Avowed Review

Obsidian's 2025 first-person RPG is set in Eora, the world of Pillars of Eternity, and reads as a deliberately mid-sized game rather than an open world. Four large hand-built regions replace a continuous map, which keeps the density high and the exploration hand-authored. Its best system is the loadout: two weapon sets swapped instantly, so a wand-and-grimoire caster can become a sword-and-pistol duellist mid-fight, and the game encourages hybrid builds rather than punishing them. Combat is faster and more physical than Obsidian's usual, with parries, a genuinely useful dodge and elemental interactions on the environment. Where the studio's identity shows is in the writing: quests routinely have four or more resolutions, companions argue with your decisions and remember them, and the central conflict about a colonial expedition and a spreading plague resists a clean answer. Around twenty-five to forty hours. Knowledge of Pillars is rewarded and not required.