Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting - coming February 18th

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

Hag lover detected

 

[Tyranicon]

Sounds like hilarious disaster in the making. Looking forward to it!

Don't get me wrong, I like schadenfreude as much as the next dude, but it's disappointing that the current generation of creatives are floundering so badly.

Bodes poorly for the future.

Oh well, AI is going to buttfuck everything eventually anyways.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Sounds like hilarious disaster in the making. Looking forward to it!

Don't get me wrong, I like schadenfreude as much as the next dude, but it's disappointing that the current generation of creatives are floundering so badly.

Bodes poorly for the future.

Oh well, AI is going to buttfuck everything eventually anyways.

Only in these bigger studios though. There have been a number of interesting things lately in the smaller indie space imo.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I missed that they already started the "temper your expectations" talk.

• "Only 100 devs, we're super small indies really"
• "This isn't AAA, more like AA, fr"
• "It's a medium-sized project of only a few hundred mil, no biggie"

Extrapolating from these, we can probably expect more along these lines

• "Plz don't compare us to BG3, nobody can be as naturally talented as belgians"
• "Also BG3 is made by the devil"
• "Good combat is technologically impossible"
• "We spent the balancing budget on VO"
• "Toxic gamers want us to crunch"
• "The Living Lands is only a 4km square, lore is tying our hands"
• "It's more of a linear action adventure visual novel"
• "Yes you can have sexual relations with the bear, no romances tho"

It's over.

That's the most annoying thing about Obsidian. From a company that players (normies and grogs alike) had hopes for when it came to what games they release, we are down to keeping fingers crossed that the next game will have at least some redeeming qualities.

All on account of bad management and negative selection, which chased away or neutered anyone with talent who has ever worked at the company.

 

[just]

diamond level hardness of a pass

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

That's the most annoying thing about Obsidian. From a company that players (normies and grogs alike) had hopes for when it came to what games they release, we are down to keeping fingers crossed that the next game will have at least some redeeming qualities.

All on account of bad management and negative selection, which chased away or neutered anyone with talent who has ever worked at the company.

If only that could have been anticipated well in advance.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The things you can find on the Internet... There is a podcast called "The World of Eora", and it has been running for 81 episodes now: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/...odes/Ep--81-A-Deeper-Dive-into-Avowed-e2f1dip

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

Did they even manage to get guest appearance of a single obsidian employee?

 

[Viata]

The things you can find on the Internet... There is a podcast called "The World of Eora", and it has been running for 81 Episodes now: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/...odes/Ep--81-A-Deeper-Dive-into-Avowed-e2f1dip

http://avowedcast.com/

 

[Roguey]

The things you can find on the Internet... There is a podcast called "The World of Eora", and it has been running for 81 episodes now: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/...odes/Ep--81-A-Deeper-Dive-into-Avowed-e2f1dip

Blast from the past.

Oct 27, 2018 at 10:20 PM - Roguey: I saw that the kids at /v/ referred to Wodeca fans as "Woedicucks" just waiting for the right opportunity give him/her that burn
Oct 27, 2018 at 10:21 PM - Fairfax: I'm surprised non-obsidian forums people care enough to even create nicknames like that
Oct 27, 2018 at 10:21 PM - Roguey: Fairfax, from what I saw, they were incredibly deeply into PoE lore. It was a strange and interesting contrast compared to here.

Remember, not every place is here.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

The things you can find on the Internet... There is a podcast called "The World of Eora", and it has been running for 81 episodes now: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/...odes/Ep--81-A-Deeper-Dive-into-Avowed-e2f1dip

Blast from the past.

Oct 27, 2018 at 10:20 PM - Roguey: I saw that the kids at /v/ referred to Wodeca fans as "Woedicucks" just waiting for the right opportunity give him/her that burn
Oct 27, 2018 at 10:21 PM - Fairfax: I'm surprised non-obsidian forums people care enough to even create nicknames like that
Oct 27, 2018 at 10:21 PM - Roguey: Fairfax, from what I saw, they were incredibly deeply into PoE lore. It was a strange and interesting contrast compared to here.

Remember, not every place is here.

Yes, but also not every place praise PoE setting.

Podcasters are the most devoted kind of believers.

 

[whydoibother]

/v/ used to like the setting of Pillars, praising the archaic language use as well. But now whenever its mentioned you get larping retards complaining that its an atheist setting *tips fedora* fake fantasy with no gods *tips fedora* californian communist fake godless """fantasy""" *tips fedora*

 

[AwesomeButton]

/v/ used to like the setting of Pillars, praising the archaic language use as well. But now whenever its mentioned you get larping retards complaining that its an atheist setting *tips fedora* fake fantasy with no gods *tips fedora* californian communist fake godless """fantasy""" *tips fedora*

View attachment 46146

Everywhere is reddit now

 

[Justinian]

there's something poetic about how feargus only got to make his skyrim killed by the time it was dead of old age

"Skyrim killed", dont know if its a typo or if you meant to write it that way, but it fits. 10 years too late to be killed by skyrim, but it still will happen, skyrim is better than this, and everyone already owns it, why buy this shit?

Because there are only so many times you can play the same game no matter how good it is (and Skyrim isn't THAT good anyway).

 

[AwesomeButton]

Did they even manage to get guest appearance of a single obsidian employee?

Not even once. That must be an achievement even for Obsidian's "community manager".

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/avowed/skyrim-fallout-new-vegas

Avowed is less like Skyrim, more like Fallout New Vegas, Obsidian says​

Picking up from Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian’s Avowed aims for the curated sandbox of Fallout New Vegas rather than the vastness of Skyrim.

Almost 13 years since the release of Skyrim, it still feels impossible for any fantasy RPG – or perhaps any RPG, period – to not be compared to Bethesda’s Nordic opus. The Elder Scrolls V remains the archetype of a certain variety of open-world game. Vast, rich, and designed entirely around allowing the player to do what they like, Skyrim winds you up with a strong narrative premise then sets you down and lets you go. Compare that to Fallout New Vegas, Obsidian’s valiant return to Black Isle classic, also renowned for its openness and breadth. On the surface, they’re very similar. In Skyrim, you’re the Dragonborn and you need to kill Alduin. In New Vegas, you’re the Courier and you need to settle who controls the Hoover Dam. And everything that happens in between is up to you. But there are subtle yet significant differences between Skyrim and New Vegas, between Bethesda’s work and Obsidian’s. Avowed, the new fantasy RPG set in the same universe as Pillars of Eternity, serves to highlight some of these diversions.

“For me at least, the games that hit the hardest in terms of really good role-playing experiences are not so open that you end up feeling adrift as a player,” Avowed game director Carrie Patel, whose credits also include spacepunk RPG The Outer Worlds and of course Pillars of Eternity itself, explains. “It shouldn’t be like ‘this is a wonderful sandbox, but I’m just building my own sandcastles here without a larger sense of purpose or identity.’ I think Avowed absolutely does fit the Obsidian ‘personality.’”

“We have the structure of the critical path, and we want whatever constraints we’re placing on the player to be accompanied by a good sense of pacing and momentum. There’s a push and pull where even though we’ve set this path in front of the player, we’re giving them enough prompts and draws along the way that they also feel like the authors of their own story.”

Set in Eora, the same universe as Obsidian’s beloved Pillars series, Avowed casts you as a lone envoy of the Aedyran Empire, dispatched to investigate a mysterious plague. The Living Lands are vibrant, colorful, and filled with unusual flora and fauna – just like The Outer Worlds trades realism for something more visually expressive, Avowed is instantly distinguishable from the likes of The Witcher 3 and Skyrim.

But Obsidian also wants the world of Avowed to feel more authored and curated. Everything is up to you – there are myriad combat styles, customizations, narrative choices, and, naturally, the freedom to explore The Living Lands at your leisure. But the presence of some kind of author is always important.

“It’s hard in 2024 to escape some comparison to Skyrim if you’re making a first-person fantasy action RPG,” Patel tells PCGamesN. “But I think the model that we’ve looked to internally is building Avowed as our fantasy take on The Outer Worlds, not with the same tone, but a similar structure to the world and in terms of scope.

“For us, it’s about having a more focused experience, something that feels a little more curated. We can be a little more intentional. Our world comprises zones that are definitely not small but certainly more constrained than a massive map that you can walk from, beginning to end, in several hours. It allows us to have a little more intentionality.

“I think there’s an appetite for games that are big sprawling RPGs with a ton of openness,” Patel continues, “but also games that are more curated, but also still maintain these elements of choice, character building, and progression. I’ve been excited to see what we can do as a studio in mixing up those elements.”

This, arguably, is where Skyrim and Fallout New Vegas are different. In terms of sheer size, the Mojave Wasteland may be smaller, but it’s packed more densely with encounters, occurrences, quests, and ambient activities. Similarly, Obsidian wants to create RPGs where everything you do, whether it’s guided by the developer or totally of your own accord, informs the greater narrative and experience. Can an RPG world be too big? Is there such a thing as wasted space? Avowed is seemingly driven by a different kind of design, where quantity is not always superior to cohesion.

“It’s that middle ground between sandbox and something that’s more curated, and I think we do a good job in striking that balance,” gameplay director Gabe Paramo explains. “For example, there are creatures you might stumble upon in Avowed that you’re maybe not ready for, but perhaps you’ve found an ability that helps you manipulate that creature, and then you get an item. You’ve found something purely through exploration that you can use in other types of encounters. I think New Vegas is also full of those moments where we don’t want to handhold the player, but still, if players have the skills, they can still defeat these moments.”

“I think New Vegas does a wonderful job of building the player experience not just through the critical plan but the side quests and secrets you can discover in the world,” Patel continues. “There’s a really great balance of consistency and variety. You want players to experience novelty and surprise, but also make sure that all these microelements you’re putting together are leading the player towards the same cohesive experience.

“One thing that’s been interesting to see, and as a player I really enjoy it, is that these genre boundaries are more and more fuzzy. You’re coming to the Living Lands and Avowed with a very specific role from the empire, but it’s still up to you to choose how exactly you follow through on that.”

While we wait for Avowed to arrive, you can try some of the other best sandbox games, or perhaps the greatest games like Skyrim available on PC.

 

[Viata]

Avowed is less like Skyrim, more like Fallout New Vegas​

I guess I have watched the wrong trailers, then.

 

[Alienman]

I'm waiting for the mention of Outer Worlds.

Edit:
She actually does:

“But I think the model that we’ve looked to internally is building Avowed as our fantasy take on The Outer Worlds, not with the same tone, but a similar structure to the world and in terms of scope.

 

[Infinitron]

More from Gamesradar: https://www.gamesradar.com/avoweds-...pg-at-obsidian-its-your-world-your-way-right/

Avowed's commitment to ubiquitous player choice could make it 2024's standout RPG: "At Obsidian, it's your world, your way, right?"​

Interview | In combat, in questing, and in everything between, Avowed puts you at the heart of everything it does

Avowed could change the face of the RPG genre. That's not to heap undue pressure on Obsidian Entertainment, the studio now lining up its latest venture under the Xbox Games Studios umbrella following 2018's high-profile acquisition. But if recent history has taught us anything in this space, it's that role-playing games can, and often do, make a splash when mixing the right ingredients.

2023 alone delivered some of the most unforgettable, genre-defining experiences we've seen in some time, with games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Sea of Stars helping to push the boundaries of what RPGs can, could, and maybe even should be moving forward. Player choice, in combat and narrative terms, was a driving force in last year's biggest success stories – and so with a studio so well-versed on both fronts at the helm of Avowed, the fantasy-with-firearms role-player already has a lot going for it. From Fallout: New Vegas to South Park: The Stick of Truth, The Outer Worlds, and the Pillars of Eternity series, after all, Obsidian is no stranger to leaving its mark on a tried and tested formula.

"Player choice is really key to all of our games at Obsidian," says Avowed game director Carrie Patel. "And for us, that is really about letting the player build and express their character. It's about who they want to be in the fantastical worlds we build, and the dilemmas and challenges we put in front of the player. I personally find that to be really effective in games where you have some sort of starting premise that prompts roleplay and gives you something to make difficult choices around."

Combat and "Combinatorics"​

As a first-person, open-zoned action RPG, Obsidian brings years of experience to Avowed, with the game itself set in the fictional world of Eora, a realm first introduced in the studio's Pillars of Eternity series. Sent to the Living Lands to investigate a spreading plague, it becomes immediately clear there's more to the untamed island setting than meets the eye – not least an ancient blight that threatens to destroy the land and everything that inhabits it. In response, you'll wield swords, shields, guns and grimoires as you (and a band of recruitable companions) hack and slash and conjure spells in your bid to save the day.

A distinct focus on player choice underpins all of the above, which, of course, plays to Obsidian's expertise. The essence of this, Patel explains, is making the player constantly ask themselves: Who do I want to be? Be that in the face of the game's more thoughtful philosophical and political quandaries, or simply when working out the most logical conclusion to a questline, Avowed aims to systematically challenge your moral compass. Who can you trust? Where do your loyalties lie? Do you opt for altruism or are you in it solely for yourself? Who do you want to be?

This dynamic approach to player choice has natural appeal to newcomers, but anyone familiar with the developer's back catalog already has an idea of what to expect. Flirting with diplomacy is always an option in Obsidian games, but quite often things are settled by force in the throes of the studio's fantastical sprawls – and Avowed pays clear deference to the latter with a real-time mix-and-match approach to magic, melee, mid and long range combat.

"At Obsidian, it's your world, your way, right?" says gameplay director Gabe Paramo. "We want to give the player the freedom with the dual wielding system. You know, with combinations – or 'combinatorics' as I call it; people make fun of me for using this term. It's being able to put a pistol in my right hand and a shield in my offhand. I'm blocking and I'm firing. It's the choice and consequence with things like, I'm using a dagger that's quick and it's more silent, and I'm using a pistol that's loud and has a little bit of a reload recovery time on it. It's giving the players these tools that let them sort of choose okay, 'what do I want to do here?' And there's pros and cons to all the choices that I make and there is no one perfect build, there's gonna be, again, choice and consequence for what you kit out with your character."

To this end, Obsidian aims to increase the fluidity of this choice in combat by allowing you to respec your character at any time. The overarching aim here is to help you avoid feeling locked into any particular fighting style, and likewise allow you to adapt in the face of new challenges. Environmental obstacles encourage Skyrim-esque ingenuity, whereby fire magic may be required to melt ice or burn through brambles blocking the way, or where heavy weapons are needed to break through barriers. When you combine all of this with the split-second decision-making that's required in the heat of battle, the multifaceted importance of choice in Avowed becomes crystal clear.

"We put a lot of energy and time into our animation blending systems, too," Paramo continues. "Shout out to Max Matzenbacher, our senior combat designer, for what he calls 'bookends', which are just your range of giving things space. So, it's not about making every single weapon powerful, but there are trade-offs to each weapon, like the wind-up time versus the recovery time, making them feel like you're holding them properly, and what they look like in view."

"So, again, I think a lot of the challenges are just the permutations and creating the design that actually cannot over-bloat our animations and still be very flexible. [On our end] it's about ensuring player freedom, making sure the game looks good enough, and fits within the budgets that we have."

Standing on the shoulders of giants​

More than choice-driven narrative and combat features, though, the fact that morality likewise underpins so much of Avowed's inner-workings is interesting. From the outside looking in, separating all three seems impossible, which for me only adds to the appeal of getting lost in its world. As a long-standing Fallout: New Vegas player, I loved playing factions off one another, currying favor with some proper deplorable characters in order to get my way, while double-crossing just about everyone so long as it suited my end goals. This is clearly an indictment on my personal playstyle, but it's reassuring to know that Avowed targets similar levels of breadth in depth in the moment-to-moment decision-making that shapes its open-zoned world beyond firefights and storytelling.

"Our approach to choice and consequences is to eschew a black-and-white, good-versus-evil morality scale, where the moral balance of your decision is very obvious – but rather something that feels closer to life, where sometimes it's not obvious or sometimes the right choice feels obvious, but the outcome can be surprising; justified but surprising," says Patel. "So I feel that, as a designer, I enjoy challenging, and as a player, I enjoy being challenged in that regard; where I really get to chew on something complicated and kind of make and explore those decisions in the relatively safe environment of a game."

"And when I think about some of the quests and dilemmas that I still hear players talking about years later – like I think Legion's loyalty quest in Mass Effect 2 is particularly famous for this – it's those choices that people really had to think about," Patel continues. "And that's I think what kind of binds them a little more to their characters, their avatar in the world. And also the characters and companions that they're sharing this journey with, because you're like, 'oh, man, we went through this together'."

Paramo reiterates just how intrinsic those moral choices can be in gameplay terms, from the gear you wear to the abilities and weapons you choose to wield. Where world-building and choice come together most against Obsidian's experience, it seems, is the fact that Avowed builds upon the world of Eora – the same fantastical lands found in the developer's Pillars of Eternity series. In combat, you can leverage familiar spells from the Pillars games, such as Into the Fray to pull characters in different directions, however it is worth noting no prior experience of Eora is required to enjoy yourself in The Living Lands.

Patel continues: "You really don't need to know anything about the previous Pillars games, and you certainly don't need to have played them to enjoy Avowed. For players who have they're certainly some familiar concepts, bits of world building, and even a few returning characters that they might recognize, but we wanted to make sure that players coming to it for the first time will have a good time."

"There's always a balance there, because you don't want to info-dump on the player just when they're really trying to get their feet wet in the world. But at the same time, you don't want them to feel adrift. So there's a delicate balance between introducing new concepts and pieces of the world to players, doing it in a way that lets them opt in. And you know, for a simple example, ask more questions in a dialogue, if they want to know about it, but also just move on. If they're like, 'Yeah, I get it, like I can put together from the context what this is, and I don't need the details.'"

"There's also a system that our team is working on integrating into Avowed right now that we first had the Tyranny and we also used an Deadfire, which is lore tooltips, where for a particular name or piece of lore, when it comes up in a dialogue, or in a piece of written text, you can kind of hover over it and get the little summary, like, what is The Living Lands? Oh, okay, now I get it, and it doesn't otherwise interrupt the flow of what you're doing."

The vow​

Clearly, Avowed is an ambitious undertaking. It's inspired by its creators' collective wealth of fantastical world-building experience, and it enters the RPG fray at a time when the genre is firing on all cylinders. The game's commitment to putting the player at the center of everything it does is admirable, but the developer knows promises on this side of release mean very little without something of substance backing them up at the other end.

For Patel, the thought of players getting to grips with Avowed's sophisticated combat system while enjoying the freedom of speccing out their characters as they move through the game is what excites her most at this juncture. Leveraging its classless system, Patel expects (and encourages) players to mix-and-match the specifics of their favorite builds in Avowed – be that from a more archetypal standpoint of big swords and heavy shields; or from a more outlandish perspective, such as gun-slinging mages – it's these idiosyncratic variables that she can't wait to see players mess around with first-hand.

For Paramo, being able to show off more to players in the coming months keeps him inspired, as does the thought of responding to feedback and iterating on elements throughout the last stretch of development. At the time of writing, Avowed boasts a tenuous "Fall 2024" release window, and Paramo is keen to continue pushing for greater transparency right up until launch.

And for me? Avowed is, of course, also an Xbox console-exclusive. Which means that if it does get it right, whenever it lands in "Q4 2024", it could be the reason people like myself finally acquire an Xbox Series X console. My gaming laptop might make it over the line in this instance, but as games get incessantly bigger and increasingly resource-heavy, the allure of Game Pass on the couch inevitably becomes harder to ignore. Combine this with everything Avowed is promising this side of release – not least sophisticated player choice across its narrative and combat, a dynamic combat system that bends to the player's whims, and the wealth of experience Obsidian boasts in all of the above – and this choice-driven action-RPG could be one of 2024's standout games. Avowed has all the ingredients to make it work, and Obsidian is more than capable of mixing them in the correct order.

 

[whydoibother]

Avowed is less like Skyrim, more like Fallout New Vegas, Obsidian says

Didn't the director literally call it his Skyrim in earlier statements?

 

[Viata]

They probably have no idea what they are making at this point. Before the game is even released, they already came up with a lot of excuses.

 

[Infinitron]

Part Two: https://www.gamesradar.com/avoweds-...m-but-obsidian-wouldnt-have-it-any-other-way/

Avowed's focus on choice and consequence means "most players won't discover 100% of what you've built for them", but Obsidian wouldn't have it any other way​

Interview | In combat, narrative and exploration, Avowed is dialing the choice-factor up to 11

Choice is massive in Avowed. We've seen glimpses of this already – most recently during this month's Xbox Developer Direct, and first-hand from Obsidian itself in conversation with GamesRadar+ – which has given us a closer look at the upcoming action RPG's first-person, flexible combat system that will let us choose our own loadouts. But the freedom to steer our own journey will also feed into the various scenarios we'll face in the Living Lands. From how we decide to navigate difficult decisions to how much time we want to spend exploring, it sounds as though it has all the ingredients to let us play out a fantasy of our own making in a world built upon the Pillars of Eternity Universe.

Choice and consequence are a big draw for me in role-playing games, and I've always loved the way Obsidian has approached this as a studio in some of its previous games. The Outer Worlds and Fallout: New Vegas both presented us with settings ripe for discovery, where our choices were often a matter of life or death. Seeing how your actions have an effect first-hand makes the role-playing experience feel more immersive, and it's why I'm excited to see how this shakes out in Avowed.

"I think it's about looking for lots of opportunities to have those [choices] payoff and knowing that some of those payoffs will be very big, and some of them will be more subtle, but in a way that feels believable, and that will then feel especially rewarding for players who find them," says game director Carrie Patel. "And I think the thing you always have to accept when you're building an RPG like this, or designing choice and consequence, is that most players are not going to discover 100% of what you've built for them. And that's okay, because that discoverability is part of what makes it really special to players who do find it. So I think, to summarize, I think it's about balance and spread."

The Living Lands​

That balance and spread in Avowed means that decisions will affect the world around you in relative ways, and not every player-made choice will have a massive impact on things down the road. "Every little cat you save or butterfly you nudge can't mean the heat death of the universe, in some outcome," Patel continues. "But by having a range of outcomes that feel surprisingly monumental, and then sometimes, a little more intimate, but very deeply personal to characters - sometimes it's something that happens very quickly, and sometimes it's something that you'll only see a few hours in - I think that helps it feel believable, and also keeps those outcomes novel and surprising to players, as they discover them over the course of their journey."

Choice also plays into exploration in Avowed's setting. The fact that "most players are not going to discover 100% of what you've built for them" speaks to the fact that Eora will be home to plenty of surprises as we journey through the Living Lands. There's definitely an appeal in the idea of unconvering an area, or coming across an encounter as we explore, but for the team at Obsidian, it was also important to ensure that this discoverability aspect is left up to us. So, if you want to dive in and spend a lot of time exploring you can, but equally, it will also be easy to find your way if you want to keep progressing.

"When we're designing a game like this, we always want to keep in mind two extremes of players," Patel continues. "You have the player who, they maybe get 30 minutes to game after work, maybe after taking care of their kids, before they need to go to bed themselves and start their next day. So you want to make sure that journal entries are clear, players always know where the fun is, and they can pick up this game and have a good time with however little or however much time they have available to them in the moment."

"But then, we also have a lot of players that we know will explore every corner of our world, pick apart every detail, and it is so much fun to leave surprises and nuggets and things that we think, 'ooh, the people who find this are really going to get something out of it,' or 'we know we're going to get a Reddit thread about this detail when someone finds it, and they start theorizing about what it means or what it's connected to.' So again, having a clear through line, but plenty of surprises to discover."

In what Patel describes as a "wonderful and expansive setting for fantasies and fantasy RPGs", I'm looking forward to stepping into the Pillars of Eternity universe for the very first time, safe in the knowledge that while I'm unfamiliar with this storied playground I can enjoy it for what it is.

For Obsidian, Avowed presents an opportunity to return to a setting many of the team are familiar with, while also exploring entirely new sides of it. For Patel, that's the beauty of his locations whether you've combed its confines from corner-to-corner, or whether Avowed marks your first tentative steps into Eora and the Living Lands within.

Patel says: "The wonderful thing about Eora is there are so many corners of this world that we've only really referenced and the Living Lands was one of them. So for us, it was an opportunity to take a world that we knew and loved and were familiar with and could very easily step back into, but also find a corner of it that is going to be new to fans and also new to us as developers, and that really excites us about exploring it and fleshing it out.

"As you're seeing with some of the combat, one of the things that I personally really love about the setting and kind of the time period it takes place in is you get a wonderful mix of traditional sword and board fantasy elements as well as magic, as well as firearms, and you know, some more modern pieces of weaponry that I think really allow for us to create interesting items for the player and interesting combat scenarios."

 

[Infinitron]

Part Three: https://www.gamesradar.com/avowed-t...o-play-who-fights-the-way-they-want-to-fight/

Avowed takes Skyrim's approach to combat and evolves it, allowing players to "build the character they want to play who fights the way they want to fight"​

Interview | Obsidian discusses Avowed's "classless" combat system and what that means for your playstyle-of-choice

If what you've seen of upcoming RPG Avowed and its first-person combat reminds you of something, you're not alone. We praised the look of its apparent Skyrim-like workings last year, but after sitting down with game director Carrie Patel and gameplay director Gabe Paramo, the similarities are down to Obsidian's intent on expanding and improving upon the feel of certain genre titans.

Skyrim proved a useful jumping-off point for Paramo. "We've looked at games that were a master class in their sense of hitting and their weightedness, and tried to really improve upon just that feeling: feeling good to hit characters." This focus on player experience is just one core tenet of Avowed, and with it comes an experimental approach to build-crafting and combat.

Keeping it classy​

"This is a classless system," explains Patel. "There is a ton of freedom that players have in mixing and matching the combination of skills and weapons, and so I think players are going to have a really wonderful time pursuing their fantasy of their character in this world – whether it's a very traditional recognizable archetype, like a sword-and-board warrior, a two-handed weapon wielder, or something a little crazier like the gunslinging mage."

If you're like me, the lack of a combat class system in an RPG of Avowed's size might sound daunting. It's the bread and butter of games like Skyrim, Dragon Age Inquisition, and many other fantasy RPGs, giving us an opportunity to play to our strengths from the get-go. But all of this speaks to Avowed's determination to deliver the ultimate magical fantasy, one that incentivizes players to switch up their builds on the fly without something as restrictive as a preordained gameplay class holding them back.

In evolving the classic Skyrim-esque combat experience, Paramo also cites a desire to switch up funnelling mechanics that force players to get around a combat problem in one way. "Like, hey, here's a character that's blocking, you need to power attack that," he uses as an example. In Avowed, however, there are other ways to break an enemy's blocking stance.

"I can use 'Pull of Eora' that gets them out of the block," Paramo says, "Or I can use charge. So there are other sorts of abilities and mechanics that funnel into a singular concept. That's a little bit more interesting than just hacking and slashing and being able to get through every combatant just by pressing one button."

These mechanics and abilities could be tied to the skill tree. Avowed's progression system is a points-based one that rewards you for progressing and playing through the game. Your companions and their own skills and abilities will also be upgradable, making them "better and more efficient in combat" according to Paramo. But how exactly do companions work in Avowed?

"If you go into an encounter, they will follow you and they'll fight alongside you," Patel explains. "And they'll draw some of the aggro with you. But yes, you can absolutely make use of their specific abilities, which are all tied to their combat roles if you want to exercise a little more control." Combat roles here sound suspiciously similar to combat classes after all, but with Avowed prioritizing a more trial-and-error approach to build re-speccing, perhaps these roles will be player-determined rather than categorized by the game itself.

At the end of the day, Obsidian is committed to innovating how players view and experience combat in a fantasy RPG. That's down to its innovative synthesis of player choice, build-crafting, and familiar game mechanics. When asked how Avowed compares to the likes of Skyrim in terms of combat variety, immersion, and dynamism, Patel says the game succeeds across the board. "I think it's both the promise of the player fantasy and getting to build the character they want to play, who fights the way that they want to fight, but also having those choices however the players decide to spec [their character]."

Avowed is yet to receive a concrete release date outside of the broader "fall 2024" window, but it's certainly one upcoming Xbox exclusive for RPG fans to keep an eye on. "I'm just excited about being able to be more transparent as we slowly reveal more throughout the rest of the year," says Paramo. "The internet's the internet: you're gonna get positive feedback, you're gonna get not as positive feedback, and that's fine. I'm just happy that we're able to iterate on that feedback and keep polishing stuff up before we release [it] later this year."

 

[whydoibother]

They probably have no idea what they are making at this point. Before the game is even released, they already came up with a lot of excuses.

Very strong Anthem vibes, where the market shifted, so your focus shifted, and now you aren't sure what you are making - you just know so much money was spent, that SOMETHING has to get released.
Or Bloodlines 2 ;(

 

[Infinitron]

They probably have no idea what they are making at this point. Before the game is even released, they already came up with a lot of excuses.

Very strong Anthem vibes, where the market shifted, so your focus shifted, and now you aren't sure what you are making - you just know so much money was spent, that SOMETHING has to get released.
Or Bloodlines 2 ;(

It's not about the market, the game was in development hell because the original director tried to make a Skyrim clone and failed. This was reported last year: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-coming-fall-2024.134122/page-79#post-8520958