I was wondering if other people sensed this as well! I'd say it's something along those line. What you say, or perhaps it could also mean that she's actually honest to herself—knowing that she lacks the understanding of how a good RPG should look and feel—but she is part of the team now, and the team tells her it's great, all the superficial hype nonsense, and yeaaay, and we need to act as if we are selling great stuff on the camera! And thus, the conflict is visible in her eyes.
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Diving Deeper into the World of Avowed
At the recent Xbox Developer_Direct 2024 broadcast, Obsidian Entertainment shared its most comprehensive look yet at its upcoming fantasy-action RPG, Avowed.
But even that only scratched at the surface of what’s coming your way this fall. On today’s special episode of The Official Xbox Podcast, Avowed Game Director Carrie Patel and Gameplay Director Gabe Paramo shared an extended look at the quest showcased during Developer_Direct, providing more detail on the moment-to-moment experience of the flexible combat system, and where this side quest fits in the larger narrative of Avowed.
This latest look at Avowed gives us a good idea of what to expect from Shatterscarp, one part of the ecologically diverse island of The Living Lands, all in the same universe as Obsidian’s CRPG series Pillars of Eternity. But what makes Avowed a very ‘Obsidian game’ goes far beyond the commonality of setting in the world of Eora.
“It’s really about our player-centric approach to role play,” Patel shared during this week’s Podcast. “The way we really approach consequence and choice is giving players the opportunities to define who they are in this world, how they want to behave – what fantasy, what challenges they want to undertake.”
It’s all part of Obsidian’s “your worlds, your way” approach, and players will feel the weight of their choices moment-to-moment with every slash, parry, and spell cast.
What stands out is not just the variety of ways you can tackle combat – examples include the classic ‘sword and board [shield]’, samurai-esque sword and gun, and dual-wielding wands like a wizard in the Old West – but also how you’ll frequently want to (or need to) change your loadout to best suit what you find yourself up against. These loadouts are also complemented by skills, and Obsidian had a deep well of moves to pull from out of the Pillars of Eternity universe.
“We wanted to be able to grab as many abilities from the trees as possible – and categorize them a little bit differently so that the player doesn‘t feel locked into a single choice at the start of the game,” said Gabe Paramo, Gameplay Director. “They can mix and match between different abilities to get some variety. You can commit to being a fighter, but it’s not an enforced class setup.” And if you want to try out a new suite of abilities, you can always respec your character.
We saw great examples of this in the Developer_Direct: dual-wielding wands served as effective crowd control when a group of smaller Xaurips swarmed the player. But in a more one-on-one encounter with a slightly larger enemy, using an ice-imbued wand to freeze an enemy, then shattering the newly-frozen block with a charged power attack of an off-hand sword was supremely effective.
Paramo cited another devious combo: “With ‘Into the Fray,’ you can use a fireball ability that creates an AOE [area of effect] ability on the ground, and then pull the enemy into the fire.”
It’s all part of a comprehensive elemental system that comes into play both in and out of combat. Paramo continues, “you can light guys on fire, you can freeze them, you can shock them, you have objects in the environment you can interact with. They’re not just on weapons, on wands – you might find it on swords, certain abilities might cause elemental damage. And your companions [can] as well.”
Patel shared more about those companions – your hero won’t be wandering the Living Lands alone. “They all have deep ties to different regions of the Living Lands, and they all have their own personal reasons for wanting to ally with the player and help them resolve the big conflicts that you’re encountering over the course of the game. They’re your allies – in some ways your advisors, your local guides. They provide a lot of additional commentary and context that reveals something about their character, but also about the corner of the world you’re exploring.”
They’re also your allies in battle; Kai, who we saw in the Developer_Direct, played a tanky role, drawing aggro, while Giatta, who also makes an appearance, keeps the party healed up. Expect to meet more in your journeys across the Living Lands.
‘Playing your way’ expands beyond moment-to-moment action; as demonstrated in the Developer_Direct, you’ll be making meaningful decisions that affect the story.
“For us, creating these choices, like the big ones that affect the outcome of a quest, or the wellbeing of certain characters or communities are just as important as the smaller choices that you make in navigating a dialogue and, in subtle ways, influencing your relationship with another character,” said Patel. “All of it is really centered around letting the player be the main character in this setting.”
It’s important to note that for all we’ve now seen of Avowed, there’s much, much more to explore throughout the Living Lands. In fact, the specific quest in Shatterscarp we covered “is entirely discoverable, which means it’s also entirely missable.” In terms of scope of the game, Paramo compares with another recent Obsidian title, “it’s open-zone, size comparable to The Outer Worlds areas on the larger side, and [with] multiple paths essentially to tackle combat situations, or avoid them.”
According to Patel, sharp-eyed players will have much more to seek out throughout their time with Avowed: “One of the big delights of being a developer on a game like this is creating so much for players to find, and knowing that not everybody’s going to seek it out, and not everybody’s gonna find it, but knowing that the players who do are really going to enjoy the secrets they discover.”
Some speculations from me, and some indications given by the "extended gameplay breakdown" video. They've taken the technology from TOW and are building on it, adapting it to PoE's ruleset, hopefully adding lockpicking and other stuff that was missing in TOW. Their "gameplay director" is as clueless about RPGs as anyone you can meet on the street who has played Skyrim. He lacks the vocabulary and theoretical framework when describing a game of that genre. His presence in the project might be related to Tim Cain's "semi-retirement" status, and Tim's clashes with Carrie Patel, of which we've seen hints. In other words, Patel must be very happy to be working with him. She is just as clueless about RPGs in their "game" component. Writing CYOA is more her domain.
In terms of structure, I wager Avowed is planned to repeat Deadfire note for note, but attempting to stick closer to the scope limitations. The player's character is a new arrival in the land, but unlike the Watcher, the player is a representative of one of the factions interested in that region. The factions are easy to glean - Aedyr, Rauatai, some "pseudo-Huana" faction represented by the Kai companion NPC (who is an obligatory companion, as was revealed earlier), likely also the Vailian Republics, because we saw a companion NPC from that region as well. She was named Giatta, btw, is this the Vailian for "gata",? Carrie Patel also mentioned "a couple of more" companion NPCs, likely one from Rauatai and one from Aedyr. This is Josh' principle of companions being spokesmen for their factions, or at least it was described by him once, in relation to FNV. This approach has become pretty boring if you ask me, but by now this makes it all the more reason for Obsidian to be sticking to it.
Although the player character is sent to the Living Lands by one of the big powers, he will be free to act against their interest. In other words - the player gets to be put in the shoes of Pallegina from PoE1. Also in typical Obsidian fashion, the player is playing judge, where he arrives in a new land, explores it and its conflicts and chooses which faction to aid. This structure, combined with the early-modern colonial age setting, gives good opportunity to the writers for their shit takes on colonial history, so brace yourselves.
Just as in Deadfire, you have colonial powers' bickering on one hand and a "local region's mystery", in this instance a "mysterious soul plague" on the other hand. Since the word plague is getting thrown around so much, and since this is "the living lands" (that was supposed to be lush jungles btw), I'm willing to bet the "big reveal" in the story's midpoint will be some conflict involving Galawain.
So far, this all sounds like something Obsidian can pull off successfully. Whether you'll enjoy the game or not depends on how much you care about the PoE setting. I would have a fun time exploring the place in first person, with the downside that I'll have to listen to the companion NPCs' bullshit. Much like I felt about Deadfire.
I'm much more pessimistic about the state of Avowed as an RPG though. With someone who makes a presentation of elemental interactions, dual wielding wands, and "mixing and matching weapons and abilities" it seems nearly certain that all the "mixing and matching" will mean nothing because the game will be piss easy anyway. It will be curious to see how they've ported the isometric games' abilities and spells to first-person action gameplay, but it's clear at this stage that no one gives a rat's ass about the systems, and that combat will be completely superficial and neglected as a mechanic. I don't expect them to come up with something at the level of say FNV's balance by fall this year. Not that FNV is a shining example, but it's better than average for a first person RPG, I think.
So, "good for what it is/10". Another Obsidian mediocrity.
Yep, I was expecting that argument. But what you have there is Swen Vincke. Another dinosaur.
Brennecke, Sawyer, and Boyarsky were all busy or didn't want it. They need to foster new talent rather than relying on the same old people, plus they're Californian so they likely cringe at having all White guys directing games.
Swen is old meat, but BG3 is new money. Other money will chase after it. Probably in a cargo cult way, without getting what made it good, but even cargo culting BG3 will result in tabletop system and tabletop pop-culture aesthetics. Its too on the nose to get it wrong.
It's an ARPG, so are we going to pretend to have standards?
First D:OS clone is out in early access in a couple of days
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1064120/Unforetold_Witchstone/"Lockpicking skill determines how many lockpicks are used, if any" is a perfectly acceptable system for any kind of RPG. They didn't put any tedious minigames into Deus Ex.It's an ARPG, so are we going to pretend to have standards?
Yeppp, time for some Larian slop *circus music starts playing*First D:OS clone is out in early access in a couple of days
that's what I thought too especially when they weapon swapped to the 2 handed axe and it looked like a big plastic toy straight from grounded
Action system. One drop rule, if a very good player can make a character do something that character is completely unskilled at, then its an action game mechanic.
It also had a kind of americana new age religion thing going, so you get rural redneck representation in your urban game.
What do you mean by "faction states" though? For quest design complexity - who knows really. I'm going off of what I've seen in Deadfire and TOW, so anyone is free to speculate. I played TOW up to the part where you arrive to the second planet, and then a bit more to explore the city.
But do you see the talent to pull off something like BG3, anywhere? I'd be happy to play a more sober, "dryer" BG3 set in the PoE setting, with main quest and C&C revolving more around politics than fantasy tripe, but such a project will never get funding even if Feargus gets Microsuits drunk on his grandfather's Scotch.
Avowed was Obsidian co-founder Chris Parker's game at first, but apparently he wasn't up to the task.
Paramo's work history: https://www.mobygames.com/person/390217/gabriel-paramo/credits/
Also true.
