a preview event at Obsidian, we just experienced the initial two hours of Avowed, offering a glimpse into how your journey through the game’s world starts taking shape. Importantly, it doesn’t take long before you have considerable autonomy over what actions to take and how to execute them. In fact, from the outset, Avowed offers you ample flexibility in deciding how to engage with the game, its narrative, and its battle mechanics.
Following your exploration of Avowed’s extensive character creation tool, you find yourself immersed in the world. Obsidian has already outlined the game’s narrative setup: You assume the role of a character named the Envoy, dispatched by the leader of a powerful human and elf alliance, the Aedyr Empire, to traverse to the Living Lands. The empire holds curiosity for these remote islands, known for their unforgiving wilderness and even more formidable inhabitants. The place carries an aura of the American Wild West–individuals venture there in pursuit of a better life or anonymity. It’s not entirely uncivilized, but many who call the Living Lands home are rugged individuals best avoided in a confrontation.
In this self-reliant, somewhat chaotic community, the Aedyr Empire makes its entrance, setting roots in the Living Lands that the inhabitants regard warily as an early sign of colonization and the imposition of order. As the emperor’s representative, many people perceive you with anything from a hint of mistrust to open hostility right off the bat.
In the thriving territories known as the Living Lands, there exists a critical issue – the Dream Scourge, a malady likened to a “soul infection.” It’s been ravaging people, animals, and the land itself. Those affected suffer from madness and abnormal fungal growths, with no clear understanding of its origin or how to combat it. In an attempt to address this enigma, the emperor has assigned you the task of leading an investigation and devising a solution to this problem. The Dream Scourge poses a severe risk to life in the Living Lands, and upon witnessing its devastating impact firsthand as the Aedyran outpost – home to your allies – fires upon your incoming Aedyran vessel, you find yourself stranded from the wreckage. Another crewmate is also washed ashore, and together, you make your way to the outpost in search of a means to carry on your voyage to the Living Lands.
In the initial stages of this tutorial, you’ll encounter numerous battles with Xaurip lizard people who’ve moved into the outpost following a series of tragic events where the soldiers appear to have turned against each other and killed one another. From the get-go, Avowed stresses its flexible combat style based on multiple character classes. During character creation, you’ll choose your background as an Envoy, with options ranging from war hero to arcane scholar. The backstory you select influences your starting weapon, but don’t worry – this doesn’t limit you. As soon as you come across additional weapons like spears, pistols, swords, shields, and magical grimoires, you can use them freely, without any prior conditions or prerequisites.
In the past, I had an opportunity to test Avowed’s combat during a one-hour demo at a Gamescom event in Los Angeles. However, this demo offered a condensed and targeted glimpse into the game’s fighting mechanics, with predetermined character builds by the developers. Beginning anew, the experience felt much more expansive. I swiftly replaced my initial dagger with a sword and grimoire, enabling me to slash through adversaries or incinerate them with a flamethrower from my hand, observing their health deplete as they burned and blackened.
Engaging in battles offers a swift, smooth, and captivating experience. As Obsidian aimed to create satisfying first-person combat while incorporating aspects from their top-down games set in the same universe (such as Avowed and the Pillars of Eternity series), they discovered that achieving the desired combat feel involved adjusting the timings of attacks to make them faster, resulting in a more reactive system overall.
Max Matzenbacher, senior combat designer, noted in an interview with TopMob that using a first-person perspective requires brevity due to its limited view. Since it’s focused on your character, there are only so many actions you can perform. If the character is incapacitated for a prolonged period, this enforces the need for responsiveness to make gameplay feel immediate and engaging.
In any given fight, there’s a variety of strategies available. You can save two distinct weapon configurations at once, allowing for quick swaps even during an ongoing attack sequence. This makes it simple to transition between two entirely different combat styles on the fly. Each enemy hit depletes their health and fills a meter tracking their stamina. When this meter reaches its maximum, your opponent will be stunned, providing an opportunity to execute a weapon-specific special move that inflicts significant damage automatically. Stealth is also a viable approach – enemies may not detect you immediately, allowing for surprise attacks from behind as you navigate tall grass or stay out of their line of sight. Additionally, the environment can be used advantageously; for instance, flammable berries can be fired with a bow to ignite a fire.
In the two demos I’ve tried, I’ve found myself fitting nicely with Avowed’s combat system, although it can be challenging, even in the tutorial zone. The core gameplay revolves around managing a stamina meter that controls both your offensive moves and, more importantly, your swift, nimble dodges to avoid danger. Some enemies attack without warning, forcing you to retreat, and surviving involves a lot of side-stepping to dodge blows and counterattack. Attacks are delivered rapidly, allowing you to retaliate and then evade or block an incoming attack. You can also take risks with powerful charged attacks using most weapons. The gameplay is fast-paced and smooth, and the option to constantly wield two weapons, such as twin swords or a spear and a sidearm like a pistol or spellbook, ensures you always have a tactical advantage.
In this game, you have considerable flexibility when interacting with opponents, but the character progression system is more systematic. You can distribute skill points across various skill sets, each labeled according to character classes such as Fighter or Ranger. This helps provide a clear understanding of how your character is developing along conventional lines, without Avowed forcing you into a specific class. Additionally, you’ll gain access to special abilities that operate on cooldown timers, allowing you to blend the skills of different fields effortlessly, without needing to deeply consider the skill tree. For example, you might acquire the Fighter’s dash-tackle ability, which can be used to knock out enemies forcefully, or the Ranger’s entangling magic vines that temporarily anchor enemies to a specific location.
Uncovering the mystery of what happened in the outpost quickly brings you to your first major RPG choice in Avowed. You discover a local resident of the Living Lands locked inside with a dead soldier. As a representative of the Aedyr Empire, she’s immediately distrustful of you and gives you a sense of how the residents of the island see outsiders. Your crewmate doesn’t think it’s a great idea to let the smuggler out, but you need a boat to reach the Living Lands proper. Whether you choose to trust the smuggler or leave her to rot, however, is up to you.
In our pursuit of the smuggler and various covert operations against Xaurips, we eventually reached Paradis. After bidding farewell to your fellow crewmember and the reluctant smuggler companion, your true adventure in Avowed begins. Immediately, you’re given free rein to act as you wish. Upon landing at the docks of Paradis, you encounter a local militia representative who makes her displeasure evident, along with a weary guard captain. Kai, a man seeking the “clavager” or in simpler terms, the mayor of Paradis, is also present. It transpires that the Aedyran ambassador, whom you must meet, has gone to investigate some peculiar Dream Scourge occurrences with the clavager. As a result, Kai decides to accompany you in locating them.
In the heart of the Living Lands, Paradis presents an unusual atmosphere. Despite its vast size, it seems incongruous, offering a blend of the vibrant hustle and bustle of a city teeming with people and the appearance of a place slowly deteriorating, where modern structures stand alongside decaying ruins.
Dennis Presnell, the lead environment artist, explained one key point he wanted to convey: “This locale I was depicting, this narrative I was unfolding, is an absolutely wild, indomitable region.” Over time, various civilizations have attempted to dominate it, only to fade away, leaving remnants at the game’s onset. As you approach the docks, you notice that the structures are new but appear aged, struggling against the elements, barely hanging on. The same can be observed in Paradis – a mix of diverse cultures striving for survival in what could be the most protected and stable area within the Living Lands, yet it remains far from perfect.
Initially, your mission appears to be tracking down the ambassador to progress the storyline. However, once Kai accompanies you, you gain freedom to explore off the main trail. As you venture forth, you gradually grasp the true nature of the Living Lands – a notion that Presnell portrays as less of a static location and more like a living entity. Avowed’s unique characteristic lies in its depiction of the Living Lands as an enigmatic place, hard to fully comprehend.
Matt Hansen, an art director, explained that considering the environment as a character is beneficial in game development. This approach allows players to empathize with land, trees, or any part of the game world. In essence, it’s about imagining how you would react if you were that tree, feeling disturbed by new neighbors and having the ability to respond. This perspective helps create a sense of a strange and mysterious frontier in the game.
In this game, side missions can be initiated right away – I came across a woman not too far from the docks who was being troubled by Xaurips invading her house on some sea cliffs. After eliminating them, I discovered an odd mural they’d created in her living room. Upon questioning her about it, she shared her tale of recurring dreams about the Xaurip and her fear that, in a way, the Xaurip is her actual soulmate. I provided some seemingly unhelpful words of comfort, received my reward, and left, pondering over what could have possibly transpired. (I’ve asked the developers about this quest, and it seems there’s more to the story of the Xaurip soulmate.)
/videos/avowed-reveal-trailer-xbox-games-showcase-2023/2300-6461615/
According to Ritger, side quests, particularly larger ones, significantly influence your main story and vice versa. Your actions will immediately affect your companions. These decisions will have a profound impact on individual characters, groups, settlements, factions, regions, and even the options available to you later in the game. As the game progresses, choices you made early on may prevent or present new opportunities based on those earlier choices.
As I strolled towards the next chapter in my game, I found myself surrounded by intriguing sights, even in the relatively unassuming expanse of Paradis. It’s not colossal, as I soon discovered while wandering its streets, but it’s far from cramped. What makes it stand out is the abundance of captivating details Obsidian has thoughtfully included.
/videos/avowed-gameplay-trailer-xbox-games-showcase-2024/2300-6464318/
It seems that Avowed is filled with such scenarios. I stumbled upon a dilapidated, deserted house near the river, where diaries revealed the hardships of the farmer who once resided there. A short distance along the stream lay more wreckage, where outlaws had established their camp. They swiftly defeated me as Kai shouted from afar to alert me that my initial armor, being quite weak, was no match for their superior weapons. All these events transpired on my return journey to town.
During our two-hour playthrough, we were treated to some initial segments of Avowed’s narrative. You locate the ambassador, experience an odd meeting with a voiceless being that appears to be the spirit of the Living Lands, and slay a massive bear infected with the Dream Scourge. This beast was enraged and adorned with stunning yet grotesque mushrooms.
Those points are compelling, but maybe even more so are the little things that Obsidian has seeded throughout the Living Lands that you might miss, like that ailing farmhouse or those weird ruins. That also goes for the time you can spend with your companions; it’s possible to set up camp at certain places where you can tend to things like improving your gear, and during those moments, you can also talk to your pals about whatever’s going on in the plot, their backstories, and more. Even 10 steps off the dock, I was surprised at how deep and expansive my camp conversations with Kai could be. There’s a ton of story material in these moments, but it’s all optional, allowing you to dig as deeply into the narrative and characters as you want.
In essence, our goal is for the player to shape their own adventure, allowing them to delve deeply into conversations when they desire or choose minimal interaction. This flexibility does pose some design hurdles, but it’s worth it because non-linear content feels more tailored and personal to each player. As an RPG enthusiast, I personally value this freedom over a strictly linear gameplay experience.
Despite having only glimpsed a part of the game Avowed, what captivates me most is its open-ended exploration and abundance of items to uncover – be it in combat, wandering the environment, or during dialogues. Avowed appears to be brimming with opportunities for self-discovery, whether you’re sticking to the narrative or venturing off on your own through the world. From what we’ve seen so far, the Living Lands are teeming with life, and the fact that Obsidian has packed it with so much content that some things may be overlooked, makes Avowed seem like a game where getting lost could lead to an exciting experience.
Read More
- PENDLE PREDICTION. PENDLE cryptocurrency
- Skull and Bones Players Report Nerve-Wracking Bug With Reaper of the Lost
- W PREDICTION. W cryptocurrency
- SOLO PREDICTION. SOLO cryptocurrency
- Rainbow Six Siege directory: Quick links to our tips & guides
- Team Fight Tactics (TFT) Patch 14.23 Notes: What to Expect from Set 13 Release
- KEN/USD
- League of Legends: Saken’s Potential Move to LOUD Sparks Mixed Reactions
- Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Review: History Repeats
- Aphrodite Fanart: Hades’ Most Beautiful Muse Unveiled
2024-11-21 17:40