I just fucking HATE gaming discourse now. I just got done with a video reviewing the “cope” of a game by saying “they should expect more of themselves”

Honestly? Why? Who does it have to be the best game ever? Why can’t it just be a good romp? People just fucking suck and I’m sad and over it, man

In all seriousness, Im having a great time.

Let's stop comparing Apples, Oranges and Bananas. Let's enjoy all the good games for what they are.

The exploration feels so organic and rewarding.

I feel like a child exploring alternative paths with excitement. Idon't hesitate to turn the camera dozens of times to discover secrets, to try to climb cliffs or go underwater.

Thank you Obsidian for making me feel this beautiful sensation 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I don't get the hate. You don't get the hate. We all don't get the hate. Can we just talk about the actual game instead of talking about all the people that hate the game?

As someone who had Lydia as my companion most of my original Skyrim playthrough, this reference made me crack up laughing when I read that quote.

I can still hear her voice as I read it.

The exploration and scenery in this game is 10/10, and I hope we get more games like this. The zones in this game are not too big to warrant fully exploring, and not too small that they feel cramped. Little details like caves behind waterfalls, abandoned towers with loot at the top, dungeons that connect one side of the map to the other, all make the maps feel alive and worth actually experiencing. Plus it's FULL of environmental storytelling, which is the best kind of storytelling! Unlike games where every cave is just a reskin of every other cave...

The world is beautifully and carefully designed and I absolutely love it.

I've been looking for a game to hook me up for so long. I've tried Hogwarts Legacy, Dragon Dogma 2, I spent so much money trying to find a new RPG with nice graphics that made me feel like I never want to stop playing, and none hit the mark. I avoided Avowed for a while now because my feeds in every social media has been hating on it except some people, comparing it to Oblivion and Skyrim and showing things you can't do here but you can in them. But I felt so bored that I thought, what the hell why not.

Now it's incredibly hard to understand the hate. This game is amazing. People commented "ohhh the combat is so bad etc etc" the combat feels and plays amazing, specially on hard, it feels different to every other Bethesda games, yet retains it's core and makes it actually engaging. The characters even the first little guy and the interactions felt great and it's been a while since I felt I actually took part in conversations with actual people, and the world and the environments are incredible, not to mention unlike Hogwarts Legacy this game never went down in FPS and it feels optimized.

I'm so tired of the internet hating over stupid nitpicks, I didn't even care about being able to massacre everyone in a town, maybe some people enjoy the RPG aspect of being evil and killing everyone but it's not like in Skyrim you could do that, since they have essential NPCs anyways. And if you really want to do that... Then go play those games??? This is entirely different studio and saga.

Anyways, it feels good to have a game to look forward to keep playing. Finally.

My only grudge is that the HUD is kind of invasive, but it's nothing mods can't fix. This is a personal issue that I always mod in every game

My Guy

• Physical arrows you can shoot and collect.

• A true open world, as the main map has huge areas you can't explore.

• any consequences if you steal in front of any NPCs.

• a very large amount of mob variety

• NPC schedules and NPCs with life

• and many more things games like Skyrim, and other RPGs have

And I still love every bit of this amazing game!
Because Obsidian understood the homework assignment here. While some of those things are nice, you don't need them to make a good game.

Gameplay > Realism

Will not be spoiling anything!

To note, I have not played any of the POE games, so this is from the perspective of someone who has no prior attachment to the world/story/lore/ect.

For context on my playthrough I have the achievements for: All bounties completed, all dungeons explored, reached max level, unlocking all abilities for all companions, all treasure maps done, all strangled arda found, all pargunen caches, all god shrine totems/fragments, and all ancient memories. I do not have the achievements for all sidequests so I clearly missed a couple things, but I believe my playthrough was pretty much ~80-90% of all content, very little fog of war remains on my map in any zone. I did not rush, but there was definitely some more to discover if I looked around a bit more thoroughly.

That said, lets dive into it.

Performance:

Playing on PC, 4K with everything set to high with DLSS. I had an average of about 2 crashes per day with ~12 hour play sessions. Unfortunate but not terrible. Framerate was a pretty solid 60, with some heavy hitches in the very final area of the game. This is with a 3070 and an i7-9700k. No major complaints or praise for the performance, it was acceptable but not fantastic.

Visuals:

Personally I loved the visuals in the game. There are some areas when you find them are truly beautiful. Each gameplay zone is very visually distinct, and even within each zone there is a nice variety of locales and things which mix up the visual styles, so I didn't get "bored" with any particular area visually. Just an amazing art style.

Audio:

The combat sound effects are fantastic. Whether shooting a gun or casting a spell or swinging a sword, everything sounded great. The general ambiance in each zone is also fantastic. The music I found extremely forgettable, and honestly I cant remember a single tune/song, but every other aspect of the sound design was great.

Gameplay:

I will dividing this into a few sections as there is obviously a lot to say here.

Combat: Initially, combat felt fantastic. Dodging feels good, melee feels weighty, parrying feels good, spells are very satisfying to cast, shooting a pistol or arquebus is immensely gratifying, However, as I got further into the game some things about the combat started to get old, and almost all fights from the second zone onwards played out the same. I think this is because of the enemy variety, the RPG mechanics and the loot/gear system.

Enemy Variety: One of the most disappointing things in the game. For the most part it’s just humanoid enemies, with some wildlife. Every new zone introduces a new enemy “faction” but they all function pretty much identically. A few ranged mobs, a mage, a healer, a summoner, and then a bunch of melee guys. Sometimes they will throw a bear or other local wildlife into the mix but they function essentially like a tanky melee enemy.

No huge enemies like dragons, bosses are just regular enemies but tankier without any special moves. After the point of no return they have a new enemy that is pretty cool to fight, but they are treated like any other enemy and you will fight maybe ~10 of them before the credits roll.

RPG Mechanics: When I say RPG mechanics I'm referring to character building. So finding unique, build changing items, talent trees, classes, ect. Unfortunately the character building leaves a lot to be desired. Being limited to 30 ability points (with a few extra possible based on story choices), plus the extremely simplistic nature of pretty much all talents being generic number increases, means there are not very many choices to make. Stat checks in dialogue seem to not really matter at all whether you pass them or not, so you will likely just funnel your stats into damage. Unique items are pretty universally bland, with a couple notable exceptions, but not enough to make finding a unique item a really cool moment.

Crafting/loot: One of my biggest annoyances. I did a lot of side content, so I was never really below the gear curve for any content I encountered. However, you will be breaking down or selling 99% of the unique items you find just so you can keep your gear on-level with the content. This in itself isn't horrible, but the crafting system being how it is means that 90% of your exploration rewards will just be crafting materials. This makes exploration less exciting except for when you find a sidequest or special collectable, which is a shame. I think I found 30 backpacks that had the exact same loot of: 2x of every crafting material of the tier of the zone, a common wand, some money, and a potion.

Exploration: This carried the game for me. While 90% of the time the rewards were just crafting materials, the other 10% where you found a unique collectible, or a side quest, or a unique NPC encounter, ect, made exploring so satisfying. I think just how good the movement feels is a large part of this. The parkour and running around never stops being entertaining. My one gripe with the exploration is that it feels somewhat formulaic. You know every zone will have: a starmetal piece, pieces of a totem for camp, a strangled arda, some pargunen caches, and an ancient memory. If instead of this approach they did unique exploration rewards for every zone, it would stop the game from feeling so "samey". Because by the end of the second zone, outside of sidequests, you know exactly what your looking for when you go exploring, which takes some of the excitement out of it.

All these together mean by the mid-point of the second zone, you have experienced everything the gameplay has to offer. While the gameplay is fun, by the end of the game I was happy it was over with as the moment to moment gameplay felt very repetitive.

Story/Characters: As someone without prior attachment to the series, the story and characters just felt "ok" to me. The voice acting, dialogue, and general story beats were enough to keep me engaged, but nothing really left me with the feeling that I wanted to spend more time getting to know the world and it's inhabitants. The feeling I felt at the end was like getting through an "ok" book. I enjoyed my time, but I'm not exactly jumping to see what else the author has put out.

Choices: Another thing I think this game does great. Choices in side quests and in the main quest feel meaningful, and like there any many different permutations of how a quest or NPC can end up by the end of the game. I wont go into details to avoid spoliers, but there are several choices I had to sit there and think about for ~5-10 minutes about what the choice would mean for the world before I committed.

Closing thoughts:

Avowed is a very fun game that unfortunately stops offering any new or exciting experiences past ~15 hours. This is mitigated by the fact that the game itself feels good to play, specifically the combat and exploration, even if it starts to feel extremely samey. Honestly, the fact that I didn't drop it partway through the fourth zone is a testament to how good the gameplay feels despite it's repetitiveness.

I don’t really like the number rating system, but if you held me at gun point and forced me to give a score it would probably be 6 or 7/10. Above average, fun, solid game. But probably something I would recommend waiting for a sale to pickup or playing it on game pass unless your a series fanatic.

Edit: Added choices section.

Edit 2: Some grammar and punctuation fixes.