Choice is massive in Avowed. We've seen glimpses of this already – most recently during this month's Xbox Developer Direct, and first-hand from Obsidian itself in conversation with GamesRadar+ – which has given us a closer look at the upcoming action RPG's first-person, flexible combat system that will let us choose our own loadouts. But the freedom to steer our own journey will also feed into the various scenarios we'll face in the Living Lands. From how we decide to navigate difficult decisions to how much time we want to spend exploring, it sounds as though it has all the ingredients to let us play out a fantasy of our own making in a world built upon the Pillars of Eternity Universe.
Choice and consequence are a big draw for me in role-playing games, and I've always loved the way Obsidian has approached this as a studio in some of its previous games. The Outer Worlds and Fallout: New Vegas both presented us with settings ripe for discovery, where our choices were often a matter of life or death. Seeing how your actions have an effect first-hand makes the role-playing experience feel more immersive, and it's why I'm excited to see how this shakes out in Avowed.
"I think it's about looking for lots of opportunities to have those [choices] payoff and knowing that some of those payoffs will be very big, and some of them will be more subtle, but in a way that feels believable, and that will then feel especially rewarding for players who find them," says game director Carrie Patel. "And I think the thing you always have to accept when you're building an RPG like this, or designing choice and consequence, is that most players are not going to discover 100% of what you've built for them. And that's okay, because that discoverability is part of what makes it really special to players who do find it. So I think, to summarize, I think it's about balance and spread."
The Living Lands
That balance and spread in Avowed means that decisions will affect the world around you in relative ways, and not every player-made choice will have a massive impact on things down the road. "Every little cat you save or butterfly you nudge can't mean the heat death of the universe, in some outcome," Patel continues. "But by having a range of outcomes that feel surprisingly monumental, and then sometimes, a little more intimate, but very deeply personal to characters - sometimes it's something that happens very quickly, and sometimes it's something that you'll only see a few hours in - I think that helps it feel believable, and also keeps those outcomes novel and surprising to players, as they discover them over the course of their journey."
Choice also plays into exploration in Avowed's setting. The fact that "most players are not going to discover 100% of what you've built for them" speaks to the fact that Eora will be home to plenty of surprises as we journey through the Living Lands. There's definitely an appeal in the idea of unconvering an area, or coming across an encounter as we explore, but for the team at Obsidian, it was also important to ensure that this discoverability aspect is left up to us. So, if you want to dive in and spend a lot of time exploring you can, but equally, it will also be easy to find your way if you want to keep progressing.
"When we're designing a game like this, we always want to keep in mind two extremes of players," Patel continues. "You have the player who, they maybe get 30 minutes to game after work, maybe after taking care of their kids, before they need to go to bed themselves and start their next day. So you want to make sure that journal entries are clear, players always know where the fun is, and they can pick up this game and have a good time with however little or however much time they have available to them in the moment."
"But then, we also have a lot of players that we know will explore every corner of our world, pick apart every detail, and it is so much fun to leave surprises and nuggets and things that we think, 'ooh, the people who find this are really going to get something out of it,' or 'we know we're going to get a Reddit thread about this detail when someone finds it, and they start theorizing about what it means or what it's connected to.' So again, having a clear through line, but plenty of surprises to discover."
"For Obsidian, Avowed presents an opportunity to return to a setting many of the team are familiar with, while also exploring entirely new sides of it."
In what Patel describes as a "wonderful and expansive setting for fantasies and fantasy RPGs", I'm looking forward to stepping into the Pillars of Eternity universe for the very first time, safe in the knowledge that while I'm unfamiliar with this storied playground I can enjoy it for what it is.
For Obsidian, Avowed presents an opportunity to return to a setting many of the team are familiar with, while also exploring entirely new sides of it. For Patel, that's the beauty of his locations whether you've combed its confines from corner-to-corner, or whether Avowed marks your first tentative steps into Eora and the Living Lands within.
Patel says: "The wonderful thing about Eora is there are so many corners of this world that we've only really referenced and the Living Lands was one of them. So for us, it was an opportunity to take a world that we knew and loved and were familiar with and could very easily step back into, but also find a corner of it that is going to be new to fans and also new to us as developers, and that really excites us about exploring it and fleshing it out.
"As you're seeing with some of the combat, one of the things that I personally really love about the setting and kind of the time period it takes place in is you get a wonderful mix of traditional sword and board fantasy elements as well as magic, as well as firearms, and you know, some more modern pieces of weaponry that I think really allow for us to create interesting items for the player and interesting combat scenarios."
Missed part one of our in-depth Avowed coverage? Follow that link, and look out for our third and final interview feature with Obsidian tomorrow, Tuesday, January 30.
