This week, Obsidian Entertainment and Xbox released Avowed on PC and Xbox consoles. It is unclear how well the new RPG is selling or how many Xbox Game Pass subscriptions it is driving, but it does currently boast an 80 on Metacritic, a very solid score. That said, some dated aspects of the RPG have come into question and earned criticism online. To this end, it is missing some fairly basic RPG features that RPG fans have been enjoying for many years. In particular, it has drawn comparisons to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, largely due to the fact both are fantasy RPGs doing similar things, but also because it is a comparison that highlights just how bare bones Avowed is in parts. More than this, it doesn’t even compare to some previous Obsidian RPGs.
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For comparison, there is no crime system in Avowed like there is in Skyrim. More than this, you can’t even attack people or creatures if they are not marked as enemies. You can physically do it, but the NPCs will not respond. Both of these things of course erode at the immersive quality of the game.
What is perhaps more damning though is that NPCs are completely stationary with minimal movement. They don’t freely walk around or even have routines. And it gives the game a very dead feeling. And it has not gone unnoticed.
For Avowed to be lauded as a great RPG of this generation while it is a regression from RPGs that are over a decade old shows how far the standards have slid. This same studio was making Fallout: New Vegas in 2010, 15 years ago. Obsidian Entertainment was not just making better RPGs 15 years ago, but in some ways, more technically impressive RPGs 15 years ago. How did this happen?
What the budget of Avowed was, we don’t know. Obsidian Entertainment is not a small studio, but it is also multi-project studio, so it is tough to gauge what resources were dumped into this project. However, it does have Microsoft money flowing through it, so the game was certainly not on a shoestring budget.
While there is no doubt Avowed is a decent game, there is also no doubting it is a little shallow in places, at least set to the standards of RPG greats. And some fans have certainly noticed this. There are many posts on X and elsewhere similar to the one above. That said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think. Are RPG fans being too harsh on Avowed?
