Has it really been seven long years since the Last Pillars of Eternity game? Perhaps it has, but Obsidian Studios is finally serving us a long-awaited snack to tide us over until the next game: Avowed, the not-quite-spinoff set in the same universe. It doesn’t disappoint. These guys have form when it comes to fantasy RPGs – even if Obsidian’s most recent games have been the delightfully bonkers Pentiment and the even more bonkers Grounded – and what it concocts here is a delicious fantasy offering that mostly satisfies, even if it doesn’t (to overstretch the culinary metaphor) leave the taste-buds tingling.
Our main character (played in first or third person) is an envoy to the Emperor of the Aedyran Empire. We’re dispatched to the Living Lands, aka the fantasy Wild West, with the mission of seeing to the fungus-y Dreamscourge, a malevolent plague that seems to be ravaging these lands. Oh, and this protagonist also happens to be a godlike: a child born with a link to an actual god that grants them a special set of powers and some rather odd facial modifications.
Make no mistake, the game does not reinvent the wheel. Quite apart from being set in the universe of Pillars of Eternity, Avowed is packed to the gills with fantasy cliches, even if most of them are executed more enjoyably than they have any right to be. Sitting around a campfire with my gruff comrades? Check. Unpacking their traumatic backstories, bit by bit? Check. Parsing through acres of unnecessary lore via the books, scrolls and letters I pick up on my quest (or, indeed, loot from my enemies’ corpses)? Yep, check on that too. Sometimes, it feels like the game is so in thrall to what’s gone before, that it fails to create a distinctive identity of its own.
Fortunately, Obsidian does it well. Not only is the world absolutely gorgeous – and bursting with things to do, whether that’s killing lizard folk or poking around the bustling city of Paradis – there’s also a satisfying combat system to get stuck into. As with most RPGs, your character comes equipped with two weapon slots, into which can be jammed… pretty much anything, actually. That means the combat is actually pretty customisable: swords, shields, wands, pistols or even big, meaty items like a war hammer, which takes longer to swing but does an indecent amount of damage when it lands. And of course, there are the spells: even if it’s been done a thousand times before, blasting an enemy with fire never gets old, especially as these ones are satisfyingly smart, and difficult to fight.
The only downside here is in the progression system, which is depressingly grind-heavy. Avowed is less about levelling up (and thereby gaining access to brand new areas of the map), it’s more about getting the gear necessary to take on bigger and bigger enemies. And given that gear is mostly looted from the corpses of said enemies, that’s a lot of slogging that the fairly limited skill tree just doesn’t compensate for.
Fortunately, you’ll have fun along the way thanks to said gruff comrades. Obsidian’s bread and butter is in doing stuff like this, and their backstories – and dialogue – are just as good as you’d hope here. There’s the gentle giant Kai, the truculent Marius, the hesitant Giatta and the cheerful (and horny) wizard Yatzli, and it’s the side quests that concern these guys that end up providing some of Avowed’s best moments.
As the story plays out to its conclusion, the questions get thornier and the consequences of the players’ actions come back around in an exceptionally satisfying way. What does our hero’s god really want with them? Which ending will they choose? Will we ever understand all the references to Pillars of Eternity?. Figuring out the answers is a satisfying ride; enough to forgive all the niggles along the way.
