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

[Infinitron]

https://www.ign.com/articles/avowed-the-final-preview

Avowed: The Final Preview​

We continue to be more impressed with Obsidian’s fantasy RPG every time we play it.​

Even after a positive preview for Avowed this Summer, I found myself wondering if it was a fluke. Maybe it was just a fun mission. Maybe Obsidian won’t be able to keep my interest as more quests are discovered. Maybe it was just a nice day.

Nope. Avowed is just a lot of fun.

Coming fresh off of trying out Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I was so happy when I discovered just how evil I could be to people I met along the way right from the start of Avowed – something Veilguard just didn’t fulfill. From the start I had one NPC dropping f-bombs because I was going to leave her in prison. A short while later a duo would try to intimidate me on a bridge – only to meet a swift demise. I wasn’t in the mood for their nonsense. I just wanted to be evil. And while I could have handled it the nice way, sometimes being evil is just more fun.

It’s not just the fact that you have more nuance with every conversation. It’s empowering to craft the kind of hero or villain you want to be. Sure, Obsidian has a story to tell, but I feel more in control when deciding how these scenarios play out. The character customization options will allow you to craft the face of the character you’ll build, and while you don’t see it all that often, you can make someone perfectly lovely, or someone that looks like they came straight out of that creepy claymation episode of Adventures of Mark Twain.

Even the vendors have unique banter. I had the chance to meet Valtur, the ex-husband of another nearby vendor Dagherda and the two would talk badly about each other after their failed marriage. Another vendor had a past relationship with my companion Kai and warned him not to cross her again. These little beats do a lot to make the world feel like it has a history that you’ll uncover more of that as you adventure. I love these dangling threads that are teased. Hopefully, I’ll get to tug on some of them and see how deep each story goes.

On the combat front, I also immediately noticed improvements, especially in the sound department. Obsidian clearly spent a lot of time working on the audio and combat flow, and it’s immediately noticeable. The sound spikes are so satisfying to hear when you’ve stunned an opponent and can execute a flurry of blows or bullets. Or when using stealth, and you’re able to execute your prey with an ethereal blade.

And one addition we got to see for the first time was the ability to use third-person or first-person combat. Both feel great, and while I personally opted for the first-person perspective most of the time, third-person is looking and feeling good too. The only slight gripe I have is that the movement can have a bit of that floaty Obsidian style to it in third person, but that doesn’t affect combat all that much.

And while I’m discussing minor complaints (knowing full well that Obsidian still has a few months of polish time left), I did feel that your companion Kai was a bit too hand-holdy with his tips at times. There were a few moments when I was simply scavenging for loot and found him whispering tips about a puzzle in my ear. I know Obsidian is trying to help out players, but it takes away from that feeling of accomplishment you get when solving the mystery for yourself.

But to get back to the positives, loot was also a highlight, even early on. Upgrading from a bow and arrow to an Arquebus felt awesome. The tradeoff with the rifle is that it has a long reload time, but once you’ve upgraded your abilities with it you’ll unlock faster reloads and more damage – and the ragdoll physics add to the fun factor as well.

Yet again, though, my time with Avowed felt all too short. I left wishing that Obisidian had let us have more time to play, but that’s a good sign! And so far, everything seems to be coming together in what I can best describe as a really fun RPG. But more importantly, it feels like an RPG where I’m in control of my own destiny, and while the decisions I’m making will have consequences, I love knowing that I get to be the one directing the orchestra, so to speak.

In both of my hands-on sessions with Avowed, I’ve only been able to see the Dawnshore section of the map and not much more. I do hope there’s plenty of content here, but I’d really like to see more, given how close the February release date is now. When I asked Obsidian about this, they promised several biomes would be explorable, and that will no doubt add a lot to the visual diversity of the world. I just wish we could get a peek at it beyond the footage from the very first gameplay reveal from many months ago.

No spoilers on the story here, but the one narrative hook that is set up early on is a mission which takes you to The Voice. This voice leads you through the map and is clearly an entity you’ll hear from again during your adventures. When given the chance to help it or refuse to make a deal, I decided against siding with a blue light as I’ve learned nothing good ever comes from a deal with an all-powerful entity. But I will be curious to see how that plays out in the end. The Voice did not seem happy.

And that’s really the best you can hope for from previews of an RPG like this. You get just enough to leave you wanting more. And Avowed certainly accomplished just that. I want to power up my companion Kai to see what other attacks he can do. I want to discover the coveted weapons the design team told us about during the pre-hands-on presentation. I want to kill more people and betray my friends. And Avowed is empowering me to do exactly that.

 

[Robber Baron]

KCDII will remind everyone what an RPG is supposed to feel like.

KCD2 being realistic while Avowed high fantasy might actually benefit both games.

 

[Perkel]

I don't think many people want to play high fantasy. Especially made by people who don't believe in high fantasy concepts such as pure evil and pure good.

Reading/watching impression game seems a lot bigger than I expected it to be. While game might be janky as shit, it might actually survive on it's gameplay and mechanics if they are deep enough. I mean just a fact that you have something more than sword/mace/axe in form of spear is huge.

I think it could be pretty good co-op game if there as coop in it.

 

[Tyranicon]

IGN

Instant disregard.

But on a more pressing matter, I've been noticing how much over the past few years that journos have been pushing "fun" in their wording. We don't talk about mechanics, or writing, or anything else that can be graded with a score but have instead replaced it with the unassaultable "well, I like it and it's my opinion."

Written by people who have trash taste.

Why do we need you?

Fucking journos.

 

[Kem0sabe]

The hilarious part is IGN bashing Veilguard in their Avowed preview... The game they gave 9/10

 

[Alienman]

Dunno who the guy is, but what he needs to review is his stupid ass thumbnails

Should have used this:

 

[Wesp5]

I don't think many people want to play high fantasy.

Really? Aren't Elden Ring and all the Dark Sould clones high fantasy?

I mean just a fact that you have something more than sword/mace/axe in form of spear is huge.

I can't remember ever having a spear, although it was a common weapon at the time. Did Dark Messiah have one? Or KCD1?

 

[Morality Games]

I don't think many people want to play high fantasy.

Really? Aren't Elden Ring and all the Dark Sould clones high fantasy?

I mean just a fact that you have something more than sword/mace/axe in form of spear is huge.

I can't remember ever having a spear, although it was a common weapon at the time. Did Dark Messiah have one? Or KCD1?

Elden Ring and Dark Souls are more in the realm of dark fantasy because of their bleak and cynical tones and their overall atmosphere of dread, although high and dark fantasy aren't absolutely distinct. Elden Ring is definitely closer to high fantasy than Dark Souls is.

Going by the numbers (profits, unit sales, etc), high and/or dark fantasy is pretty much the *only* RPGs people want to play. Alternatives either some kind of disappointment (like Starfield) or have an arduous road to sucess (like Cyberpunk 2077) or are only somewhat successful (Mass Effect). Kingdom Come: Deliverance is anomalous in its success, nothing quite like it ever existed before.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

I don't think many people want to play high fantasy. Especially made by people who don't believe in high fantasy concepts such as pure evil and pure good.

These are completely separate points. I think there's actually a great hunger for high fantasy settings, but no interest whatsoever in high fantasy writers who seek only to subvert the genre.

 

[Sherry]

Hi!

josh?
Josh!
JOSH!!!!

Gosh, looking forward to his review and comments about the world and its design.

Spoke with him earlier before he set out to cycle to Rose Avenue and Abbot Kinney Blvd out in Venice. We had a chit-chat about hitting up Monterey Brewpub for a few as he is a huge fan of Nelson, Baby Hazy IPA, but I was unable to get a plane ticket due to my Yoga appointment at 4pm, and Josh said it was too far to ride that far north anyway.

Pretty bummed out right now.

Thanks,
Sherry

 

[Tyranicon]

These are completely separate points. I think there's actually a great hunger for high fantasy settings, but no interest whatsoever in high fantasy writers who seek only to subvert the genre.

To add to this, I think the majority of consumers are fine with subversion in the old meaning, which is to challenge existing tropes and present interesting new ones.

Modern day subversion just means slopifying your product and shoehorning in 2024 coffee baristas into a medieval high fantasy setting, which surprise, people don't want.

 

[Infinitron]

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/11/21/player-choice-avowed-approach-to-combat/

How Player Choice Is Infused into Avowed’s Approach to Combat​

• We explore combat and player choice in our extended hands-on time with Avowed.
• Gameplay Director Gabe Paramo and Senior Combat Designer Max Matzenbacher share insights into the combat design process.
• Avowed is launching February 18, 2025, for Xbox Series X|S, the Xbox app for Windows, Steam, Battle.net and will be available on day one with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. It is currently available for pre-order on the Xbox Store, Battle.net, and Steam. The Premium Edition offers up to five days early access, two premium skin packs, and access to the Avowed Digital Artbook & Soundtrack. Learn more here on Xbox Wire.

As soon as I got off the boat and set foot in Dawnshore, the first major open zone of Avowed, I knew I was in for a good time. The port city of Paradis is absolutely dripping in character. From the mix of weathered buildings with missing bricks, merchants waving me over to see their wares, and a handful of thieves hanging about that don’t want to talk to me, it all felt so alive. So naturally the first thing I do is climb to the top of the bell tower for a better view and discover some gold coins resting inside a bird’s nest. “The game anticipated I might go here; this is going to be great.”

Player choice is at the forefront in Avowed and it’s a theme that is infused into just about everything you can do within the game’s world, born from a studio that prides itself on the motto of, “Your Worlds, Your Way.” That means everything is on the table, from complex dialog choices to customized character builds that let you choose how you want to explore the Living Lands within the world of Eora. Combat also fits within this framework of player choice, and it was an aspect that I explored in detail during a recent hands-on media event for Avowed.

I must have tried close to a dozen weapons during my session (the powerful arquebus rifle would become my favorite, more on that in a bit), but having the freedom to cycle between axes and bows and hammers and wands and even a spell book was incredibly flexible. I felt encouraged by the game to experiment even though my starting background as a ‘War Hero’ began to feel more like a suggestion – as designed.

“I would describe it as like an open class system,” Senior Combat Designer Max Matzenbacher tells me. “In games where it’s class-based, you can be restricted on which weapons you can wield, which abilities you can select from. But in Avowed, the classes are more of a guideline or a flag post for someone to follow; you can mix and match your weapons at any time in the game. You can put things in your primary and off-hand, and then you can combine nearly any ability from any tree at any time. So, you could take something from a wizard build that’s a Meteor Storm style ability and then have a more fighter-centric ability. It’s giving the player the opportunity to build their class. We give you some indicators and you can find nods to Pillars of Eternity within those trees, and more nuanced subclasses, but you can really build whatever you like.”

“Flexibility in combat actions was always a goal for us,” adds Gameplay Director Gabe Paramo. “In terms of weapons, you can expect anywhere from a one-hit dagger to a slow reloading arquebus, two-handed great hammers, a one-handed sword, one-handed pistol, a one-handed wand, and we have a dual-wielding system that lets the player equip off-hand and one-handed weapons together in a dual-wielding type way.”

As I continued my experimentation with weapons, I initially found myself gravitating to the Grimoire early on, which is a magic weapon that allows you to tap spell abilities even if your class isn’t magic-based. Holding it in my off-hand while wielding a sword in the other felt like a great combination that could yield some entertaining results in combat. We’re told you can also discover more of these Grimoires throughout Avowed, and then choose to either improve it or learn spells from it. For example, you could take something that you learned from a Grimoire, like a “Fan of Flames” ability, and put it into your ability bar, and then run around with a giant hammer while tossing fire independently of the spell book.

“I think the biggest kind of unique element is how all the pieces fit together and how we don’t restrict the player; to give them ultimate flexibility in being able to quickly swap and execute these actions, like their abilities they choose from their trees, the weapons they fire, the dodge — all those I would say is a mix of how a lot of games handle it; we just mix some elements more uniquely,” Paramo says.

Avowed also lets you enchant (modify) unique weapons by utilizing resources that you’ve gathered throughout the world, rewarding the more adventurous and curious players with the tools needed to upgrade more powerful weapons and gear. As someone who loves to explore every nook and cranny, I was thrilled to see how often my curiosity was being rewarded, like the previously mentioned bird nest on top of the bell tower. It was also when exploring these nooks that the world of Avowed really opened up for me, not only because it was rewarding my curiosity and how I wanted to approach combat, but how those tie into the freedom to explore the world how I wanted to.

“With the enchantment system and weapon upgrading systems, and the unique [weapons] with passive abilities that the player can unlock to enhance those weapons, they can really drill in deep on the mechanic side of things to really min/max or improve the playstyle that they are choosing,” Paramo explains. “We also have a very flexible respecing system if they want to kind of change their minds and try something else, maybe choose a different ability to enhance another set of weapons that they find that they like later.”

“I would add that the attribute system is inspired by the Pillars of Eternity concept of not having restricted class specific attributes, where to wield a certain type of weapon, or to optimize a certain weapon, you must take a specific attribute,” Matzenbacher adds. “All the attributes are available to all players and builds, so they can use that to extend their play style if they want to be more damage centric or have more survivability or have more resources to use either weapon attacks or abilities.”

This raised the question of how they balance all these weapons while still rewarding player choice and experimentation. Matzenbacher and Paramo explained that it was all about stripping these weapons down to their most basic components first and adjusting from there. For example, larger weapons will cost more stamina but deal more damage; smaller weapons will use less stamina but could be better used for stunning. The same rules generally apply to taking the time to cast with a powerful attack spell and their essence cost; the more powerful the spell, the more cost to cast.

“Choice and consequence are not just something that we have in dialogue, but it’s something that we also have in combat, where for every choice the player makes and what they’re choosing to equip, there’s a consequence to that,” Paramo explains. “So, if I’m going to choose a two-handed great hammer, I’m going to do heavy damage, but have a slow attack speed that leaves me open more to hits but costing me stamina. Each one of these things is all about finding the system that the player will funnel into and then kind of creating those different consequences for choosing that weapon or load out.”

The way this played out for me was pairing the powerful arquebus rifle with the Charge ability for my “War Hero,” which had me dash forward and smash into anything in my way. Through its repeated use, I also discovered it did a great job of running up the stun meter on enemies — attacking a fully stunned enemy allows you to perform a special attack for massive damage. Combining that with my slow-loading (yet powerful) rifle proved to be a vicious combination, especially against some of the more formidable enemies I came across, like a diseased bear and giant spider.

Choice also applies to enemies as well, in how they are designed to utilize the environment to find the best method of attack. All of them, from sporelings to skeletons to Xaurips (this universe’s reptilian race), each have distinct rules of engagement on top of their more basic commands — fodder units will try to charge and attack you; ranged units are going to be at a distance; blocker units will always try to block. But here’s where it gets a bit more intriguing, as these commands also feed into a “parkour everywhere” approach for both the player and enemy movement within the environment that can keep these encounters challenging and fun.

“The AI knows how to parkour up (cliffs or ledges) and get to you. Or they know that you are trying to be on a high level trying to shoot at them from at a range distance,” explains Paramo. “They adapt, and even though they might be a more melee-focused character, they’re going to try to get to you. And if they can’t get to you, they’re going to switch to something more ranged too so that you can’t just like capitalize on them and cheese them basically.”

This exact scenario happened to me numerous times while battling crowds of Xaurips. I’d see them scatter up to higher ledges, trying to hit me with their arrows. As I climbed the cliff to get at them, they’d do backflips to get to a higher ledge as I chased them down. Eventually I had enough of this, equipped my Grimoire, and shot flames at them to put an end to this chase. But I really liked seeing that enemies both had an appreciation of their own survivability, but also continued to try and gain an advantage against me.

“Having the player able to jump up on locations, that kind of creates a different dynamic for the AI,” continues Paramo. “We also have stealth grass in the game where the player can take a bit more of a stealthier approach. And we have destructibles in the game that the player and enemies can destroy, or explosive barrels that the player can use range attacks on, so that can help get them an advantage in that encounter, and damage bonuses for stealth attacks when the player is hitting unaware enemies.”

“There are also environmental interactions in the game,” adds Matzenbacher. “So, there could be water on the ground that will react if you’re using shock magic. And then there are certain cases where there are traps and hazards that can either affect the player or enemies that they can trigger and interact with — there’s both the layout and the structure of the space, but also elements that can be combined and leveraged against the enemies.”

There are so many intriguing parts of Avowed, like being able to build our characters as we want, choosing the load outs and companions we want, and having such a dynamic approach to combat, that it will no doubt create numerous and exciting moment-to-moment adventures within the world of Eora. Obsidian are masters of their craft at giving players choice and freedom to play within their worlds as they want, and Avowed is shaping up to be their next great proof point of this concept – from everything we’ve seen and played so far, it’s leading up to something truly special. And we can’t wait to go back.

 

[TheKing01]

Obsidian wins again, plebs.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Going by the numbers (profits, unit sales, etc), high and/or dark fantasy is pretty much the *only* RPGs people want to play. Alternatives either some kind of disappointment (like Starfield) or have an arduous road to sucess (like Cyberpunk 2077) or are only somewhat successful (Mass Effect). Kingdom Come: Deliverance is anomalous in its success, nothing quite like it ever existed before.

The fantasy genre is less divided than the science fiction genre, in that the typical fantasy game can broadly appeal at least somewhat to people who prefer high fantasy, or dark fantasy, or low fantasy, or sword-and-sorcery. This has been true in tabletop RPGs since Dungeons & Dragons established itself as dominant across subgenres of fantasy, leaving niche products such as Pendragon to appeal to a single specific subgenre, and fantasy CRPGs reflect this. In science fiction, by contrast, it's much more difficult for a game to straddle the lines across the post-apocalyptic subgenre, cyberpunk subgenre, space opera subgenre, et cetera, while fans of these subgenres have much less crossover than for fantasy subgenres and are much less likely to play a game not in a preferred subgenre.

It's still possible for SF CRPGs to be commercially successful but likely less so than their fantasy peers, e.g. Fallout 1&2 did well for Interplay but were overshadowed by Baldur's Gate, just as Fallout 3&4 did well for Bethesda Softworks but did not ascend to Skyrim levels, while Cyberpunk 2077 ultimately had acceptable sales for CDPR but was disappointing relative to The Witcher 3, et cetera. Historical games, without fantastic elements, are yet another distinct genre with (sadly) much more limited appeal, such that Kingdom Come: Deliverance was indeed a novelty, but seemingly one that could be repeated rather than being truly anomalous.

 

[Child of Malkav]

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/11/21/player-choice-avowed-approach-to-combat/

How Player Choice Is Infused into Avowed’s Approach to Combat​

• We explore combat and player choice in our extended hands-on time with Avowed.
• Gameplay Director Gabe Paramo and Senior Combat Designer Max Matzenbacher share insights into the combat design process.
• Avowed is launching February 18, 2025, for Xbox Series X|S, the Xbox app for Windows, Steam, Battle.net and will be available on day one with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. It is currently available for pre-order on the Xbox Store, Battle.net, and Steam. The Premium Edition offers up to five days early access, two premium skin packs, and access to the Avowed Digital Artbook & Soundtrack. Learn more here on Xbox Wire.

As soon as I got off the boat and set foot in Dawnshore, the first major open zone of Avowed, I knew I was in for a good time. The port city of Paradis is absolutely dripping in character. From the mix of weathered buildings with missing bricks, merchants waving me over to see their wares, and a handful of thieves hanging about that don’t want to talk to me, it all felt so alive. So naturally the first thing I do is climb to the top of the bell tower for a better view and discover some gold coins resting inside a bird’s nest. “The game anticipated I might go here; this is going to be great.”

Player choice is at the forefront in Avowed and it’s a theme that is infused into just about everything you can do within the game’s world, born from a studio that prides itself on the motto of, “Your Worlds, Your Way.” That means everything is on the table, from complex dialog choices to customized character builds that let you choose how you want to explore the Living Lands within the world of Eora. Combat also fits within this framework of player choice, and it was an aspect that I explored in detail during a recent hands-on media event for Avowed.

I must have tried close to a dozen weapons during my session (the powerful arquebus rifle would become my favorite, more on that in a bit), but having the freedom to cycle between axes and bows and hammers and wands and even a spell book was incredibly flexible. I felt encouraged by the game to experiment even though my starting background as a ‘War Hero’ began to feel more like a suggestion – as designed.

“I would describe it as like an open class system,” Senior Combat Designer Max Matzenbacher tells me. “In games where it’s class-based, you can be restricted on which weapons you can wield, which abilities you can select from. But in Avowed, the classes are more of a guideline or a flag post for someone to follow; you can mix and match your weapons at any time in the game. You can put things in your primary and off-hand, and then you can combine nearly any ability from any tree at any time. So, you could take something from a wizard build that’s a Meteor Storm style ability and then have a more fighter-centric ability. It’s giving the player the opportunity to build their class. We give you some indicators and you can find nods to Pillars of Eternity within those trees, and more nuanced subclasses, but you can really build whatever you like.”

“Flexibility in combat actions was always a goal for us,” adds Gameplay Director Gabe Paramo. “In terms of weapons, you can expect anywhere from a one-hit dagger to a slow reloading arquebus, two-handed great hammers, a one-handed sword, one-handed pistol, a one-handed wand, and we have a dual-wielding system that lets the player equip off-hand and one-handed weapons together in a dual-wielding type way.”

As I continued my experimentation with weapons, I initially found myself gravitating to the Grimoire early on, which is a magic weapon that allows you to tap spell abilities even if your class isn’t magic-based. Holding it in my off-hand while wielding a sword in the other felt like a great combination that could yield some entertaining results in combat. We’re told you can also discover more of these Grimoires throughout Avowed, and then choose to either improve it or learn spells from it. For example, you could take something that you learned from a Grimoire, like a “Fan of Flames” ability, and put it into your ability bar, and then run around with a giant hammer while tossing fire independently of the spell book.

“I think the biggest kind of unique element is how all the pieces fit together and how we don’t restrict the player; to give them ultimate flexibility in being able to quickly swap and execute these actions, like their abilities they choose from their trees, the weapons they fire, the dodge — all those I would say is a mix of how a lot of games handle it; we just mix some elements more uniquely,” Paramo says.

Avowed also lets you enchant (modify) unique weapons by utilizing resources that you’ve gathered throughout the world, rewarding the more adventurous and curious players with the tools needed to upgrade more powerful weapons and gear. As someone who loves to explore every nook and cranny, I was thrilled to see how often my curiosity was being rewarded, like the previously mentioned bird nest on top of the bell tower. It was also when exploring these nooks that the world of Avowed really opened up for me, not only because it was rewarding my curiosity and how I wanted to approach combat, but how those tie into the freedom to explore the world how I wanted to.

“With the enchantment system and weapon upgrading systems, and the unique [weapons] with passive abilities that the player can unlock to enhance those weapons, they can really drill in deep on the mechanic side of things to really min/max or improve the playstyle that they are choosing,” Paramo explains. “We also have a very flexible respecing system if they want to kind of change their minds and try something else, maybe choose a different ability to enhance another set of weapons that they find that they like later.”

“I would add that the attribute system is inspired by the Pillars of Eternity concept of not having restricted class specific attributes, where to wield a certain type of weapon, or to optimize a certain weapon, you must take a specific attribute,” Matzenbacher adds. “All the attributes are available to all players and builds, so they can use that to extend their play style if they want to be more damage centric or have more survivability or have more resources to use either weapon attacks or abilities.”

This raised the question of how they balance all these weapons while still rewarding player choice and experimentation. Matzenbacher and Paramo explained that it was all about stripping these weapons down to their most basic components first and adjusting from there. For example, larger weapons will cost more stamina but deal more damage; smaller weapons will use less stamina but could be better used for stunning. The same rules generally apply to taking the time to cast with a powerful attack spell and their essence cost; the more powerful the spell, the more cost to cast.

“Choice and consequence are not just something that we have in dialogue, but it’s something that we also have in combat, where for every choice the player makes and what they’re choosing to equip, there’s a consequence to that,” Paramo explains. “So, if I’m going to choose a two-handed great hammer, I’m going to do heavy damage, but have a slow attack speed that leaves me open more to hits but costing me stamina. Each one of these things is all about finding the system that the player will funnel into and then kind of creating those different consequences for choosing that weapon or load out.”

The way this played out for me was pairing the powerful arquebus rifle with the Charge ability for my “War Hero,” which had me dash forward and smash into anything in my way. Through its repeated use, I also discovered it did a great job of running up the stun meter on enemies — attacking a fully stunned enemy allows you to perform a special attack for massive damage. Combining that with my slow-loading (yet powerful) rifle proved to be a vicious combination, especially against some of the more formidable enemies I came across, like a diseased bear and giant spider.

Choice also applies to enemies as well, in how they are designed to utilize the environment to find the best method of attack. All of them, from sporelings to skeletons to Xaurips (this universe’s reptilian race), each have distinct rules of engagement on top of their more basic commands — fodder units will try to charge and attack you; ranged units are going to be at a distance; blocker units will always try to block. But here’s where it gets a bit more intriguing, as these commands also feed into a “parkour everywhere” approach for both the player and enemy movement within the environment that can keep these encounters challenging and fun.

“The AI knows how to parkour up (cliffs or ledges) and get to you. Or they know that you are trying to be on a high level trying to shoot at them from at a range distance,” explains Paramo. “They adapt, and even though they might be a more melee-focused character, they’re going to try to get to you. And if they can’t get to you, they’re going to switch to something more ranged too so that you can’t just like capitalize on them and cheese them basically.”

This exact scenario happened to me numerous times while battling crowds of Xaurips. I’d see them scatter up to higher ledges, trying to hit me with their arrows. As I climbed the cliff to get at them, they’d do backflips to get to a higher ledge as I chased them down. Eventually I had enough of this, equipped my Grimoire, and shot flames at them to put an end to this chase. But I really liked seeing that enemies both had an appreciation of their own survivability, but also continued to try and gain an advantage against me.

“Having the player able to jump up on locations, that kind of creates a different dynamic for the AI,” continues Paramo. “We also have stealth grass in the game where the player can take a bit more of a stealthier approach. And we have destructibles in the game that the player and enemies can destroy, or explosive barrels that the player can use range attacks on, so that can help get them an advantage in that encounter, and damage bonuses for stealth attacks when the player is hitting unaware enemies.”

“There are also environmental interactions in the game,” adds Matzenbacher. “So, there could be water on the ground that will react if you’re using shock magic. And then there are certain cases where there are traps and hazards that can either affect the player or enemies that they can trigger and interact with — there’s both the layout and the structure of the space, but also elements that can be combined and leveraged against the enemies.”

There are so many intriguing parts of Avowed, like being able to build our characters as we want, choosing the load outs and companions we want, and having such a dynamic approach to combat, that it will no doubt create numerous and exciting moment-to-moment adventures within the world of Eora. Obsidian are masters of their craft at giving players choice and freedom to play within their worlds as they want, and Avowed is shaping up to be their next great proof point of this concept – from everything we’ve seen and played so far, it’s leading up to something truly special. And we can’t wait to go back.

Ok, this is a good example of what to talk about in your review/preview/whatever -view. Mechanics, features, gameplay.

 

[cpmartins]

Is this still Skyrim by Obsidian? Is it still open-world or not?

 

[Morality Games]

Is this still Skyrim by Obsidian? Is it still open-world or not?

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

Honestly, the gameplay is looking fine for the most part.
The UI though, is just terrible. There is just too much shit on the screen at the same time.

 

[Rieser]

Honestly, the gameplay is looking fine for the most part.
The UI though, is just terrible. There is just too much shit on the screen at the same time.

One of few things Failguard did right was to give you the ability to customize the UI (which was crap there too, arguably even worse) and turn off the obnoxious shit if you wanted. Hopefully this is the case here, too.

 

[scytheavatar]

Is this still Skyrim by Obsidian? Is it still open-world or not?

It is reported to be the exact same formula as The Outer Worlds, except the zones are much larger so the game feels more open.