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Though I'm now tens of hours deep in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and now juggling Avowed on top of that, I can still remember having a conversation about weapons at the very start of Henry's adventure. What did I prefer, asked Henry's companion around the campfire: the safety of fighting at range with a bow, the simplicity of blunt weapons, or the well-rounded flourish of a sword? I didn't have to think twice – swords all the way, and if you ever catch me with a mace in my hands, use it to bash my brains in.
Throughout Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, I've had no interest in using medieval history's most mundane weapon. It's a ball on a stick in a game that boasts the most advanced swordplay in an RPG – and if you wanted to kill someone simply, why wouldn't you just shoot them with a bow or (very primitive) gun? Or at least, that's what I thought. But Avowed has opened my eyes to the truth: maces in RPGs rule, for the very reasons I used to hate them.
Bonk bonk bonk
Avowed review: "No Skyrim, but an unforgettable return to form for Obsidian Entertainment"
Your starting weapon in Avowed depends on which background you pick. I didn't know this at the time – I picked Court Augur, heavy on mysticism, so assumed the mace I was given just happened to be the first thing that washed up on the shore with me. I was expecting to dive into immediate spell-slinging, so the thought of having to swing around an armory's equivalent to plain tofu around felt… unpalatable. No matter – it's not like you stick with every weapon you're given at the start of an RPG, and as I closed in on my first fight with the Living Lands' lizard-like xaurips, I figured I'd get something better from killing and looting them.
The first xaurips goes down like a scaly sack of bricks, and it feels… good? There's a heftiness in the swing, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it deceleration as the mace collides into fleshy resistance. The xaurips' pals go down in similar fashion. Charged attacks have even more weight and quickly build up your opponent's stagger meter. Filling that meter opens enemies up to a brutal special attack (which is essentially an execution for these xaurips), and with a mace, it feels like you're savaging their defences through sheer brute force.
The bonk-til-it-drops playstyle is one that's never clicked with me before, but in Avowed, it's all I can think about. By the time I've bashed my way through the tutorial, I've accrued several weapons that are already gathering dust in my inventory. Swords don't quite have the same weightiness to them, and while spellcasting with a grimoire is neat, it lacks the texture of getting up close and swinging a mace into a shroom-addled soldier's face. When particularly tougher opponents do require fighting at range (I find dodging here to be more reliable than blocking) I've settled for the arquebuse, a slow-reloading rifle that hits like a truck. A mace-like, if you will.
Avowed's one-button loadout swapping lends itself nicely here, as you don't need to commit entirely to fighting with one style or another. It's a feature that also appears in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 – though in that instance you can't swap in the middle of combat – and a convenience I'd like to see in every RPG going forward. It's freeing in a way that trudging through menus doesn't really allow for, and if Avowed didn't let me swap between my bludgeoning and blasting so easily, it's likely the mace would have fallen to the wayside in favor of something I would have traditionally gone for – yes, I'm looking at you, grimoire.
I'm a few hours into Avowed now, and still swinging the same trusty mace I arrived in The Living Lands with. I'm yet to dabble in dual-wielding beyond a shield, but the plan is to swap that dull plank of wood for a pistol as soon as one turns up. The mace, however, is going nowhere. The simplicity of its playstyle is no longer offputting – the power fantasy has clicked, and if more games made bludgeoning feel so nasty, I'd have ditched my swords a long time ago.
Back in the world of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, I'm even thinking about sheathing Henry's family sword in favor of something mace-shaped to kill pesky deserters a little quicker. That's a real testament to Avowed's combat, given how much I love swordplay in Bohemia, but the thought of beating my way through someone's shield instead of sneakily stabbing around it is incredibly alluring. Maces of the RPG world, I owe you an apology. I wasn't really familiar with your game – but now I am, I'll be bashing my way through any game that lets me.
Avowed isn't February's only big game, and our new games 2025 list rounds up everything you should keep an eye on. If you're too deep in The Lands Between, check out these Avowed tips instead.
