5%Xbox Series X/S

•▪︎■●{Real Score: 0/10}●■▪︎•

This game is a huge steaming pile of garbage. The greedy developers are charging $70 for a shovelware game. I thought New Vegas was bad in terms of quality, but this game's quality is even worse, despite being 2 generations ahead. I played this on Gamepass when I had it back around the time when the Oblivion "remaster" came out, and I believe this is the only Gamepass title I have yet to review, so why don't I review this trash now. The graphics are a joke. The gameplay is boring and repetitive. The physics are beyond horrible. The flames on the sword looked so fake, it looks like a TikTok filter, or one of those special effect things you can send to TikTok streamers. You see how Sucker Punch did the fire sword in Ghost of Tsushima and Yotei? Now that's how you do it in a AAA game, not this cringeworthy TikTok fire filter bullcrap that is in this game. It's the same garbage as Rise of the Ronin. The animations are laughable, especially in third person. And don't tell me that it's supposed to be played in first person, because if that were the case, then it would've been in first person only.

The water effects are a complete joke. It doesn't react to the player's movements at all. No splashes, no ripple effects, nothing. When I fell into the water from a great height and died, my character crashed onto the seabed and bounced around as if he landed on an actual bed, or at least that's how I remembered it during my playthrough. Are you freaking kidding me? It's literally impossible to bounce around like that in water, due to the density and viscosity of water. So basically I crashed onto the seafloor as if there wasn't any water at all. Even if there wasn't any water, the physics are still wrong. Just to be clear, the ocean does have a sense of buoyancy, but the effect doesn't seem to register when you die and fall from a great height. GTA V's water has buoyancy and splashes, regardless of the altitude or circumstances, and that was from 2 generations ago for God's sake. So there's no excuse as to why this $70 XSX game can't pull it off, especially when it's backed by a multi-trillion dollar corporation. The hair looked so fake, it looks like it was made out of clay or something.

There is no multiplayer. So once you beat the story, there is literally not a reason to play this game again. Charging $70 for a game with no replay value is cash grab. For goodness sake, why are video game developers so obsessed with elf ears? Enough already. I'm aware that this game takes place in the same universe as some other Obsidian game that has elf ears, but that doesn't mean they have to add it. Take Uncharted 4 for instance, they got rid of the monsters in the campaign, and they should've got rid of the elf ears in this game. As with many modern games, everything appears to be completely static. I can't punch the NPCs nor do they react to you attacking them. It's the same thing with the animals, I can't kill them and they don't seem to react when getting attacked. I can't even destory objects or anything. The AI is incredibly stupid. The shadows are trash. And this might be the last Gamepass game I review, because $30 a month for games I don't own is wild. I'm still debating whether to get Outerworlds 2 on Gamepass or just buy it. Because I don't want to support Xbox's recent corporate greed. I guess I'll just flip a coin and make my decision. I don't recommend this game at all.

80%Xbox Series X/S

Decent obsidian RPG game.

Combat is flexible and allows a lot of variation which is probably the best part.

Characters and story would say are above average and could be a bit better didn't find myself immersed in it to much but the combat carried it.
Maybe a romance option or better interactions with the companions would have improved that bit.
Graphics are decent and vibrant at times.

Enemy variation is limited and limited character customization would say are not favorable points.
Would also say exploration and looting at times felt random and some areas or fights the loot didn't always match the difficulty or the level of exploration it took to locate an item/chest.

70%PC

Was a relatively fun game where your choices mattered. Not just in dialogue but in actual events of the game. I could play another run and I know the outcomes would be different.

55%PC

I really want to like this game, I really do, but its just an unpolished game that feels shallow for how big and expanding it is. All the fighting action in this game is pretty weak and easy. All the difficulty does is give the enemies insanely higher health chunks to be beefier to fight, rather than actual difficulty of the ai, new mechanics, and more enemies. The enemies don't respawn either other than some minimal bug critters. This makes all of the map feel extremely empty the moment you have explored that area just once. And trust me that you will be backtracking a lot if you are playing the game how you are playing, and not speedrun rushing.

The story and dialogue feels pretty interesting, but the game again, just feels pretty empty throughout. There's almost no npcs that actually background talk, and once they say something once they will never again. And lots of lore is word dumping in random notes that are scattered across and conversations you must sit through. All the voice acting sounds similar too, like they were only done by 2-4 people other than the main cast which I really really disliked. At the very least hire voice actors that can do multiple voices like they do for animated shows.

The landscape was beautiful, yet utterly empty and repetitive. They put too much emphasis in my opinion of adding random rock spikes, rock mountains, rock pillars, rock hills, rock collumns. There's just so much random rocks and cliffs that it feels extremely repetitive. But the worst part of the map design is there are multiple places which you feel like there could be something all the way up on that giant rock pillar, when there isn't but at the same time extremely rarely there is an item at that out of reach location. It felt annoying as heck to explore every little location.

I really don't know what to say about this game. I really liked it, but its just way too repetitive and everything in the game feels extremely subtly underpolished and developed. It just feels like a massive time waster game that is overall empty. I really can't suggest this game unless you enjoy speedrunning and rushing through campaigns like Skyrim. As any normal player would struggle to find this enjoyable enough to finisht he playthrough. Exploration, fighting, etc just feel way too unfulfilling.

75%Xbox Series X/S

Muy largo

70%Xbox Series X/S

Avowed is a good game, however I found myself constantly needing to take breaks from it and coming back at a later date.
It's like the opposite of moreish, I would have my full and need a break before digging back in for more.
While not as expansive as some open world game, it's still a lot of fun and enjoyable to explore.
I have one big grip and that's the dialogue, not the actual writing itself, it's a very well written game but I have issue with how its incorporated into the game.
Firstly NPCs just talk so much, it's like they were trying to hit a minimum word count for every single character, I would ask a simple question and would always get no less than 3 lines of dialogue back as the NPC monologues forever, it grew tiresome.
Secondly, why do I have to go to camp to talk to my companions and have them talk to each other? It makes no sense to me, why can't I just talk to them while we're out in the world? Why don't they talk to each other as we're just walking around? When we're at camp they don't shut the hell up but the only way to hear all that dialogue is to just sit there and do nothing. If you upgrade your gear or sort your inventory, the dialogue stops so you just have to stand there and do nothing, it's ridiculous, I wish these conversations were just playing out naturally as we explored and looted, such a waste of what I can only imagine is heaps of unheard voice acting.
The combat was fun, if not repetitive, actually that kinda goes for the whole game, it was all a bit repetitive, it eventually felt like I was just doing the same thing over and over by the end of the game. Not necessarily a bad thing, but notable.
Overall, I liked avowed, if you enjoy simple RPGs then this is definitely for you, but if you like really deep open world games you might want to lower your expectations going into this one.

60%PC

Meh

70%Xbox Series X/S

41hrs

65%PC

The premise of the story has you, the player character, arriving in a foreign land as an envoy for the Emperor. This land, called the Living Lands, is not under the direct control of the Empire, but it seems to be headed that way. You are tasked with discovering the nature of a plague that is ravaging the Living Lands called the Dreamscourge. You’ll be thrown into a supernatural conflict that has you smack dab in the middle. It’s the classic “chosen one” RPG story and… it gets tiring. Much of the dialogue is crammed with special fantasy words and references and these are words you will absolutely not be familiar with if you have not played previous Pillars of Eternity games and, as someone who has not played previous Pillars of Eternity games, I found it very difficult to engage with the dialogue. The developers did add a system where you can pause at any time during the dialogue and dive into individual words and phrases, like a glossary, to figure out what everyone is talking about, but after the first few hours I realized I began completely ignoring this as it was just too exhausting trying to understand all the backstory and lore. Your experience, of course, might be different, but I found myself not having fallen in love with this world by the end of my 70ish hour experience. The story never seemed to captivate me and I found myself quickly skipping most opportunities to delve deeper into dialogue with the various characters throughout its 40ish hour runtime.
Where the story does work reasonably well is in the choices you are given to shape the fate of Eora and the people of the Living Lands. But these choices usually happen near the end of your time in a given region and you don’t hang around too long to experience their repercussions. Nevertheless, you’re getting more opportunities here to navigate some fairly difficult ethical conundrums than you may in, say, an Elder Scrolls game.
Now, a note on your companions–these guys are boring. None of them add much to the overall story and I never felt that they did much to engage me or elicit any kind of emotional response. They all are from the Living Lands, which feels like they should have strong feelings about me being an outsider, no less the Envoy of the Emperor who everyone seems to not love. I should be an enemy, but they tend to just follow along with any decision I make, maybe expressing an initial dislike, but then they stick around and tell me how great I am a few minutes later. I rarely spent time talking to them around the fire aside from the required dialogue I needed to cut through to access their little missions of which none felt particularly interesting.

What kept me playing was the little dopamine hits you get parkouring around the world opening treasure chests. Hearing the little tingle and knowing something is nearby is fun, I just wish the rewards were a little more engaging. Most of the treasure chests you will open, and there are a lot of treasure chests, will contain crafting materials. Each region has higher tiers of these crafting materials and, despite looting them all over the world, you will never feel like you have enough to upgrade your items which sucks because that’s really the only way to increase your power level as you move throughout the game. This makes it so that early on you need to decide what your build will be because it is not easy, and in many cases quite impossible, to swap to a different set of armor or weapons halfway through the game. They won’t be upgraded to where they need to be, making combat a slog. This is a bummer because I do believe there are a good amount of interesting builds you could have in Avowed and the combat can be pretty fun when you aren’t falling into this damage sponge trap due to using lower tier weapons. I played as a magic user and it was pretty fun slinging spells from my wand, freezing different enemies, and exploding them.

Early on, my biggest complaint with the game was its awful implementation of a map. It uses fog of war, which is probably my least favorite way to uncover an open world game’s map, but this was even worse as the radius of fog you uncovered as you walked around was so small that I found myself obsessively walking back and forth all over the map just to clear it. It’s awful and I don’t know who thought it was a good idea. I eventually ended up downloading a mod that would uncover the entire map so that I didn’t pull all my hair out figuring out if I had been somewhere yet or not. Once I had that mod I found the game much more enjoyable, but still, by that final region I was pretty tired of clearing out camp after camp of enemies just to open a little chest and get three or four crafting materials. The exploration was almost there, the parkour bit of jumping around are fun, but it doesn’t quite stick the landing.

Overall, after spending 70 hours running around the Living Lands, I’m not sure I ever really need to go back. I enjoyed myself alright, well eno

85%PC

Gamer is very solid, strikes a nice balance between RPG and action (probably the best part of it). Companion narrative and questing is interesting, all in all it shows pretty good writing as the story keeps unfolding in a engaging way (political at most). Nice, evocative graphics and sounds. Probably not a masterpiece but a very competent entry in the long tradition of Obsidian RPGing. Very Good.

100%PC

beautiful illustrations, really cool weird fantasy worldbuilding and loveable companions. I played about 50% of the game with dual wielding pistols and the other 50% with a two hand sword and both playstyle felt amazing. strikes and shots felt really powerful, combat overall ist just fun. the ony negative thing for me would be "the voice in your head", because after hours and hours of conversation it really started to be annoying as hell. I really dont understand the hate this game gets.

85%PC

Na verdade é um 87.

75%PC

Pretty good, felt like it could have ended earlier, and the missions really started to blend together near the end

80%PC

Fun game, felt like an old school Bethesda RPG.

55%PC

Absolute cinema mid.
After my first playthrough I thought that this game is good. It's... not that bad. But it's mid. As mid as a game could be.
Exploration is good, fights are not bad. Melee is boring and tiring, guns are fun, magic is awesome.
Story is mid. You are an Imperial Envoy, chosen by the Emperor of Aedyr to bring Imperial Law and save the anarchistic continent of The Living Lands. You made a VOW (so you are AVOWED) to your emperor... But fuck it. You can do whatever you want without consequences. Most of the game is Black/White. The Empire is bad and the locals are good.
There is some tough choices with some consequences and you can doom entire cities. But most NPC are static so fuck them.

Obsidian could do better.

75%Xbox Series X/S

Avowed is a game that runs well on the Xbox series x, and has some definite pros and cons as a RPG, and as a game. PROS: - visuals are fantastic - landscape is very well done - art style is well suited for the game - lighting is some of the best I have ever seen in an RPG - the movement is fun and addicting, I really like how the implemented light platformer elements into the game - the game doesn’t overstay its welcome, I was able to complete many side quests and the entire story in a little under 20 hours - the bounties are fun to do, and I really enjoyed completing them - there were many choices that I got to make that surprised me, and I felt like my choices actually mattered - I didn’t find one bug when playing through the entire game CONS: - the enemies ice skate quite a bit when attacking you, which is very annoying throughout the whole game and makes it tougher to dodge - there is an extreme difficulty jump at the end of the game. The enemies become much more frequent and much more common, which is very annoying when you are nearing the end of a game. I ended up dropping down the difficulty to “story time” so I could just focus on finishing the game - The story wasn’t bad but was predictable, along with the companions (other than Kai) being forgettable - the weapon leveling system was burdensome when trying to level up weapons through crafting, and when moving to new regions your weapons are rendered basically useless - the last region has a lack of upgrade materials and fully upgraded weapons that can be bought, contributing to a much harder end game - lots of enemies in a scene can cause significant slowdowns All in all this is a solid 75/100 game. I would play it if you like fantasy RPGs, or are a fan of obsidian/bethesda style games. I would only pick this up if you have game pass or it is on sale.

85%Xbox Series X/S

85%

85%PC

a bit long for me at this point, rushed the last quarter, nice RPG

70%Xbox Series X/S

Not a game for immersion or interactive gameplay, in that way comparisons to TES are unflattering. Great presentation (particularly the past lives of Godlike and intro/outro sequences) and writing, including interesting narrative choices. Companions are very mixed, Kai and Giatta were great, Marius pretty one-note, Yatzli just annoying. Played as an older, weathered academic who was plucked from obscurity by the Emperor but is not committed to the Empire. I felt like I could actually role play that in the game, which is a sign of a good western RPG.

60%PC

Cookie-cutter fantasy action game. Not really an RPG, more of an action fighter. Most of the RPG elements basically follow your weapon choice. Use a sword and shield? Pick skills that up your sword and shield abilities. Use a spell book? Pick skills that give you more spells. Your "stats" are really just upgradable buffs in disguise. The combat is fine. Centered around stereotypical dodge indicators, though sometimes the indicators are mis-timed. Any stealth option is an after-thought. The story and characters (including side-quests and your party) are utterly forgettable. Most of your choices lead to the same conclusion except for the very end. The world is beautiful and well designed. The parkour feature makes it fun and satisfying to explore. I enjoyed it but it's a pretty brain-dead action game.

70%Xbox Series X/S

Good game but the last section of the game somehow managed to feel dragged out yet rushed.

I understand it is not supposed to be an RPG like The Elder Scrolls however it is very hard not to compare the two.

Pros
Lovely visuals
Combat felt fun

Cons
Weak story
Towns felt lifeless, not enough npcs and there is no cycles for their daily lives which really impacted on the vibe of the game.
Each area felt more boring as they progressed, felt samey and lifeless. Which even if that works story/location wise feels bad to play.
Companions felt forgettable other than Kai.
Felt like choices didn't really matter.

Definitely enjoyed this game but lots of room to improve. Looking forward to where they go in the future with ?expansion or sequel.

80%PC

I liked the game and it kept me interested until the very end (which is rare). Visually it's great (especially all the environmental effects and explosions during fights and landscapes in the third zone), good audio, interesting companions and exploration.
Some of the most notable cons for me were:

1 - Fighting is the same all game long (I played with a wand and a grimoire) - too few types of enemies, too few different magic spells.
2 - Item system was too simple. Basically same items the entire game and the upgrade system was basic. You can't change equipment of your companions either.
3 - Story and dialogues were very lore-heavy, definitely not everyone's cup of tea.

70%Xbox Series X/S

Full review coming soon to tactical-reload.com

65%PC

6 out of 10. Not a bad Skyrim simulator. Overall, I liked the game and I don't regret playing it. From a gameplay perspective, the game doesn't add anything new, it's all old stuff. There was one bug where I got stuck in the textures and couldn't get out, and if you explore more, I think you can find more bugs like that. There was also a problem with the spell casting circle, it's terribly designed, you can't always aim where you need to. There's nothing particularly new about the plot either, but there is one thing! In this game, there are no good or bad choices, you always have to choose between two things that combine both good and bad, which definitely adds more depth and interest to the plot. Because of this, I will definitely remember the game and will sometimes recall the plot. If you are a fan of the genre, then playing this game on relaxed is definitely worth it, but it can quickly become boring. If not, and you are not interested or do not want to spend more than 40 hours on a mediocre game with an interesting plot, then you can safely pass it by.

90%PC

Manche Mechaniken sind etwas nervig und die Begleiter sind zwar sympathisch, fühlen sich im Kampf aber eher nutzlos an.

Ansonsten ein tolles Actionrollenspiel.

95%Xbox Series X/S

Great game! I loved the world! Combat was great, I definitely want to try different weapon combinations. I liked the story and choices you could make. The crew was a nice addition, I liked their individual storylines. Can’t wait to play it again!

80%PC

Grafik: 8/10
Soundtrack: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Story: 8,5/10

85%Xbox Series X/S

J'ai beaucoup aimé l'ambiance, la DA colorée, les mécaniques de jeu et en particulier les combats. Un peu trop long

60%PC

Fatal error!

70%PC

Overhated, graphics and audio were pretty good, combat mech was pretty satisfying too. Story was very solid, there was indeed a LOT of info thrown at me which made it confusing at the start but everything became clear as the game progressed. The naming of characters and places deserves a mention. pretty unrefined and incomplete for a AAA tho gotta say.

90%PC

Really addictive, I thought this was great

85%Xbox Series X/S

This game really needs an honest review. I will try to give one after 80+ hrs into it and game completion. I've hit maximal level (30) by the end of a journey.
One caveat here - this game was developed as a first person perspective and that is the way I've played. I used a fast switch to TPP view mostly just to excite with new gear on my character. And I believe that is the way you should play it.

So how does it feels like?
I'm a Pillars of Eternity fan and Avowed is like PoE moved into 3d environment with better combat and exploration but with some RPG simplifications.

- Very much of a PoE vibes
- Game environment is very static. Just like in 2d PoE. But the design of it is very well done, beautiful and much detailed as well.
- NPCs are mostly just a point on the map but I don't care if they move or not.
- Very good story. Companions are ok but some deserves better personal quests. You really have impact on the main story. Some side quests are even better than the main story.
- Fantastic and expanded world. Different biomes are big maps with a lot to do and fantastic vistas.
- Exploration is rewarding. If we're talking about "yet another turn syndrome" for strategy game, here we have "Yet another corner to check out syndrome"
- Combat is the main dish. Here you can approach it different ways, slam with a hammer, burn with fire, long range weapons, dual wielding etc. It's not easy but rewarding. During the game I changed combat approach few times and it paid off to check out different styles and weapons.
- There is a lot of a pressure on equipment level-up so that's why there is important to explore and find needed ingredients for upgrades and enchanting. It is especially visible in the end game if you want to max-out several pieces of your gear.
- Character leveling up is not that important but I've managed to hit the cap with 30 lvl.
- Skills tree is rather simple but gives you opportunity to reset all the skills and try different approach which I liked a lot. Also you are not sticked to the only one of Mage - Warrior - Hunter skill tree. I personally mixed all of them and you can play however you like which was fun for me.
- Althought at the end game I was a killing machine with best gear, I've never felt that the game gives you handicap, as I was lacking some resources and even gold temporarily. Normal difficulty level.
- Talking about difficulty it's very well balanced for the most of the game.
- Companions leveling is very very simple. Personally, I don't mind it. Never liked spending hours on skills tree.

That's what you get. Now what I've really liked and disliked?
Pros:

- Story and climatic setting
- Gameplay improvements like fast travel to camp and back to your area, stash inventory available at any time etc.
- great combat that you can approach on a different ways.
- much to explore with hidden passes etc
- Use of environmental issues during the fight or exploration. Froze water to get to the higher ground? No problem with that. But it's not very often.
- Sound and music. Each area is sounded perfectly. Thanks to it you can almost feel desert's heat and stuff like that.
- Simplistic rpg elements are ok for me. Decent stuff to develop your own play-style not focusing that much on other companions, where any of them have it's own combat style and skills.
- Lots of options in the menu.
- Yes, I have felt that emptiness when the game was over.

My cons:
- Prologue is totally bad. I was really disappointed with this game at the begging. I guess that might be the reason for hate that this game gets over the Internet. So in the prologue you get a simple area with hidden walls, bad dialogue and overall not very immersive. Luckily then it gets so much better after the prologue.
- some voice acting of the god that invaded your brain - could be better
- some minor graphical glitches. Could be more polished. You're spear will pierce through walls etc
- Third person perspective animations could be better. But as I said, game is build to play it as FPP.
- Woke BS here and there. It really breaks the immersion of the game when you have to read some in-game book about some "hun" and in polish language (that I've played the game) it really sounds ridiculous and is hard to even read. That only breaks the game immersion. Luckily the more you get into the game, the less of this is being served.

If you know what to expect from the game, it's really a great journey. It's not Skyrim where you can create your own home and flood it with collectibles, but you get a great dose of fast-paced action rpg with fantastic world design.
By the way I found Skyrim boring after some time. It never happened with Avowed.
The game also gives you quite a replayability possibility, not in terms of story but more in terms to check out new fighting approach, gear and character skills. But what is best for me - you can test it all during a single walkthrough if you wish.

95%Xbox Series X/S

Un grandísimo juego y muy entretenido

90%PC

Salvo algunos detalles; buen juego, preciso en duración, misiones secundarias, exploración, buenas gráficas, no abusa de tu tiempo ni te pide grindeo innecesario. Un RPG 100% preciso, boomer y sin ninguna pretención alguna. Good shit.

90%Xbox Series X/S

Un grandioso juego de rol

85%Xbox Series X/S

A great Obsidian RPG that has really enjoyable content but a predictable story that lets you make substantial choices and a tapestry ending that I enjoyed. Beautiful art, great writing aside from predictability, wonderful voice acting, and surprisingly good combat.

75%PC

By the end I just felt like I wanted to like the game a lot more than I actually did. It starts off strong, with different weapon sets all available to you, vendors that all have unique dialogue, EXCELLENT exploration. I was absolutely on board for how they encouraged and rewarded player curiosity. It IS usually crafting materials, but I loved when I found a little picnic blanket with food by a riverbed, a chest behind a waterfall, treasure under the water. Everything in the environments is vying for your attention basically all just saying "Climb me! Explore here!". A lot of areas are small mazes with a clever use of elevation. It's cool how areas can loop around on themselves and everything feels very freeing and intuitive rather than restrictive despite the small space. Each area has a distinct visual style to it, and has its own storyline and 'flavour' to it that I really liked (except the last area which felt incredibly rushed). Whoever did the SFX for opening chests, footfalls, combat, menus, eating - absolutely nailed it. I also loved finding unique weapons, each has its own story and passive abilities you can upgrade that I thought was really cool.

Combat also starts off strong (although I wish the weapons took up less than 50% of the screen), you are able to mix and match weapon sets to find one that you like, and each has its own distinct skill tree to encourage player experimentation. All execution moves look and feel great. An issue is that by the midway point I was just...sick of it? You're just doing the same actions over and over because the enemy variety is garbage. Skeletons, spiders, and humans, which are skeletons with skin. Maybe the occasional bear. This is not a short game and outside of some bosses there's not much here to challenge you to engage fully with the combat system and, by the end where it's just waves and waves of enemies I was absolutely sick of it. Godlike abilities, outside of the one you get during the final hour of the game, are complete garbage and not interesting at all. I usually forgot I even had them because they just aren't that useful. Companion abilities have no synergy and feel like you just press and forget. Stealth feels like a tacked on addition that adds almost nothing to the gameplay and I found little reason to engage with it.

There are two massive flaws for me that stop this game from being worth a replay, and made it difficult to finish.

First the world is incredibly static. NPCs barely have animation cycles, let alone pathing, so each city is just the same people in the same place doing the same things. Even World of Warcraft Vanilla had NPC pathing, what's happening here? You can enter a fair amount of houses, but some you can't for inexplicable reasons. The first city which is all "grim and tough and grrr" just feels like a regular town because no one is DOING anything. A lot of places feel like you're in an empty McDonalds playpen, clambering around while adults stare at you from inside in silence. Even during major events NPCs are usually just standing in groups going "oh noooo whaaatt" and do nothing else.

Second, while the writing and plot are of pretty high quality, and the voice acting is excellent, my god the player roleplay options are shit. You usually get one skill check during a conversation, and outside of I think one occasion it ALWAYS affects absolutely nothing. Someone is tied up and you have a high enough dex to untie them? Won't let you. Expected an int check in to do...anything? No. It's literally just flavour text. And that flavour is mouldy cheese. What is the point of even having skill checks if they do absolutely nothing? While characters might react to your dialogue choice, they usually blend together and there's not much opportunity for roleplay, there's no carry-on from prior choices. I was talking to some scientists who treated me like I couldn't understand them, there's an option to play dumb, but then that is quickly discarded for regular choices in the next option, and they don't react to you suddenly being able to talk. A small example but this permeates the entire game.

I'm fine with there not being romance options, I think a story about strangers who become a close knit band on a journey is great! These companions are pretty trash though. I dunno what discount bin they took their stories from but they are SEVERELY uninteresting. Only one feels like they actually get a side-story you...DO, and the other three have either nothing, or barely above nothing. I didn't care about any of them much and it made the attempts at "Wow we've been through so much together bestie!" moments fall flat.

I want to love it more, but I just can't. It feels like a chore playing sometimes, despite the great exploration and (usually) writing. It's way too expensive at full price, but either Game Pass or on a deep discount? Absolutely give it a whirl.

70%Xbox Series X/S

Avowed is the first Western RPG of its kind I ever finished. While the game definitely opened the doors for more games like it for me, I can't help but feel like its flaws and shortcomings are too abundant. Some thoughts on the game:

+ Beautiful game design
+ Fighting is fun and offers a lot of variety for different play styles
+ Companion characters are all distinct
+ Abundant options in the settings menu such as a great variety of difficulty options, map settings giving you the control of how much the compass displays and how much you want to discover your own

· Voice acting was all over the place - Companion characters were soild, most NPCs were disappointing, Sapadal's voice was so bad it took me out of the immersion
· treasure hunting felt like fun and a burden at the same time
· story is ok but nothing more, there were some legitimately hard decisions to make with great impact on the story

- lots of graphical glitches
- cutscenes dialogue angles were poorly executed, lots of flickering
- too much pop in of buildings, characters and other environmental objects, the rendering isn't optimal
- loading times too long for modern game

80%PC

I really enjoyed my 63 hours with Avowed despite the general hate around the game and its incompleteness. I loved the setting, the magic combat, the story, the characters, exploration and treasure hunting. It hooked me right from the start, and it was an unusual ride

80%Xbox Series X/S

Gameplay amazing, personally loved the Writing (even if others didn't) also loved Kai and, yes, I did smooch blue shark boi uwu

95%Xbox Series X/S

Gorgeous RPG, ideal for initiate yourself in this genre. Wide range of difficulty adaptation, no auto-leveling for the enemies and a compelling story with several forks as you make decisions which affect the course of the game. I have enjoyed the game even though I am not an FP-RPG fan but this one caught me from the begining.

95%PC

Avowed

Avowed is the newest game from Obsidian Entertainment, the madmen behind Fallout New Vegas, The Outer Worlds, and the Pillars of Eternity series (to name just a few). Avowed is based in the Pillars of Eternity series, but is essentially a new IP with new gameplay mechanics to explore the world of Eora. You are sent as a godlike, an envoy to the Aedyran (A-deer-in) empire to investigate a plague in The Living Lands, a completely new territory in Eora.

I never played much of the Pillars of Eternity games. I gave the first one a few hours, but the top-down real-time combat combined with the punishment of a game like Bauldur’s Gate III for making mistakes, wasn’t to my liking. I found the world they had created to be interesting, and the game well written, but the combat just didn’t work for me. Avowed fixes that issue, and I am able to enjoy this game world and all of its beautiful lore now.

This game has obviously been compared to the likes of Skyrim, mainly due to first person combat in a fantasy world RPG. Avowed really struck me as more along the lines of The Outer Worlds, or even a Bioware RPG. It’s not as all encompassing as a Bethesda RPG in terms of being able to do tons of shenanigans. You also can’t romance your partners like in Baldur’s Gate, but personally I’m fine with that - though some people heard you couldn’t romance anyone and straight up wanted to riot. Not literally, but some people like a little dating sim in their RPG games, and that’s fine, but I’m not exactly all that into those aspects of these games, so I didn’t really care. In fact, I appreciated not having to worry about that and just being friendly with my party. You still get to know each member of your party in-depth, with each member having their own quest line and side story. Not all party members are created equal in this, to be fair, but what was on offer I did enjoy.

The game is incredibly well-built (aside from crashing issues still present on PC). It runs well for a UE5 game - which it seems like good developers are finally learning how to properly optimize UE5 on PC so it doesn’t murder my only slightly outdated system. Besides crashes from the memory leak issue, which was a steady every 1-3 hours. Which is debatable if it’s even an Avowed issue or Nvidia drivers doing wonky shit with DX12 and UE5, as I can’t play Marvel Rivals or Fortnite without crashes on DX12 either. All that technical mumbo jumbo aside, the game runs well, and it looks gorgeous. Obviously a good UE5 game nowadays is going to look good. It also runs smoothly, with little hitches, and the lighting is implemented beautifully with the artstyle. I particularly loved running around at night time and seeing the glowing mushrooms and plants, the fireflies in the air, the distant glow of torches and spells lighting up the night. All of it was incredibly pleasing to the eye, and gave me a sense of wonder and awe at this beautiful, and slightly creepy, world they’d built.

The main reason you’re playing an Obsidian game though isn’t for the visuals, but the story telling and the RPG mechanics. The story here is incredibly well told. I was hooked and engaged from the get-go. I was constantly left wondering what the motivations and actions of almost every major party meant, and was constantly questioning whether I made the right choice in my playthrough. There are a few very difficult choices to make in the game, where there isn’t really a good answer, and you simply have to choose the least worst, or what your gut says is the best option. I legit sat there for about 10 minutes at one of these incredibly impactful choices (many lives and the future hanged in the balance) and I really had to think over what each party was trying to get out of my choice, as well as what was best. Maybe I put too much into it, it is a game after all, but I love these sort of moral dilemmas, where there isn’t a clear good guy/bad guy dynamic. It’s all a sort of gray. Something that’s important to a story like this as well is the performances - and I can’t think of a single bad or awkward performance. The party members especially did a great job. I particularly enjoyed the voice acting done for Kai.

What definitely isn’t bad, is the combat. It isn’t the most in-depth combat, but what’s here is incredibly engaging and fun. I loved trying new weapons, with new abilities and modifiers, and really breaking the stun system in the game. Basically you build up a stun meter, and once full, they become stunned and you can do a “finisher” move. Very satisfying. I went with a mixture of a warrior and a ranger build for most of my playthrough. Though for what I did play around with the magic system, it was incredibly cool, flashy, and fun. I was just having so much fun with the melee weapons and guns that I never really delved too far into the magic. I honestly might go back and give the game another go (at least for a bit) just to get to try it all out. The magic skill tree was

80%PC

I enjoyed my time with Avowed. The combat was fairly simple (as a 2H fighter, at least) but it was decent enough. Where the game shines, for me, is the environments. They were rather fun to explore.

Date Completed: 2025-04-24
Playtime: 25h
Enjoyment: 8/10
Recommendation: Yes

90%Xbox Series X/S

This game is underrated. I really enjoyed it. I wish it wouldn’t have taken me quite so long. The side quests are all worth doing. Some of the hunting around for stuff is maybe not worth doing.

70%PC

Diversão:
🔲 Chato
🔲 Meh..
✅ Distrai
🔲 Bom pra caralho.
🔲 MELHOR QUE S3XO

História:
🔲 Uma Merda
🔲 Colocaram só pra dizer que tem
✅ História decente
🔲 Boa / envolvente
🔲 Merecia ser adptado para livro/Filme

Gráficos:
🔲 Feio pra caralho
🔲 Aceitável
✅ Bonito
🔲 Lindo
🔲 Obra de arte

Level design:
🔲 Feito por mim
🔲 Triste
✅ Ok
🔲 Elaborado
🔲 Pica

Aúdio:
🔲 Mutei
🔲 Não mutei, mas quase
🔲 Efeitos bons - Música ruim ou vice-versa
✅ Adorável
🔲 Beethoven bateu palma

Otimização:
🔲 Porca
🔲 PC Gamer sofre
✅ Razoavel
🔲 Honesta, entrega equivalente
🔲 Bem otimizado.

Progressão:
🔲 Termina como começa.
✅ Desbalanceada e/ou Lenta.
🔲 Linear
🔲 Bem Fluida e distribuida.
🔲 Masterpiece.

Bugs:
🔲 Nunca vi nenhum
✅ Pequenos bugs
🔲 Compromete levemente a gameplay
🔲 Pode ficar irritante
🔲 O jogo em si é um bug

Rejogabilidade:
🔲 Nada
🔲 New game +
🔲 Novos modos de jogo
✅ Da pra fazer a jornada toda diferente | Múltiplos finais
🔲 NG+, Novos modos, multiplos finais e jornadas.

75%PC

It starts well, very good game for the first couple of hours but the over simplification of the RPG elements such as character builds and weapons makes it not so appealing to me after 20 hours. The story has some nice elements but some cracks on it, the maps seem to be better in the beginning as they are small but complexily crafted but overall it's an enjoyable experience and a good direction. Would love to see them going a bit back to the roots and making a more complex RPG system in the builds.

60%Xbox Series X/S

Should’ve dropped earlier - found it to be pretty boring and uninspiring. Combat wasn’t very enjoyable after the first half of the game, and the writing never really grabbed me.

90%PC

Good story, great companions, and most importantly it was a fun game.

85%PC

Avowed is a 1st- or 3rd-person action RPG set in the Pillars of Eternity universe—a world I’m deeply fond of—but I didn’t come in ready to fanboy. In fact, I was skeptical. I love Obsidian, but The Outer Worlds let me down, so I knew they weren’t infallible. I worried Avowed would be too streamlined—a watered-down blend of Pillars and Skyrim that lost the thematic depth of the former and leaned too hard into the shallow power fantasy of the latter. I was also concerned it would box me into arbitrary choices or force some contrived moral binary.

Still, while it’s not without flaws, Avowed managed to impress me in some important and compelling ways.

8.5/10

Here are some Pros:

- The story is excellent and there are a ton of meaningful choices to be made. Pretty much all of the side quests are interesting and have multiple ways of resolving them. There are some great slower sections where the game allows time for introspection.

- The party members and most of the other characters are very well written, with stories that are easy to get invested in. One character has a realistic, powerful journey with PTSD and Anxiety that I found particularly moving. The characters remember the things you did and how you made them feel.

- Exploration is SO GOOD. I always wanted to see what was around the next corner or in the next dungeon. Or up that tower (the climbing / vaulting is a nice touch.)

- The combat is so much fun! Eora is currently in a colonial period, so there are Swords and stuff, Wands and Spells, and Guns! (Think dueling pistols and arquebuses.) It's hilarious to sneak up on a camp of enemies and sneak attack with a big-ass rifle. Dodging, parrying and all that is done well. I played a battle-mage archetype, with one weapon set as a Sword and Shield and the other a Wand and Grimoire. The classes are very slimmed down from Pillars, but there is a lot of multiclass potential between the Fighter, Wizard, and Ranger trees.

- The game does not use hardly ay cutscenes, and the ones that are there are not particularly flashy, but they get the job done. This is something of a neutral, but I think it is to the games benefit. (Focused resources, use your imagination and such.)

- The game allows you to use non-intrusive, minimal UI, and supports that choice very well. This one is HUGE for me. There are a ton of excellent options to tweak the UI for how immersed you want to be. You can turn off virtually everything that would put an arrow telling you where to go. I played most of the game with no compass, no hug except my spells and status bars popping up during combat. If an NPC gives you a quest, they ALWAYS give you verbal directions on how to get there, when applicable.

- The UI is very simple, intuitive, and effective by default. Crafting and upgrading is simple and never frustrating.

- Having you start as an agent of a specific faction is the type of bold role-playing choice that I appreciate. It gives you an interesting lense through which to view the world, and doesn't limit your choice very much either.

- The world and characters are beautful.

- The much-loved RPG Ending Slideshow was very good and felt more satisfying than most.

Okay, some Cons and Neutrals:

- Lip-sync and dialogue animations are not always great. Usually not immersion-breaking for me, though. One time, I remember a character sort of nodding in agreement with another while saying "don't presume to speak for me."

- The power attacks feel good, but I kinda wish there were more than one for each weapon type. (Slash, slash, then power-stab with the sword got a little old, but then I just switched weapons)

- There's no way to freely rebind your spells, AFAIK. As a Wizard, you can collect quite a few, but then you have to rely on a radial wheel to use them all. This makes it feel like you're playing on console, unfortunately.

- Lockpicking kinda sucks, cuz you just have to have a pre-determined amount of lockpicks to successfully pick a given lock, and they are consumed in the process. No skill check or anything. I mitigated this buy buying every single lockpick I saw in every shop.

- Not all of the bossfights are passable. But the last one was insanely epic.

- Some spells weren't as flashy or punchy as I would have liked. But I did love Freezing Pillar.

- A little too much grunting from the party when vaulting and stuff.

- Most of the NPCs and objects in cities are basically uninteractable. Otherwise though, the cities and environments are designed very well. I don't think it matters much for this game, but that does mean that you can't sneak around and murder / steal like some enjoy.