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I really liked Avowed. It’s the first RPG since Skyrim that gave me a similar feeling. I’m almost finished with it, currently 45 hours in, which makes it the first game I’ve played this much in the last five years.
That said, I agree that it’s a bit shallow, and the story isn’t as strong as Skyrim’s. The combat actually reminded me more of Horizon Zero Dawn than Skyrim. It’s not on the level of Baldur’s Gate 3 or Skyrim, but for me, it’s easily deeper than Fallout 4, Fallout 3, or Starfield. The combat is really fun and engaging—I played as a wizard, and it was a blast.
I have to admit, I skipped some dialogues toward the end of the game because a lot of them felt like filler rather than meaningful interactions. Still, I’d rate it an 8/10 and definitely recommend it.
I’m sorry, Skyrim combat is deep?
No, I meant the overall depth of the game, not the depth of the combat. I don’t think Skyrim has deep combat —maybe I didn’t phrase it clearly.
I’m absolutely loving it, the combat is great, love the world and graphics, love the exploration.
Nearly beat it, not a great game 5/10.
The environments are nice and fun to explore.
Story is mediocre. Dialog is tiresome, I started button spamming to get through a lot of the conversations that didn’t matter. Combat is nothing remarkable, no matter the weapon combos, and the enemies are just damage sponges with no real tactics necessary to defeat a given enemy. Magic is kind of cool but you have to really spec into mage to get there. The immersion is about as deep as a puddle on flat concrete.
It is one of the games of all time, a game you could not play and miss out on nothing.
Edit: Just beat it, terrible ending that feels like it was tacked on last minute to provide some sort of conclusion.
I think it’s great. The maps may be smaller than some other open world RPGs but it is packed with content. The voice acting is great, I don’t know what the hell people here are talking about. Graphics are good enough although the facial animations are pretty wooden and stilted.
Refunded. Would have been a mediocre game 10-15 years ago. What a dead world.
I enjoy it. Good themeparkey action-adventure-rpg. Beautiful and awesome environments. Gameplay is good enough as I’m mostly there to see the spiritual fallout from PoE2.
Refunded, was expecting an Obsidian interactive world got served a dead open world with static NPCs, static everything. The only saving grace is combat but it’s not nearly deep enough to carry the game. I’ll get it again when it’s at 10-15€ which is the price I’m comfortable playing for this level of competence. Was back to Kingdom come in a flash.
kinda sounds like The Outer Worlds, in a way. Which is kinda the feel I got from some youtube videos I watched about the game. Got to wonder how on earth the current 70€ pricetag is in any way justified.
Oh well, wishlistforgotten, maybe some sale notification at some point comes a long
The price tag exists solely to drive people to subscribe for Game Pass. With the kind of content the game offering, it’s a perfectly good 40 dollar game, not a 70 dollar one. A good spin-off to the PoE franchise while still moving the world forward.
Outer Worlds was so try hard I couldn’t get past 5-6hrs of play
I thought it was okay, though not without it’s issues. The itemization (everything being “standard -> better -> betterer -> best”) and the size of the playable areas were kinda weak.
IIRC Finished the main game twice, couldn’t be arsed with the dlc though.
I thought it was okay
Huh…
Finished the main game twice
Well, we must have very different definitions of “okay,” then. That sounds like it was more than okay if you could go through the whole thing twice!
Well, it’s a gametype/genre I tend to enjoy greatly - so I can probably overlook quite a bit of jank/issues/whatevs and still get some enjoyment out of it. First round was the “blind go”, second round I wanted to see what can be done differently and what kinds of different outcomes there are. IIRC not much changes when doing stuff differently. Admittedly the second round around was bit of a slog - I think I played it through, but not 100% of it.
To me the “okay” means more of a “more fun than not”. The game isn’t great by any means, but it’s not also off-putting to play, but I don’t feel like I need to re-install the game ever again. Also, the game isn’t terribly long either.
But, opinions, everybody has them. :)
Being a skyrim and fallout fan, I wasnt necessarily disappointed by Avowed, just understimulated.
The whole 15ish hours I played i found myself just craving the depth of a bethesda game, which really wasnt there.
Cons: The lack of a fully integrated item physics system. No wanted or theft system. 1 dimensional npcs that only seem to physically adhere to any lore if they arent human. The human npcs look randomly generated in a character customization screen. The lack of an open world to explore and invisible walls all over. Shallow inventory management that doesnt feel like it matters. Very Mid story with a zero effort intro/character background. Weapons/magic combinations arent as versatile as I would like.
Pros: Streamlined inventory management, for people that dont enjoy it. Combat is solid. Magic and effects are beautiful, fun and tie into exploration well. Platforming is solid with excellent level design. Graphics and performance are great also. Unlimited stamina while exploring is great.
The scales just dont tip in the game’s favor, especially when a game from 2011 outdoes it in almost every way.
I understand that obsidian is focused on churning out more easily digestible games more often, but is that really what rpg fans want? More shallow games that leave us wanting?
Idk maybe skyrim left me with unrealistic expectations, but all i want now is that level of world building and depth when it comes to rpgs of this type.
To each their own, but Bethesda’s games are all too often criticized for having breadth but not depth, and as time has gone on, I’ve agreed with that more and more. Avowed is scoped smaller than an Elder Scrolls, by a lot, but its depth appears to be in its combat.
I guess it depends on what kind of depth youre looking for. Depth of lore, attributes and upgrades? Skyrim has plenty. Depth of gameplay? Things get a little more murky.
I will agree that Elder Scrolls games have never had combat be their strongest feature and that is definitely what Obsidian focused on with Avowed to make it stand out.
I think attributes and upgrades tie back into gameplay, but we also all ended up playing stealth archers, and even if you never put stats into something that made things like lockpicking easier, it kind of didn’t matter, because the minigame wasn’t difficult and lockpicks are cheap. I think Bethesda’s games at least up to Skyrim have been great evolutions of the medium, but it also feels like, for all the work they put into their systems, they never got anywhere close to what Larian has built since Skyrim’s release.
I mean, yeah, the systems in skyrim werent deep, but at least they were there and somewhat entertaining. You just hold a button to “lockpick” in Avowed. You just roll a die like you do for everything in BG3. Personally I never used bows in skyrim, always enchanted single-handed weapons and destruction.
Larian Should have built more intricate rpg systems since then and they have, Skyrim is a decade and a half old. The caveat is that they have done so by abandoning active combat gameplay. Their combat systems are fun, they just arent engaging like Avowed or even Skyrim. Again to each their own, im sure many rpg players dont care one bit about active/realistic combat simulation. If Elden Ring’s success is an example though, then many people do want engaging combat.
Again with Avowed, it is a brand new game and compared to its only direct competitor(14yo skyrim) it feels lacking in every way except when you hit something with a weapon. And i guess thats ok, but only for like $30 or less.
I think what I’m getting at is that, from my perspective, the only thing that’s really in Skyrim’s favor compared to Avowed is how big it is, because if I wanted satisfying RPG systems or such, I’d find them elsewhere. I enjoy both real time and turn based games, and nothing about Larian’s RPG systems require them to be turn based, so it would be nice to see more of those kinds of systems in games like Bethesda’s going forward, but given how Starfield turned out, I doubt we will. Bethesda gives all of their NPCs schedules, there’s physics at play, and NPCs will care if you steal their stuff, but those systems never seem to manifest in anything more interesting than putting a bucket on someone’s head so they can’t see you thieving, so I’m not really missing anything in Avowed when those systems are absent.
