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

[Infinitron]

More cope interviews, now at IGN.

https://www.ign.com/articles/obsidian-explains-why-avowed-wont-let-you-romance-your-companions

Obsidian Explains Why Avowed Won't Let You Romance Your Companions​

The developers wanted to focus on "thoughtful relationships" with companions.​

With games like Starfield and Baldur's Gate 3 last year having players wax poetic about which of their video game besties they most want to smooch, it can sometimes feel like romance systems are becoming a staple of AAA party-based RPGs. But that's not going to be the case with Avowed, which is opting to forego a dedicated romance system for a focus on "building thoughtful relationships" with companions instead.

This comes from an interview IGN did with Avowed game director Carrie Patel, where she confirmed Avowed would not feature romance options, and why:

"We are building thoughtful relationships with our companion characters," she said. "Ultimately, I personally am a fan of making that an option, but I feel like if you're going to do it, you really, really have to commit and make sure that you're giving all to fulfilling that in a way that feels both true to the character, but also creates an engaging player experience. So not something we're doing for Avowed, but I wouldn't say never."

Patel points out that having a dedicated romance system in a story-focused game is a ton of work: you need options for both a fulfilling romance as well as a regular friendship for those who don't want to go down that path. In addition, players generally expect multiple romance options, and expectations around the depth of such relationships only seem to be climbing higher and higher with each new Karlach and Shadowheart video games introduce. It's a big ask, and also not a necessary one if the story of the game doesn't lend itself to romance in the first place.

Later in our interview, Patel further hinted at the ways in which Avowed's non-romantic companion relationships could possibly manifest. Thus far, the studio has given multiple nods to how player choices will impact the world around them, most notably showing this off during a quest in the latest Xbox Developer Direct. Patel and I chatted a bit about this in the context of games like Avowed letting players shape their character's moral compass via character actions and reactions. Avowed is not a game with a morality meter, she said, but characters will certainly have feelings about the actions you take, and won't be shy about expressing them.

"One of the fun challenges with design, particularly around consequences or even sometimes around player options that are reactive to either the kind of character you've built or choices you've made earlier in the game is over the years I've learned that that stuff is always a lot less obvious to the player than to the designer," Patel said. "And so I think sometimes you have to be a bit more direct in tying those options and those consequences to content that's come before, because if it feels too natural and too understated, it feels like a thing that's happening, not a thing that's happening because of what you did."

In short: prepare for characters, possibly including your companions, to let you know if you're behaving like a little jerkwad.

Avowed is steadily nearing its 2024 release, having first been revealed back in 2020 at the Xbox Games Showcase and getting a deeper look at a 2023 Xbox showcase. It's set in Eora, the world of Pillars of Eternity, which incidentally just got an update earlier this month despite the game being nine years old.

https://www.ign.com/articles/obsidian-explains-why-avowed-only-lets-you-pick-human-or-elf

Obsidian Explains Why Avowed Only Lets You Pick Human or Elf​

Eora may be diverse, but Aedyr is less-so.​

Upcoming Obsidian RPG Avowed takes place in Eora, which in the fictional universe of Pillars of Eternity, is pretty diverse. But after Pillars let players choose from a number of different character races, fans have been wondering for some time now why Avowed is only letting them pick human or elf when customizing a player character.

We've learned that Avowed player character creation is limited to making either a human or an elf in previous game reveals - no dwarves, no aumauas, and definitely no godlikes. While this has been a disappointment to some fans, Avowed game director Carrie Patel has made it clear that the reasons for this limitation are twofold: it's both a story choice and a development decision.

On the story side, Patel explains in an interview with IGN, it's because the player in Avowed is a representative from the Aedyr Empire, which is predominantly made up of humans and elves. Those familiar with Pillars of Eternity lore will recognize that this is indeed established canon, and has shaped a lot of the region's particular culture.

Still, that might be cold comfort to those hoping to recreate their aumaua OC from Pillars in Avowed. For those folks, Patel offers some additional context that helps things make a bit more sense from the development side:

"We want to make sure that whatever experience we're offering is smooth and natural and well paced to the player," she says. "And one of the things about the species of Pillars that I think is a lot easier to account for in an isometric game is just the variation in sizes. You have aumaua and then you have humans and elves who are at roughly the same scale, and then you have orlans and dwarves who are quite a bit smaller. And for each of those, especially in first person, you're adjusting the height of the player character's capsule and sort of where their weapons are relative to enemies and how their hits land and how hits land on them. And it's obviously not that any of these things are impossible to solve, but you're always making choices and choosing your priorities and development."

Patel declined to comment further on the character creator in Avowed, which we haven't seen much of yet, but it's also important to remember that Avowed is a game that largely or entirely takes place in the first-person. While it's a bummer not to be able to be a dwarf, realistically, the only part of yourself you'll be seeing for most of the game is your hands.

Avowed got a 2024 release window recently, after first being teased back in 2020 at the Xbox Games Showcase and getting a more complete reveal at a 2023 Xbox showcase. We also spoke to Patel last week about why Avowed is foregoing romances to focus on different kinds of companion relationships.

 

[Roguey]

On the story side, Patel explains in an interview with IGN, it's because the player in Avowed is a representative from the Aedyr Empire, which is predominantly made up of humans and elves. Those familiar with Pillars of Eternity lore will recognize that this is indeed established canon, and has shaped a lot of the region's particular culture.

Bitch please, you never let that stop you from filling your games up with as many faggots as Feargus will allow.

I looked up the stats in the collector's book and the number of ocean folk (black people) in Aedyr is 5%. Would you actually prevent players from making black characters using that as a justification? Fuck no.

The second answer is the real one. It's just too much work.

 

[Alienman]

Obsidian has a funny way of doing PR; "Here is another feature Avowed will not have, make sure to pre-order!"

 

[Butter]

Obsidian has a funny way of doing PR; "Here is another feature Avowed will not have, make sure to pre-order!"

I wonder if it's better to do it this way or Bethesda's way. Stanfield certainly sold better than this will, but then it got hit with six million negative reviews from people who expected a space game.

 

[Alienman]

Perhaps. I'm just used to devs bullshitting instead of downplaying their games.

 

[Tyranicon]

"One of the fun challenges with design, particularly around consequences or even sometimes around player options that are reactive to either the kind of character you've built or choices you've made earlier in the game is over the years I've learned that that stuff is always a lot less obvious to the player than to the designer," Patel said. "And so I think sometimes you have to be a bit more direct in tying those options and those consequences to content that's come before, because if it feels too natural and too understated, it feels like a thing that's happening, not a thing that's happening because of what you did."

This woman would make a great politician. That's 110 words for saying "player stoopid, game need to point out cool shit."

 

[Hagashager]

On the story side, Patel explains in an interview with IGN, it's because the player in Avowed is a representative from the Aedyr Empire, which is predominantly made up of humans and elves. Those familiar with Pillars of Eternity lore will recognize that this is indeed established canon, and has shaped a lot of the region's particular culture.

Bitch please, you never let that stop you from filling your games up with as many faggots as Feargus will allow.

I looked up the stats in the collector's book and the number of ocean folk (black people) in Aedyr is 5%. Would you actually prevent players from making black characters using that as a justification? Fuck no.

The second answer is the real one. It's just too much work.

Orlans are the black-coded fantasy race. Aumaua are Polynesians, particularly Hawaiian. It's very on-the-nose who the Aumaua are supposed to be. Their history is ripped straight from King Kamehameha and the Hawaiian kingdom. There's also a fair amount of Indonesian and Maori influence as well.

While the real answer is Obsidian is lazy, I actually find this kind of based. God-forbid a fantasy world actually have a native population and culture that isn't washed down to, "Fantasy United States".

 

[Roguey]

Orlans are the black-coded fantasy race.

Orlans do not strike me as black at all. I once cracked a joke about how they're Israelis on account of

It's very on-the-nose who the Aumaua are supposed to be. Their history is ripped straight from King Kamehameha and the Hawaiian kingdom. There's also a fair amount of Indonesian and Maori influence as well.

Yeah the Rauatai in Deadfire are about as Imperial Japan as it gets.

While the real answer is Obsidian is lazy, I actually find this kind of based. God-forbid a fantasy world actually have a native population and culture that isn't washed down to, "Fantasy United States".

Sawyer is just a history autist, this is how they build a world.

 

[Butter]

The Auamauaua in the first game don't really give off Polynesian vibes. Sawyer's midwit ideology is that the country you live in determines your attitudes rather than your race, so you don't get any of the Polynesian-coding until you visit the Deadfire archipelago.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Bonus points to Carrie for using "species" instead of "races"

 

[Silverfish]

Obsidian has a funny way of doing PR; "Here is another feature Avowed will not have, make sure to pre-order!"

"The Xbox version is just an empty case. Theoretically, this will make Avowed our smoothest-running console port ever!"

 

[Axel_am]

*sniff sniff*

Anyone else smelling dumpster fire?

 

[Quillon]

"One of the fun challenges with design, particularly around consequences or even sometimes around player options that are reactive to either the kind of character you've built or choices you've made earlier in the game is over the years I've learned that that stuff is always a lot less obvious to the player than to the designer," Patel said. "And so I think sometimes you have to be a bit more direct in tying those options and those consequences to content that's come before, because if it feels too natural and too understated, it feels like a thing that's happening, not a thing that's happening because of what you did."

This woman would make a great politician. That's 110 words for saying "player stoopid, game need to point out cool shit."

loool

I noticed that even in pillars & deadfire; whenever there is a reactivity or something, its way too deliberate, screaming: "HEY I AM REACTIVITY, I AM HERE BECAUSE YOU DID THIS REMEMBER, HOW REACTIVE THIS GAME IS! RIGHT? WINK WINK", subtlety goes out the window, a different version of Kojima-exposition/revelation dump but more often + repeated same expositions through different NPCs so dumbfuckest of us all shouldn't miss a thing. In the end it feels cringeworthy and that we're being treated like children yeah.

They need to shift-del their RPG writing guideline doc that has accumulated over the years; they may be thinking its sophisticated but its too stale and predictable at this point and didn't evolve for the better over the last 10 years. Quests in TOW plays out exactly the same as in pillarses, in terms of structure, I can recognize an Obs quest from a mile away

now they are tripling down on this way of design? ffs

 

[Child of Malkav]

*sniff sniff*

Anyone else smelling dumpster fire?

Yeah. Shouldn't we call the firefighters? This could be serious.

 

[Tyranicon]

*sniff sniff*

Anyone else smelling dumpster fire?

Yeah. Shouldn't we call the firefighters? This could be serious.

Nah, how else are we gonna cook our popcorn?

 

[santino27]

"One of the fun challenges with design, particularly around consequences or even sometimes around player options that are reactive to either the kind of character you've built or choices you've made earlier in the game is over the years I've learned that that stuff is always a lot less obvious to the player than to the designer," Patel said. "And so I think sometimes you have to be a bit more direct in tying those options and those consequences to content that's come before, because if it feels too natural and too understated, it feels like a thing that's happening, not a thing that's happening because of what you did."

This woman would make a great politician. That's 110 words for saying "player stoopid, game need to point out cool shit."

loool

I noticed that even in pillars & deadfire; whenever there is a reactivity or something, its way too deliberate, screaming: "HEY I AM REACTIVITY, I AM HERE BECAUSE YOU DID THIS REMEMBER, HOW REACTIVE THIS GAME IS! RIGHT? WINK WINK", subtlety goes out the window, a different version of Kojima-exposition/revelation dump but more often + repeated same expositions through different NPCs so dumbfuckest of us all shouldn't miss a thing. In the end it feels cringeworthy and that we're being treated like children yeah.

They need to shift-del their RPG writing guideline doc that has accumulated over the years; they may be thinking its sophisticated but its too stale and predictable at this point and didn't evolve for the better over the last 10 years. Quests in TOW plays out exactly the same as in pillarses, in terms of structure, I can recognize an Obs quest from a mile away

now they are tripling down on this way of design? ffs

It's a classic big-brain take. If players don't like something, it's not because the implementation was faulty, it's because the players just didn't grok the brilliance of your approach. You were TOO subtle in your clearly monocled design/narrative.

In other news, every quote from Carrie makes this trashfire of a game seem even less appealing.

 

[Infinitron]

It's not just an Obsidian thing. The first RPG I remember turning "clearly signposted C&C" into a major design pillar was Wasteland 3, as a lesson learned from Wasteland 2.

https://www.ign.com/articles/avowed...ame-has-multiple-endings-its-an-obsidian-game

Avowed Developers Confirm Game Has Multiple Endings: 'It's an Obsidian Game'​

"If everything plays out exactly as you expect, it could feel a little boring."​

During the recent Xbox Developer Direct, we were treated to a deeper look at how Obsidian's upcoming RPG, Avowed, will handle player choice via a close look at a certain sidequest. But that left us wondering: what's the natural endpoint of a game emphasizing choice? Will Avowed have multiple endings?

I was able to learn the answer to that by speaking to game director Carrie Patel not long after the direct, where she confirmed that yes, Avowed will indeed have multiple endings. Obviously! "I mean it's an Obsidian game," she said. "What else would we be if we didn't have a few different endings?"

Patel didn't specify further about how many endings there would be or how different they would be from one another, but we did talk further about how player choice could be expressed in the game, and how players will experience it. Patel tells me that it's not just about pushing dominos - one event happens somewhere every time the player does something. What matters more is player expression, and how the player understands and interprets the world reacting to them, especially in a game where parts of the world are open and players may not see every single reaction or interaction.

"You have to approach it with a degree of range, both in the spread and placement of those consequences and also the nature of those consequences," she says. "Some things need to have surprising but believable outcomes. If everything plays out exactly as you expect, it could feel a little boring. And at the same time, not every quest needs to have world-ending consequences. Some absolutely do have huge impacts for the characters in the world around you, but sometimes the story you're experiencing is just a very deeply personal one for the characters involved. And that's okay too.

"I think the great thing about RPGs is there's a lot of room for that spread in terms of the tone and type and scope and nature of content. And so you're giving players a big world where they can find a lot of very different experiences that all sort of add up to their experience as the protagonist of this game."

It won't be much longer before we'll get to see exactly what choices Obsidian has in store, as Avowed got a 2024 release window recently. It was first teased back in 2020 with more footage shown at a 2023 Xbox showcase. We also spoke to Patel about why Avowed is foregoing romances to focus on different kinds of companion relationships, and why players can only pick an elf or a human in the character creator.

 

[AwesomeButton]

You know, this is something I was wondering as well. I can't get over the irony of journos afraid to ask unscripted questions, even as simple as "will it have multiple endings" for fear of what the answer might be. Clown world.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah I vaguely remember Fargo talking in post-WL2 interviews that "subtle" reactivity doesn't work because it's just too low level to be interesting, so with WL3 they went with in-your-face approach and the game was better for it.

 

[Viata]

I finally found someone praising Avowed:

 

[frajaq]

I finally found someone praising Avowed:

holy shit what a massive fucking faggot

"Hmmm attractive young women? kinda weird, where are the used up hags/lesbians that TOW provided us?!?!"

 

[santino27]

Yeah I vaguely remember Fargo talking in post-WL2 interviews that "subtle" reactivity doesn't work because it's just too low level to be interesting, so with WL3 they went with in-your-face approach and the game was better for it.

The thing is, it's not necessarily untrue, not that their solution is an improvement imo. But they also use that sort of thing as an excuse for anything that doesn't land--oh, they didn't get it, we were too clever--when often the truth is something didn't land because it sucked.

I finally found someone praising Avowed:

holy shit what a massive fucking faggot

"Hmmm attractive young women? kinda weird, where are the used up hags/lesbians that TOW provided us?!?!"

That guy has issues. He's sperging about Stellar Blade a lot because the main character is too attractive.

Spoiler

 

[Tyranicon]

I finally found someone praising Avowed:

How much money?

 

[SharkClub]

That guy has issues. He's sperging about Stellar Blade a lot because the main character is too attractive.

Spoiler

Meanwhile in the real world, western developers are doing the exact thing he's accusing the Stellar Blade devs of doing, with the notable difference of it being an effort to diminish the attractiveness of the models and enhance the ugliness.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think this has gone unnoticed since the 25th: https://open.spotify.com/episode/70HuWpNrwMYCJ5IsspYzbc?si=QBKrzDpSSOWKmThmdK2VjA

The new info:

Just as I wrote earlier, they are copying the Deadfire narrative structure:

With Avowed we wanted to take that same approach ... one of the things that's core to Pillars games is having a political story that's running alongside this very deep, divine, metaphysical story, all around the player who has one foot in both.

There isn't a real city hub of the size of cities in PoE/Deadfire:

And yes, there are towns as well.

Curious:

[Companions] are all either originally from, or they've lived in the Living Lands for a long time.

Companions do have individual personal quests, and they [companions] are also tied to specific points in the crit quest

The Carrie Patel school of RPG Design. It turns out games have this inherent major flaw of being interactive:

But one of the things that's very interesting and different about writing for an RPG like this is leaving room for the player character. You know, one of the things that can make writing books a little bit easier in some ways - and this is true of some games as well - when you know exactly who your protagonist is, and exactly what they are going to do, you can kind of craft a very specific journey around them, because you can anticipate in any moment what they are going to do. With RPGs like the kind that we develop, one of the things difficult but also very exciting, is wanting to leave this player-shaped hole in the story, so that there is still enough structure there, so that players are really experiencing a story and not just sort of muddling through a world, but also leaving enough room for players to express who they are, who their character is, what direction they are growing in, and just who they want to be.

According to Paramo's rambling answers (both of those people ramble constantly, it's so irritating), elemental lashes from PoE are back as weapon upgrades.