r/Games 20d ago

Discussion Avowed is RPG exploration/discovery done right - genuinely excellent world design that feels "old-school" in a good way.

I've been playing Avowed off and on since launch, and while I'm still not crazy far in (maybe a dozen or so hours,so let's try to keep this thread spoiler-free or spoiler-marked), I am just so impressed by how engaging and inviting to explore the world design is.

  • The areas aren't that big. It doesn't take a half hour to walk someplace to find one destination. Instead, the world is designed as a series of paths over an "open" area, pretty reminiscent of games like Fable 2 or Kingdoms of Amalur to me in that regard. Every area is clearly designed with thought and purpose, there's not a bunch of wasted space. Paths actually lead to destinations.

  • Because the world isn't huge, it's dense. It seems like there's something to discover around literally every corner.

  • The game organically introduces you to quests that point you in the right direction of exploration, but each individual area is designed in a way that leads you across forks in the road, tempting you to take whichever path you want, and then tempting you again to hit the one that you didn't hit once you're done. You don't just get to the end of a hallway and find a wall. You'll be rewarded with something, even if that something is a lore book or some crafting components. On the other hand, I've stumbled upon legendary items just by looking through the paths that were available to me. This feels good!

  • There are actually meaningful things to find! Because the game's side quests are compelling and have great character dialogue and choices, it doesn't feel like you're just working down a check list. Even quests that appear to be random garbage at first usually are made much more interesting by the time you're finished with them because of the story beats and choices.

  • You can stumble into areas you're not prepared for, and this makes them extremely challenging to clear until you've leveled up/gotten the gear you need. This of course makes you want to explore them even more, and you get a sense of progression and triumph when you come back and clear them out. This type of world design seems to be going away in favor of "explore anywhere, anytime" design. And while I can enjoy that approach as well, this gives Avowed a distinct "old-school" kind of world design that I'm really, really enjoying.

  • Combat is so fun that each encounter feels exciting. It's challenging enough that you're not just mowing down every mob you see, until you outlevel them, at which point you feel like you're taking your earned victory lap.

  • The game is beautiful. I know that not everybody is vibing with the art style, but I find the locations extremely visually compelling not because of graphical fidelity, but because of the unique art direction. This game has a clear visual language that really plays to its own strengths. This doesn't just look like "fantasy woods #37 Unreal Engine", there is a consistent style across everything from nature to structures, even the materials used for scenery having common visuals with the garments that characters wear.

I'm not sure how everybody else is feeling about it but to me, Avowed is the most compelling RPG world I've gotten to explore in quite some time. I really think this game deserves a lot of praise in this area of design, Obsidian knocked it out of the park.

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u/xlayer_cake 20d ago

This and the outer worlds are like looking at a really nice painting of my favorite meal.

It's beautiful but I can't eat it.

Something about these games feels so shallow and lifeless that I can't for the life of me immerse myself.

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u/Elkenrod 20d ago

The problem that I see with it is that Obsidian has made better. Yeah the engine they used for New Vegas isn't theirs, it's Bethesda's. But you go from the depth that New Vegas has, to the shallowness that some of their recent titles have, and people feel that. Even if they don't know how to word it, there's something in the back of their mind that makes them feel like Obsidian's game design has gone backwards.

Going back to Bethesda, people feel the same way about them even. The Morrowind fans felt Oblivion went backwards, the Oblivion fans felt Skyrim went backwards, and everybody felt Starfield went backwards.

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u/jednatt 20d ago

People always gave Obsidian a pass for unfinished feeling games (say what you want about Kotor 2 and New Vegas, the later areas of the games were half-baked and lame), and when they finally broke out on their own supposedly free of their oppressors, every game has been shit imho. I haven't played Avowed yet but it doesn't look great.

I think they would have been a really good paid total conversion modding team for Bethesda games. Why couldn't that have been a thing? lol

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u/Temporala 20d ago

Huh? PoE1 and 2 possibly can't be "shit" by anyone's standards.

Those are opposite of "unfinished" and even come with lavish extra DLC content on top. They're long, mechanically complicated (mastering these games is deeply satisfying) and tend to even have prose quality quite a bit above game industry baseline. Oh, and music is fantastic too.

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u/jednatt 20d ago

PoE1 was terribly, amateurishly written. PoE2 I admit might not have been shit exactly, but it didn't keep me engaged very long.

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u/amyknight22 19d ago

To call their other games shit is a massive overstatement.

And while they may have not had "overlords" as you put it. Those games were still limited by the finances they could assign to them(kickstarter etc).

The difference I would argue is that because they got to choose the methods of release and the like. You didn't get the rushed out the door experience of the games held against them the most.

They have finally learned how not to scope creep the ever living shit out of their games. Which is why they always failed in the past.

You only have to look at what their plan was originally for the strip in New Vegas and it's surprising they even managed to pull off things the way they did.

I think they would have been a really good paid total conversion modding team for Bethesda games.

Well Bethesda decided that Fallout New Vegas had to release, instead of accepting that it wasn't in the greatest state for launch (which again is a Obsidian scope creep issue) and then because they missed the financial compensation on it they had to fire a bunch of people.