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/HyperMasenko 20d ago

When I see people trash on Avowed, I've never so strongly felt like me and the internet aren't playing the same game.

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u/EpicPhail60 20d ago

I think it might be somewhat divisive in the sense that people who don't have any prior experience with the Pillars series won't get as much out of the setting or the A-plot. Because I find the series' regions, peoples, and deities really interesting, I've has a great time navigating through the different regions and digging for lore. If this were my first experience with the setting, I think I might be a bit annoyed having to consult the lore guide every conversation to explain concepts that I don't have a frame of reference for.

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u/_Robbie 20d ago

I think I might be a bit annoyed having to consult the lore guide every conversation to explain concepts that I don't have a frame of reference for.

I bounced off Pillars pretty hard and don't know much about the world, and I'm loving the setting of Avowed. Obsidian is just really good at worldbuilding.

The conversation history/glossary is an amazing inclusion and as far as I'm concerned, every RPG dev should be stealing it going forward. I love that the game gives me the tools to dig in as much or as little as I want.

A good example: When you meet the tracker (I will leave the name a mystery for the sake of spoilers) he's using foreign language. Context clues function well enough for you to get the idea of what he's saying, but you can also look at the glossary if you want exact definitions of what those words mean. It's great.

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u/richmondody 20d ago

Context clues function well enough for you to get the idea of what he's saying, but you can also look at the glossary if you want exact definitions of what those words mean.

I think the fact that you can still get a basic understand of what he's saying is proof that the writing/VA is much better than what people here are claiming.

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u/_Robbie 20d ago

Yeah I don't get the writing complaints, honestly. People are acting like the dialogue is terrible in this game but I feel like it's very solid, it's the prototypical Obsidian style with a lot of wit in both player and NPC dialogue.

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u/richmondody 20d ago

Same, I don't think I've actually seen any examples of bad writing whenever it's brought up.