I get why Obsidian doesn't like The Elder Scrolls comparisons, but Avowed is the first RPG to have its hooks in me this deep since Skyrim took over my life 14 years ago

There was a time when I had pretty much decided I wasn't going to play Avowed. At launch, it was racking up 7/10 reviews, I hadn't played Pillars of Eternity, and while I respected Obsidian's pedigree, I'm just not all that well-versed in the studio's catalog beyond Fallout New Vegas. On top of all that, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 had just launched to great reviews and I was still ransacking my way through Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. It took Avowed's mere existence on Game Pass to undo all of that -- and 30 hours later, I can't get enough

I booted up Avowed one night while my wife was at work. I had nothing to do, and went in expecting to run around for an hour or two, get bored, and never think about it again outside of working hours. And, yeah, initially I remember thinking, this is a video game. I liked the pretty colors but thought the animations were stiff and the combat was clunky. The premise, about an envoy sent to discover a mysterious plague called "The Dreamscourge," initially sounded like something ChatGPT would spit out if you asked it to make an RPG story, and I was almost immediately attacked and killed by some weird little lizard people.

But once I was free from the shackles of the introduction's linearity I found a highly intriguing universe in Eora that beckoned me to explore and learn more about it, much the same way that Skyrim introduced me to the rich world of The Elder Scrolls 14 years ago. Of course, The Living Lands are nowhere near the size of explorable Tamriel in Skyrim, but they are dense, diverse, and full of secrets worth uncovering.

I'm reluctant to bring up Skyrim here at all for many reasons, chiefly because Obsidian itself has made a point to distance itself from Bethesda's opus, which I fully understand. That said, it really just happens to be the game I'm most reminded of when playing Avowed. Not because the two games are all that similar, which they aren't, but because I've become fully absorbed and enchanted by Avowed's world in a way I haven't been in an RPG since Skyrim.

Living for the Living Lands

Avowed is my first venture to The Living Lands, despite the setting debuting through Pillars of Eternity a decade ago. I've collected and carefully read through the dozens of journal entries I've found scattered around, something I never do. I've taken on and completed every sidequest I've come across – again, a rarity for me, and a testament to Obsidian's writing chops. I take time to peek around every corner, break into every building, and climb onto every rooftop, and I'm almost always rewarded with not just new lore and scenery, but gear, money, recovery items, and resources. The moment Avowed really clicked for me was when I swam underneath and behind a waterfall to find a treasure chest. They just don't make 'em like that anymore.

I won't spoil anything specific, but the game takes place a few years after the events of Pillars of Eternity, which sets up a world where souls that usually would've been reincarnated are now floating around aimlessly after the "Wheel" that controls the cycle of life and death was broken. It reminds me a little of Clive Barker's profoundly weird and existential novel, Imajica, but I digress. The player character is one of a few surviving Godlike, sent to the continent of the Living Lands as an envoy of the Aedyran Emperor, which naturally makes a lot of townfolk wary of your presence depending on where you are.

Avowed's map is divided into four distinct but interconnected zones, each with their own subregions to explore, which protects my ADHD-addled mind from being overwhelmed. The main quest does a great job of telling each location's story, and the sidequests merely flesh out those narratives if you're keen to know more.

I'm only halfway through the main story, mostly because I can't stop doing sidequests, but so far the fuel powering me to play Avowed and only Avowed these last couple of weeks is my desire to learn more about Eora and The Living Lands, and I plan to play Pillars of Eternity and its sequel in furtherance of that pursuit.

It also helps a lot that exploration is so rewarding from a mechanical standpoint. Buildings are treated like vertical, spatial puzzles you have to navigate to get from A to B, and it's super satisfying when you finally spot the feeble wall you have to blow up or the hidden platform you need to ascend to get to your destination. It's the same whether you're pursuing the main quest or just messing around in the open world: it all feels lean and purposeful. Skyrim's biggest achievement to me has always been the way it manages to consistently make trekking through such a massive map engaging, and inversely, Avowed excels at making small spaces feel big.

I love Avowed's approach to exploration. I love that its sidequests feel just as curated and meaningful as the main story, and I grew to love its combat. I even love its old-school, janky charm; the way companions randomly take the time to comment on the beautiful view in front of them even though we're being attacked, the way NPCs robotically wave their hands around while talking to you, and their lack of concern when I steal all of their food, money, and belongings in plain sight. But what I love the most is that it's opened up a whole new universe spanning several games that I probably never would've known about if I hadn't made the leap to download Avowed on a whim that fateful night.