Considering some people know me as an RPG lover, I have more than a few skeletons in my closet (and yes, they have been searched for items). Given its dragon's hoard of ports and re-releases, I'm aware it's frankly comical I've never finished Skyrim, with frequent restarts shutting down every attempt within a handful of hours. Given the many comparisons, I was worried Avowed would have me bounce off in similar fashion. I was not expecting to end up finishing it over the course of a single, pizza-fueled long weekend. It won me over.
I also wasn't expecting it to activate my combat sicko senses. Skyrim, which I've staunchly and perhaps unwisely only played unmodded, just makes me think of circle strafing enemies while I gently touch with a sword until it activates a killcam. I understand RPGs often have a layer of abstraction around combat, but its many skirmishes ended up feeling like dull busywork, and its acres of caves much the same. Avowed on the other hand, the big return to a fully first-person RPG mode for Obsidian Entertainment, isn't just a shorter, focused experience overall (taking about 30 hours), but makes an impact and then some.
Sword meet skull
What did we think of the whole thing? It's a thumbs up from us, giving it four stars in our Avowed review, where we said it's an "an unforgettable return to form".
After all, I love combat that feels crunchy and in-your-face. When at a loose end, I'll always return to my beloved Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, Devil May Cry 5, or Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. Which isn't to say Avowed's systems have quite the same depth, but here the first-person scraps have a real sense of weight – it takes the vibes of my action loves and applies it, wonderfully seamlessly, into a RPG context. Reaching up with a shield to parry a lizard-like xaurip as it leaps towards me feels tactile, as does charging up any attack in my dual-sword attack chain, or summoning a blizzard from the sky to rain down on foes and freeze them in place then blasting them into shards with a well-placed pistol shot.
You'll notice a few of those examples involve a bit of a one-two punch. That's because of the way Avowed uses its two-handed gear system, which means not only can any one-handed bit of kit be applied to left or right hand – regardless of if it's a shield or weapon – but you can have two of those loads out to swap between with the press of a single button. Quickly consigning two-handed weapons to the item box forever, I embrace the mix-and-match style of weapon-swapping to constantly tweak the possibilities in combat, which isn't a far cry from how some of my favorite character action games encourage on-the-fly weapon switching. A well-charged swing will send enemies comically ragdolling. It's downright cackle inducing.
While the excellent-feeling parry keeps a shield in constant rotation, I end the game with a pistol and spellbook loadout, backed up by dual fire-and-ice swords for really bringing the elemental pain once I close the gap. Most unique gear can be specced towards certain special properties, which add an extra element to combat, just as much as in exploration. My pistol crackles with lightning, which can stun enemies from a distance for my companions to wail on, or it can even act like a TV remote to power up some lightning-powered door switches from distance. There's a real sense of immediacy at all times.
Adventures on the way
Just like when cracking skulls, Avowed has an extra layer of depth when it comes to exploration as well, which also embraces the immersion created by first-person. Coming across ancient doors sealed by strange contraptions can elicit a similar feeling to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with the closer framing emphasizing how old, strange, and mysterious the Living Lands are around me as I really poke around.
Inside may be further puzzles, and uniquely designed enemy encounters that have the shape of a sidequest, but aren't formally in the journal at all. One has me poring through notes to figure out the code sequence to unlock an abandoned vault, just by virtue of me finding it. It's an adventure that spills out.
Similarly, even formal sidequests can be encountered out of order. Pilfered stolen contraband in advance of being asked to retrieve it? No worries. Stumble upon a scheming faction about to launch a terror attack on an unwitting populace? The blood may still not be dry by the time you unravel just why they were tetchy about you sniffing around their explosives, but the job is done, ready to be reported.
Enemies don't respawn, either. While there's loads of bust-ups in Avowed, they're all bespoke, arranged to add flavor to a certain bit of the environment, or to gently push you to engage with the first-person combat in new ways. A cliffside camp provides ample opportunity to give a mighty kick to encroaching enemies to send them tumbling into the water below, while a rickety rope bridge may introduce a bottleneck element not present in other dust-ups (no problem if you're sniping from a distance, heh heh).
Importantly Avowed doesn't just reward those details in the large scale, but the small scale too. Stumbling upon large points of interest all the time may get exhausting. Just as rewarding is discovering a new lookout point where you can plumb your godlike memories of ancient times (via dialogue-tree, visual novel-like scenes), or simply poking around a suspicious looking nook to find a small treasure chest. Obsidian has always pre-empted my curiosity, with almost every unusual part of the map stuffed with prizes.
It's not perfect, but it is like little else, which makes all the points of comparison with other gaming titans hard to go blow-for-blow with. It's a little like a lot of things, while also being all its own. Avowed isn't the game that finally got me to understand how to love Skyrim. But it is the game that told me that it was okay to want something different.
What to add to your gaming calendar next? Our hefty New Games 2025 list is here and ready for you to highlight!
