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

[Alienman]

But woke.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

But woke.

 

[Tihskael]

I don't like the aesthetic style and gameplay. It looks really cartoony to me and too much like a popamole shooter. I don't remember Pillars looking like that; I remember its colour pallet being a lot more subdued. Also the face animations are off, why was that chick in the beginning opening her mouth that wide? It looks uncanny.
It honestly looks like every other AAA Western game that got released recently. Maybe not as bad as Veilguard but still.

I don't know what the fuck has happened to games these days, may it be Starfield, Veilguard or Avowed, something looks so off. All of them have a certain plasticy, cartoonish look about them. Are these poor textures or lighting, I can't really put a finger on it, but these games don't look much better than some of the late PS3/360 games, let alone the PS4/One games. If you want to do cartoony stuff, do something like the new Zelda games, they are not going for the "real" fidelity at all but still end up being pretty. Hell, I still remember Skyrim looking way more impressive on PC than Starfield and Todd has put 16 or 32 times the detail in his space game. Sure, certain objects and interiors have higher visual fidelity but the environments and cities look so bland.

 

[Tihskael]

Somehow even Oblivion managed to have less plastic looking NPCs

If you pretend Oblivion takes place in Germany or the Netherlands, the NPCs are very natural looking.

 

[Morgoth]

I don't like the aesthetic style and gameplay. It looks really cartoony to me and too much like a popamole shooter. I don't remember Pillars looking like that; I remember its colour pallet being a lot more subdued. Also the face animations are off, why was that chick in the beginning opening her mouth that wide? It looks uncanny.
It honestly looks like every other AAA Western game that got released recently. Maybe not as bad as Veilguard but still.

I don't know what the fuck has happened to games these days, may it be Starfield, Veilguard or Avowed, something looks so off. All of them have a certain plasticy, cartoonish look about them. Are these poor textures or lighting, I can't really put a finger on it, but these games don't look much better than some of the late PS3/360 games, let alone the PS4/One games. If you want to do cartoony stuff, do something like the new Zelda games, they are not going for the "real" fidelity at all but still end up being pretty. Hell, I still remember Skyrim looking way more impressive on PC than Starfield and Todd has put 16 or 32 times the detail in his space game. Sure, certain objects and interiors have higher visual fidelity but the environments and cities look so bland.

The industry is drunk on shaders. But put in too few and the graphics whores will start whining again.

 

[Tihskael]

Somehow even Oblivion managed to have less plastic looking NPCs

If you pretend Oblivion takes place in Germany or the Netherlands, the NPCs are very natural looking.

Case in point.

 

[Infinitron]

News for damage numbers haters: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/m...t-just-be-how-much-stuff-it-lets-me-turn-off/

My favorite thing about Avowed might just be how much stuff it lets me turn off​

Avowed's deep commitment to UI options is one of its greatest strengths

My experience playing Avowed when it launches in February will be very different from yours. Maybe that sounds obvious—it's an Obsidian RPG, after all, with quest and dialogue choices even in the first couple hours that seem likely to echo throughout the journey. That's to be expected. But for the first time in one of its games, Obsidian's applied the same care it puts into wildly branching dialogue trees into its interface options, too. The biggest and most obvious choice will be between the first- and third-person cameras: after trying both I firmly prefer the default first-person option, but I know there are a number of RPG players who are excited to have the alternative.

There's so much more to choose from in Avowed's options menus than just the camera. Just take a look:

This is a major expansion from the options in Obsidian's last RPG, The Outer Worlds. I want to highlight a few of the options that stick out to me in the Game and UI menus that could add up to quite different experiences if you've ticked enough toggles.

Game options​

Third-person view - The climbing and combat in Avowed feel very different when you're out of that first-person perspective.

Auto activate companion abilities - Do you want your sidekicks to use their special attacks in combat autonomously, or do you want to maintain precise control over when those cooldowns are up? Your choice.

Hit flash mode - How much visual feedback do you want on hits? You can turn these flashes off, have them appear only when you've staggered an enemy, or have them on all hits.

Attacks move towards target - This option and the aim assist ones above all affect how precisely you need to aim both melee and ranged attacks; if you really want precision mouse control (and to miss more often), turn 'em off.

Dodge and blocking align to target - Like the magnetism, these options will subtly nudge your orientation towards the enemy you're fighting, I think primarily to keep first-person combat from feeling disorienting. But again, if you want total control, you can turn them off.

Slow time on dodge - A powerful option here, giving you a window of bullet time when you dodge. A welcome accessibility option, but also a fun way to give yourself an edge on one of the higher difficulty levels.

UI options​

Hide failed dialogue checks - A powerful roleplaying choice. Do you want the "gamey" experience of seeing you don't meet the perception or intellect stat threshold for a particular dialogue choice? Or do you want that choice to be hidden, so that you can only wonder what a smarter or more perceptive character could do in that situation?

Shrink dialogue checks - Another major roleplaying decision here: Do you even want to know what stats enabled your dialogue choices? Or do you want the more naturalistic experience of playing a character with tons of attribute points in dexterity and guessing which responses are available due to your shredded calves?

Interaction icons - A hand icon pops up on plants when you get within 10 feet or so, and Avowed also highlights environmental obstacles like thorns that you can burn and wooden boards you can smash. With this option disabled you'll have to pay more attention to what in the environment looks interactive.

Objective markers - Want an arrow pointing towards where you're going or what you're looking for? I find these sorts of markers make me mentally check out and beeline from goal to goal; I'm much more engaged with them off.

Damage numbers - What kind of action RPG would Avowed be without damage numbers? One that immediately feels a bit more grounded, especially if you've turned off visual features like the incoming attack warnings.

Compass - By default the compass gives you a lot of information: it points to your objective, shows nearby enemies, dropped loot, and environmental pickables. Disabling it altogether, or toggling a few of the things it highlights, will really change how closely you have to eyeball your surroundings.

---

(Image credit: Obsidian Entertainment)

I might change my mind when I'm hours into Avowed, but as I sit here now I'm planning out how I'm going to play. I think I'll keep the compass on just to orient myself towards north, but I'll only leave the icons for corpses—and maybe enemies—enabled. I'm not going to shrink my dialogue checks because I like that sense of satisfaction of seeing my attributes pass a threshold, but I will hide the failed skill checks to leave a bit of ambiguity about other ways a conversation could have gone. And objective markers are absolutely getting turned off to keep me attentive.

I'm going to try disabling most of the aim assist and movement assist in combat too, which I think make more sense on a controller than they do on keyboard/mouse. And damage numbers? Yeah, those are going away, at least for long enough to judge whether Avowed's hit feedback feels substantial enough to get a good sense of how effective my attacks are.

If you're way more interested in Avowed's story than anything else, it would make sense to leave on objective markers and shimmering loot and the many other options that limit how much time you have to spend poking around alleys and rooftops. But if you do want to play this game more like a lightweight, exploratory immersive sim, which is what I'm hoping for, then turning that stuff off is a welcome option. I'd like to see every RPG of Avowed's scale or bigger offer this much flexibility.

 

[Morgoth]

Memorable characters everywhere:

That burly dwarf in the lower right corner seriously freaks me out.

 

[The people of Duckburg]

Memorable characters everywhere:

I see you snuck Green Man from hit video game Concord in there.

 

[Roguey]

There's like half a dozen women in that photo and yet the only person showing any cleavage is your bald-headed fishman companion

Why would village women show cleavage?

I don't get the complaints about that collage at all. Looks like a normal fantasy game to me.

 

[Elttharion]

There's like half a dozen women in that photo and yet the only person showing any cleavage is your bald-headed fishman companion

Why would village women show cleavage?

I don't get the complaints about that collage at all. Looks like a normal fantasy game to me.

The dwarf (?) in the bottom right looks like a woman with a beard. Do female dwarfs have beards in the setting?

 

[Maxie]

it's impressive obsidian despite being more than 20 years on the market manages to unlearn game design for every project so that everything they do is worse than a random unity project done by a depressed indie catboy. good job guys!!

 

[Late Bloomer]

Memorable characters everywhere:

Left to Right, Top to Bottom

swarthy brown homosexual - aloy's equally ugly sister with one of those mouths that never close all the way - inbred happa full of attitude

ugly lesbian with small scrunched up jaw - brown curry eating poet homosexual - orangeman blacksmith

tawny cunt with a manface - fishxir showing fish chest - brown full of attitude lesbian freak

orange lesbian tomboy wannabe - disgusting negroe with tha typical black attitude face - shit coloured motherly type - a feminine faced non white dwarf with a faggy beard

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Hide failed dialogue checks - A powerful roleplaying choice. Do you want the "gamey" experience of seeing you don't meet the perception or intellect stat threshold for a particular dialogue choice? Or do you want that choice to be hidden, so that you can only wonder what a smarter or more perceptive character could do in that situation?

Shrink dialogue checks - Another major roleplaying decision here: Do you even want to know what stats enabled your dialogue choices? Or do you want the more naturalistic experience of playing a character with tons of attribute points in dexterity and guessing which responses are available due to your shredded calves?

Interaction icons - A hand icon pops up on plants when you get within 10 feet or so, and Avowed also highlights environmental obstacles like thorns that you can burn and wooden boards you can smash. With this option disabled you'll have to pay more attention to what in the environment looks interactive.

Objective markers - Want an arrow pointing towards where you're going or what you're looking for? I find these sorts of markers make me mentally check out and beeline from goal to goal; I'm much more engaged with them off.

Damage numbers - What kind of action RPG would Avowed be without damage numbers? One that immediately feels a bit more grounded, especially if you've turned off visual features like the incoming attack warnings.

Compass - By default the compass gives you a lot of information: it points to your objective, shows nearby enemies, dropped loot, and environmental pickables. Disabling it altogether, or toggling a few of the things it highlights, will really change how closely you have to eyeball your surroundings.

All good options but imo it should have be disabled by default.

 

[Vulpes]

Tim Cain's dismissed the "people were tricked" explanation because it continued to sell well over time. Released in October 2019, 2 million by February 2020. 3 million by May 2021. 4 million by August 2021. 5 million by October 2023. How is it that 2 million people were deeply unsatisfied and yet it went on to sell more than that initial amount over the next three years?

Outer Worlds was played by over 5 million people, not purchased, and it's been available on Game Pass since day 1. We've seen this happen to Obsidian before. Pillars of Eternity 1 didn't make people interested in party-based CRPGs happy, so the sales of Deadfire were crap compared to 1. The Outer Worlds did not make people interested in open world RPGs happy, so what makes you think those same people will come back to buy another open world RPG from Obsidian?

Except normalfags didn't like New Vegas--it consistently rates lower than Fallout 3 and 4 on all normie sites, got famously burned by metacritic costing them a bonus, and has been more or less de-canonized by Bethesda.

FNV is loved by people who aren't the target market of Outer Worlds, that's for sure. If anything this game did well by playing it much safer and using Sawyer Balanced (TM) design + Bro Shooter mechanics.

Where did you get that idea from? Everywhere I look, I find information that paints a different picture:
F3 has around 16.000 reviews on Steam and 80% of them are positive.
FNV has around 175.000 reviews on Steam and over 95% of them are positive.

F3 on Metacritic has an average user score of 8.3 for Xbox 360, 8.0 for PS3 and 7.8 for PC.
FNV on Metacritic has an average user score of 8.6 for Xbox 360, 8.2 for PS3 and 8.8 for PC.

F3 came out in October of 2008 and sold 4.7 million copies across all platforms by the end of the year.
FNV came out in October of 2010 and sold 5 million copies across all platforms by the end of the year.

Why would village women show cleavage?

I don't get the complaints about that collage at all. Looks like a normal fantasy game to me.

It's a busy port town in a colonial province. I hate to break it to you, but those places usually have lots of brothels and taverns with- yep, you guessed it! Scantly-clad women!

 

[Roguey]

Outer Worlds was played by over 5 million people, not purchased, and it's been available on Game Pass since day 1.

Your memory is mistaken.
https://x.com/OuterWorlds/status/1717224607927730385

"Sold through" is not "all players." Sold through means copies sold through to customers (as opposed to sold-in to retail stores). The number with gamepass is no doubt much larger.

Tim Cain said 5 million with a chart and everything.

I do not believe Tim would lie about such things.

We've seen this happen to Obsidian before. Pillars of Eternity 1 didn't make people interested in party-based CRPGs happy, so the sales of Deadfire were crap compared to 1. The Outer Worlds did not make people interested in open world RPGs happy, so what makes you think those same people will come back to buy another open world RPG from Obsidian?

Deadfire initially underperformed because the marketing was bad. The guy Obsidian hired to market the game was even fired, as per his contract, for not meeting their expectations. This forum is full of highly engaged core gamers, we don't need to be marketed to. But we're not numerous enough to make anything bigger than a garage dev budget a success, the success of these games depends a lot on normies, casuals.

It's a busy port town in a colonial province. I hate to break it to you, but those places usually have lots of brothels and taverns with- yep, you guessed it! Scantly-clad women!

Brothels and whores were part of Josh Sawyer-directed Pillars games but this is a Carrie Patel project, so there will be none of that. There weren't even any brothels in the bad part of town in The Outer Worlds where people gambled and did drugs and Tim and Leonard didn't shy away from that in Fallout, Arcanum, and Bloodlines (the brothel got cut in ToEE). Liberal values changed.

 

[Raghar]

Brothels and whores were part of Josh Sawyer-directed Pillars games but this is a Carrie Patel project, so there will be none of that. There weren't even any brothels in the bad part of town in The Outer Worlds where people gambled and did drugs and Tim and Leonard didn't shy away from that in Fallout, Arcanum, and Bloodlines (the brothel got cut in ToEE). Liberal values changed.

Can we have scantily clad women and men without brothels and whores?

 

[Roguey]

Can we have scantily clad women and men without brothels and whores?

It doesn't fit the setting.

Deadfire had a bathhouse where everyone was naked and that was amusing, wouldn't expect that in Avowed though.

 

[Wesp5]

Tim Cain said 5 million with a chart and everything.

How about the freebie on the Epic Store where I got TOW from? Does this count as a sale, because the paper work Epic sends for each freebie certainly makes it look that way.

 

[Poseidon00]

Also saying that the Watcher achieved nothing is very surface level.

The Watcher found Ukaizo and actually learned what exactly Eothas did and why. This information at least gives people a headstart in solving the broken Wheel shit. Without the Watcher nobody would even know it's broken.

An idiotic achievement that shouldn't need achieving to begin with - if you want to force someone to rise to a do-or-die challenge, it's vital they're aware of that challenge. Breaking the Wheel and not telling anyone would not serve Eothas in his already moronic plan, Deadfire's "god of wisdom" is a monstrously dangerous imbecile and Durance was right to blow him to smithereens in the first game's backstory.

I disagree. Eothas shows great wisdom in his plan. You see, Eothas has come to the biggest revelation of all; that he exists in a game franchise that is terminally boring. The only way to fix this is to smash the wheel, i.e end the cycle of reincarnation, and to either let the franchise die or be totally transformed anew, just as the souls of Eora must find a new path forward or perish forever.

 

[Dark Souls II]

The Youtube algorithm suggested me that Iberian bitch, known for shitting on Veilguard hardcore style, watching some Avowed & Kingdom Come: Deliverance II gameplay footages side by side... and it is as condemning (criminal origins) as humanely possible. Like a free Chinese mobile game next to how a real video game should look like. Gameplay, voice-acting, animations, systems, if you think Asoyed couldn't look any worse just take a look at it compared to a REAL game.

 

[Brickfrog]

I see a lot of people on social media comparing Avowed and KC:D2 but I don't really see the similarities aside from that they're both first-person rpgs. Very different combat systems, rpg mechanics, environments, story, everything.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Time to pull a barve

 

[Dark Souls II]

Eothas shows great wisdom in his plan. You see, Eothas has come to the biggest revelation of all; that he exists in a game franchise

Replace Eothas with Vivec and you'll have a synopsis of an actually good game with an actually good story.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

What a sweet and intoxicating innocence.