Major improvements are here.
By Ameer Ammar
It’s no secret that I was not a fan of Avowed when it first released last year. I found the lack of interactivity and subpar RPG elements to be huge flaws that overall went against what made Obsidian RPGs great. So going into Avowed on PS5, my expectations were not high, but overall, I came away pleasantly surprised at the updates Obsidian made to Avowed over the last year.
Now I played this on the PS5 Pro and in terms of performance, had 0 issues. I opted for Balanced mode just for that blend of high res and great FPS gameplay. While the resolution isn’t as great as I wished it was, say compared to Resident Evil Requiem utilizing PSSR 2.0, I still thought the game was sharp enough that a Pro upgrade is worth it. I heard the PS5 version is basically the same just with lower res, so it’s a solid port.
In terms of gameplay, Avowed is still more of a basic RPG than an interactive Obsidian one, but the past year of updates have really improved what was there. For example, the power curve of loot over the course of the game has gotten a massive upgrade. You finally really feel as though between quests, you are getting properly rewarded with stronger weapons. This was a major flaw with launch Avowed where progression felt nonexistent or arbitrary at best, but I am very happy it’s finally been addressed. Now that I knew what Avowed is before even heading in, the lack of interactivity with the world was less disappointing, and I could mainly focus on the bulk of this game, which is questing. Doing quests is fun, and the side quests especially shine with some of them feeling more involved than even the main quests. I especially enjoyed Kai’s companion quests, which added a ton of depth to his character. The rest of the companions were OK, but Kai is voiced by the same person who did Garrus for Mass Effect, so I kept him for the entire game just due to that.
Gameplay-wise, Avowed has a major focus on combat, and it’s good. The updates done have really helped this combat system shine. While I wouldn’t call it the greatest ever, the variety between weapon and build types make up for some of the animations that feel lacking in that “oomph” that makes certain weapon types feel much better than others. I enjoyed magic and ranged combat far more than melee as a result of that. Magic feels heavily inspired by Hogwarts Legacy with its various abilities and mechanics that made this my favorite form of combat in the game. Stealth was a letdown though. It’s far too basic for any sort of creative gameplay, and the assassination animations are seriously lacking. It also felt almost impossible to actually clear out enemies via stealth as they seem to just spot me instantly at times. So I stopped engaging with stealth fairly early on. It is a shame that there isn’t much else to talk about here as there usually is in an Obsidian game, as Avowed lacks those signature interactions, crime system, and messing about with NPCs as NPCs are static across the board and non-interactable in any way. Avowed is simply not that type of game.
The world is split up as zones that you go through by progressing the main story, so there's no one giant open world here but each region is big enough that you can easily get lost in while exploring, filled with various side activities to discover. This zones approach makes each story act feel really distinct in enemy types, locations, and even loot as there are unique weapons with each region that added to that feeling of encountering a new region of this massive world. There's also a couple secret locations that are not tied to any quests which I found to be really awesome especially one dungeon in the second region that I came upon by complete accident which later on tied to a bigger plot from a separate quest. It is a shame that the towns that the people inhabit feel so lifeless in comparison as mentioned before since enemies do feel like they roam around and interact with their surroundings.
Graphically, Avowed looks great, but the art style leaves a lot to be desired. I think something more colorful would have worked here as the colors come across as too harsh and often result in an unappealing image. Fidelity-wise, it’s up there, but aesthetics I found it lacking. There is, however, a great deal of attention to detail everywhere across the game, which makes the world feel lived in.
Story-wise, this is definitely Avowed’s strongest point. You play as an Envoy, sent to investigate a mysterious plague, and the story has quite a lot of twists that I didn’t see coming. You do make a lot of decisions; you can absolutely go down a villain path here, and that’s something that I really appreciated. The companions carry a lot of the plot as the main character is silent, which is fine, but I did wish we could put more personality into them. Overall, the story is quite fun if a bit confusing as it takes place in the already established universe of Pillars of Eternity, so some terms and faction relationships did confuse me early on, but it’s nothing too bad.
FINAL VERDICT
Avowed has improved substantially from its 2025 release and definitely stands more on its own with better balancing and loot being big improvements, but its major drawbacks such as lack of interactivity are still here. Thankfully, I was able to focus more on the story and combat due to the updates mentioned earlier, and the PS5 port is pretty much as good as it can be.
7/10 - AVOWED - GOOD
Special thanks to Xbox for providing the review code