Avowed: Obsidian is releasing a first-person RPG, set in the "Pillars of Eternity" world. I have no idea how open world it is.

[Hound of Cullen]

View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2457220/Avowed/


Obsidian is releasing a first-person RPG, set in the "Pillars of Eternity" world. I have no idea how open world it is. Since it is Obsidian, it will probably be buggy on release. But I'm intrigued. They've released a gameplay trailer which, unfortunately, doesn't include anything about the interface or the actual game.

Still, I'll be keeping an eye on it.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv23HkHm3AQ

 

[Dan Homerick]

Obsidian is releasing a first-person RPG, set in the "Pillars of Eternity" world. I have no idea how open world it is. Since it is Obsidian, it will probably be buggy on release. But I'm intrigued. They've released a gameplay trailer which, unfortunately, doesn't include anything about the interface or the actual game.

Still, I'll be keeping an eye on it.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv23HkHm3AQ

Don't want to bother hunting down the article, but they're saying they're leaning more towards story than open world. I think they were phrasing it as, "What are we, as a studio, best at?"

At an even higher level, I'm sure Microsoft wants to maintain some brand differentiation, rather than having their Bethesda and Obsidian studios putting out games that directly compete.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Are they really going with "Skyrim"? I would have thought even with them also owning Bethesda, that kind of confusion would not be helpful.

 

[NavyGothic]

Are they really going with "Skyrim"? I would have thought even with them also owning Bethesda, that kind of confusion would not be helpful.

Just a little light editorializing from Hound of Cullen.

I'm always interested in what Obsidian is putting out and Pillars of Eternity II in particular was excellent; so I'll definitely keep my eye on this. Open world plus strong storytelling definitely can co-exist; so here's hoping they can pull it off!

 

[Ardax]

Yeah, I'm up for what Obsidian is putting down.

 

[Sulphur]

Sounds good, a return to a big, expansive RPG from Obsidian is the ticket, and there's enough interesting flavour in the trailer and pre-baked into the world. It's pretty meh that the 'gameplay' in this gameplay trailer is some janky combat, but if you were making a quick and flashy announcement trailer, that's what you'd probably choose to focus on too. And anyway, I guess we all know it's not the biggest reason you'd play an Obsidian game to begin with.

 

[krimhorn]

Pillars 1 didn't wow me but Pillars 2 totally sold me on the world. I'll be going in expecting standard Obsidian rail-roading through the first half of the main plot but, hopefully, it nails all the right world flavor the way PoE2 did.

Sounds good, a return to a big, expansive RPG from Obsidian is the ticket, and there's enough interesting flavour in the trailer and pre-baked into the world. It's pretty meh that the 'gameplay' in this gameplay trailer is some janky combat, but if you were making a quick and flashy announcement trailer, that's what you'd probably choose to focus on too. And anyway, I guess we all know it's not the biggest reason you'd play an Obsidian game to begin with.

The annouce trailer was actually quite subued. A bit of magic and what seemed to be an emphasis on something a bit more Underworld/Arx Fatalis like dungeon crawl rather than a massive open-world. I'm not going to complain about an open world but I definitely would have liked to see their take on a big reactive dungeon crawler

 

[Sulphur]

The annouce trailer was actually quite subued. A bit of magic and what seemed to be an emphasis on something a bit more Underworld/Arx Fatalis like dungeon crawl rather than a massive open-world. I'm not going to complain about an open world but I definitely would have liked to see their take on a big reactive dungeon crawler

That is a nice trailer indeed. And yeah, I noticed the very Arx Fatalis-y rune spellcasting too, which I wouldn't mind seeing again. I'm not sure I'd want an Obsidian-flavoured Ultima Underworld (their gameplay chops need to level up a bit to sustain that sort of experience, but you know, an immersive sim RPG from them wouldn't be the worst idea), but I'll take whatever they're doing as long as it's measured and intelligent. And hopefully not as immediately forgettable as The Outer Worlds.

 

[Mister E. Meat]

I think they were phrasing it as, "What are we, as a studio, best at?"

Flawed masterpieces?

 

[Semi On]

I'm always open to whatever Obsidian is working on. If they want to take a crack at Skyrim, I'm here for it once I come out from my Starfield based coma.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Not super on topic, but I thought I would note that the White March expansions for PoE are on sale at the lowest price ever, especially if you own the base game already and buy the expansion bundle. For some reason, this comes out cheaper than if you buy the full bundle.

 

[Tom Foolery]

I am interested, in my opinion Obsidian has been better at storytelling than Bethesda, and is almost as good at worldbuilding. I am pretty much a sucker at this point for open-world, first-person RPGs.

 

[Semi On]

I am interested, in my opinion Obsidian has been better at storytelling than Bethesda, and is almost as good at worldbuilding

Their challenge is usually biting off too much at one time. They have not historically had the scale of Bethesda but they have had the aspiration. In this case, they've already spent two games building the world which leaves engine and story. Hopefully they are getting a lot of reuse out of some tech MSFT owns now that they are a subsidiary and can focus on story.

 

[krimhorn]

Obsidian's always been at their worst when they have to develop mechanics, story and world. KotOR was so good because Bioware handed them most of the game design up front and they extended that and layered their own storytelling on top. New Vegas (for whatever issues I have with it, I don't deny that it's a good game) benefited from the same from Bethesda. Same reason that PoE II was far superior to PoE1. They already had a world to play with and extend with mechanics that just needed refinement.

 

[Nauls]

That's why I just couldn't get into Outer Worlds. On paper it had all the boxes checked, but the execution just fell completely flat for me. Hope they figure it out this time.

 

[Mortus]

Reviews are coming out now, and it appears to be reviewing well. It's nutty to me to think that Obsidian is releasing both this game and Outer Worlds 2 in the same year.

 

[swiftdraw]

Eh, one thing I have learned over the years is that I generally don’t enjoy Obsidian games. I think South Park: The Stick of Truth is the outlier, because from Neverwinter Nights 2 onward I am where Nauls is at: I feel like I should like them, but execution falls flat. I feel that the story telling in particular from their games is something that I just have not been able to get into. It just gets me feeling Nihilistic and the story gets rushed or falls apart in the last act anyway. So when I read that Avowed is another solid Obsidian game, that tells me it is a pass.

 

[whoisit]

I just hope, on a technical level, it performs better than The Stutter Worlds.

 

[grommit!]

I just hope, on a technical level, it performs better than The Stutter Worlds.

Digital Foundry had a look (linked to PC performance timestamp):
View: https://youtu.be/YAyhpRHKhXk?t=758

TL;DR - the shader compilation on startup doesn't capture every shader, and there's also some traversal stutter on lower-end CPU's. The former might be fixable if they increase the scope of the compilation step.

 

[whoisit]

One wonders why shader pre-compilation is so difficult.

 

[Semi On]

I'm always open to whatever Obsidian is working on. If they want to take a crack at Skyrim, I'm here for it once I come out from my Starfield based coma.

Turns out, Starfield sucked.

New Vegas was a vastly better open world, first person, RPG than anything Bethesda has ever done with Fallout. Given the glowing reviews, I'm pretty excited for Avowed now.

 

[Nauls]

Yeah, aside from the Ars review being woefully light for a proper review, the rest of the general reviews are enough to convince me to give it a go. That and the fact that it's on Game Pass makes the barrier for entry pretty low for me.

 

[whoisit]

So, has anyone been able to preload the game on Steam, or is it a full download and install on day of unlock?

 

[Nauls]

Not Steam, but the Game Pass version is a full pre-load, fwiw.

Might be because the early access editions unlocked today, so why not allow us plebs to pre-load the whole thing?

 

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, the Gamepass version can be preloaded at least from the Xbox app. Not sure if it can also be preloaded through Battle.net yet (which version also recognises Game Pass if you have linked your accounts).

 

[RandomZero]

Yeah, the Gamepass version can be preloaded at least from the Xbox app. Not sure if it can also be preloaded through Battle.net yet (which version also recognises Game Pass if you have linked your accounts).

You can't pre-load from b.net, at least not yet. Funny thing is in that app, if you have gamepass, it shows as "Purchased". Yesterday I was a little confused at first until the fog in my head cleared. Has anyone started up in EA yet? Tend to trust people's opinions here over a lot of the review sites honestly.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Not yet.

One thing I have heard that might be worth taking into consideration is that things are a lot more fun if you are a wizard, because the magic combat is fun and varied and the melee is, well, first person melee combat.

 

[whoisit]

Not yet.

One thing I have heard that might be worth taking into consideration is that things are a lot more fun if you are a wizard, because the magic combat is fun and varied and the melee is, well, first person melee combat.

There is only so many ways you can club someone over the head with your whacking stick. Now if you can make them think they are a chicken, short out their cyberware, and the whack them over the head,... that's depth.

 

[Distraction]

Why not both? You can dual-wield melee and magic.

This game has optional pronouns, so both it and Obsidian are being eviscerated on the steam forum.

 

[Semi On]

Why not both? You can dual-wield melee and magic.

This game has optional pronouns, so both it and Obsidian are being eviscerated on the steam forum.

 

[Semi On]

Not yet.

One thing I have heard that might be worth taking into consideration is that things are a lot more fun if you are a wizard, because the magic combat is fun and varied and the melee is, well, first person melee combat.

So not a stealth archer? I don’t understand.

 

[Frosty Grin]

Any idea how it runs on 6GB cards? Quite a few new games have the 1070 on their mininum requirements - but this could be due to VRAM or to performance, so you can't tell.

 

[Distraction]

So not a stealth archer? I don’t understand.

I quit playing stealth builds a long time ago. Standard tactic is to charge until overwhelmed. Clears out an area in 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes…or I die hilariously. When charging fails I pull them to me, ideally through a choke point. Onwaaard!

 

[Semi On]

I quit playing stealth builds a long time ago. Standard tactic is to charge until overwhelmed. Clears out an area in 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes…or I die hilariously. When charging fails I pull them to me, ideally through a choke point. Onwaaard!

I figure I'm going to spend 30 minutes looking through all the random crap in the room anyway, but I'm guessing you don't have a sufficiently large broom collection either.

 

[cmannes]

I started the game, liked it, but... I don't like my character in cut scenes. So.. restart to fix my looks, or just deal with it. I'm debating.

 

[Nauls]

I started the game, liked it, but... I don't like my character in cut scenes. So.. restart to fix my looks, or just deal with it. I'm debating.

Too much fungus on your mug?

 

[pauli]

Obsidian is releasing a first-person RPG, set in the "Pillars of Eternity" world. I have no idea how open world it is. Since it is Obsidian, it will probably be buggy on release.

So, has anyone figured out how open world this is yet?

 

[GloatingSwine]

So, has anyone figured out how open world this is yet?

From the reviews not massively but the zones it has are dense with hidden stuff.

 

[The Ventriloquist]

Has anyone else run into teleport beacons ceasing to work?

I'm not in one of the "no teleport" areas, and I can still pull up the map legend and go to the campsites, but the beacons no longer work.

Going back to an old save or restarting the game don't correct it.

 

[grommit!]

From Jason Schreier at bloomberg, sounds like this was another game that went through development hell:

Obsidian presented prospective buyers with a pitch for Avowed, which the company hoped would be its magnum opus: a cross between Destiny and Skyrim that allowed players to adventure together in a massive fantasy world.

Later that year, Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox purchased Obsidian. The new owners announced the game in the summer of 2020. But despite a glossy teaser trailer, Avowed was floundering. The development team had gone through two different vertical slices — chunks of the game designed to demonstrate how it would all function — and cut the multiplayer component. Even so, it was still failing to coalesce. By January, the studio had decided to replace the project’s leadership team and reboot the game.