Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting - coming November 12th(?)

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/avowed-rpg-obsidian-preview-magic-interview/

Exclusive: Obsidian breaks 3-year silence to spill the secrets of Avowed, its next big RPG​

Obsidian spills the first details on combat, magic, character-building, and how important companions are to the story.

For just a moment, Avowed looks like any other fantasy RPG—swords and shields, shiny armor and helmets with those funny little nose guards. Then the dual-wielded flintlock pistols show up. And the fungus-infected bear. And the Willy Wonka-ass mushrooms. Obsidian was once the RPG studio that played in other developers' sandboxes, but with Avowed it's getting to paint the world it created for Pillars of Eternity on a far bigger canvas—one in which you're, well, kind of the asshole.

Okay okay, that's not quite fair—you don't have to be an asshole. But you do have to be an outsider, Avowed director Carrie Patel told me in an exclusive interview ahead of Avowed's reveal on Sunday.

As the game begins, your character arrives in a remote corner of the world of Eora called the Living Lands as an envoy of the Aedyr Empire, where you've been sent to investigate a mysterious plague. "Not everybody in the Living Lands is super thrilled to have an imperial presence in this far-flung land," she said. "So adventure ensues."

It's been a long three years since Avowed first appeared during a Microsoft livestream, promising a first-person RPG from Obsidian Entertainment. Since then Obsidian has released Grounded, an ant-scale survival game, and Pentiment, a 16th century murder mystery. Both were hits, but it's about damn time for another RPG, and Avowed's trailer says 2024 is the year. Its first appearance was just CG hinting at a game, but this time we've seen the real thing, and Obsidian was ready to talk about it.

CEO Feargus Urquhart told me that in scope Avowed is more akin to Obsidian's past RPGs like The Outer Worlds in size than it is a sprawling open world a la Skyrim, though that was actually Obsidian's initial pitch. When the developers sat down and focused on what Obsidian does best—stories and companions, in particular—the more compact scale came naturally.

"As someone who's come through development as a narrative designer, companions are a huge part of the experience and draw for me both as a player and as a developer," Carrie Patel said. "One thing we wanted to do with Avowed was make sure the companions felt really integral to the story. In some games they're optionally recruitable, but in Avowed they're deeply tied to the story, tied to your party… we really wanted to create this sense that you're in this big wild frontier, you're going on this adventure of discovery, and you have this small but tight knit crew with you. The sense you're adventuring through the wilds together, sharing in the discovery and the danger. These people are just as much a part of your story as the larger events that you're getting in the middle of."

The way you interact with other characters in Avowed will be similar to The Outer Worlds, where your dialogue options reflect the tone you want to want to use. "We try to hit a sweet spot when we're writing dialogue options where we invest enough personality for those options to be fun and interesting, but also leave enough space around them so that the player can really invest whatever headcanon they built for their character into that option," she said.

Patel wouldn't spill much about Avowed's story, but did give me some of the basics on what form of RPG to expect from Avowed:

• You have an established role as the imperial envoy, but your "personality, appearance, and philosophy and vibe you bring to that role is up to you as a player to decide"
• You can play as a human or an elf, but not other races
• It's purely singleplayer—no co-op
• The world is lightly systemic: think water and lightning interactions, but not the ol' bucket-on-the-head trick
• You'll have two companions with you at a time, with their own combat specialties and, of course, personalities
• There are several ability trees to progress through, and you won't be locked to a particular class or playstyle
• You will level up, but the focus is on unlocking abilities rather than putting points into stats to grow stronger

Early in development, when Obsidian decided to prioritize a story "more focused on depth than breadth," the first-person combat ended up benefitting, too. Patel said that it was an example of a piece of Avowed that was surprisingly fun in their first vertical slice, a time when the team has to decide on what to commit more resources to and what to scale back on. Combat became a key focus, which should be music to the ears of every Elder Scrolls player who's always found the sword-swinging a bit wimpy. "Our combat has come along really, really well, and the bones have been there since the beginning," she said.

Patel cited a lot of time spent tuning the feel of swinging a sword vs. a mace vs. an axe to make combat feel right, but the options available to players seem like the more significant element at play here. You're free to dual-wield weapons, wield both magic and melee simultaneously, and as in Pillars of Eternity, there are some old timey guns available. When I brought up how bored I am of game loot with imperceptible stat differences from one sword to another, she said that's been on their mind, too.

"The way we've tried to approach that is erring on the side of fewer but meaningful upgrades. If you're upgrading your weapon from one tier to the next, you should feel the difference. If it's a small number change next to your item name, that's not going to feel as meaningful as going through an upgrade process, trying your weapon again and realizing it's doing a lot more damage. Fewer but more meaningful upgrade tiers."

From today's trailer, magic looks like it could be the bit of Avowed that really gives it its own fantasy flair. There's some excellent hand animation at work when the envoy draws runes in the air to conjure a fireball and later lifts a pulsing void skyward, sending a pile of guards orbiting weightlessly around it. I want a whole lot more of that, and I'm excited that I can mix magic with melee without being railroaded into a class.

We've seen only two minutes of Avowed, and I imagine Microsoft and Obsidian won't be talking about it too much more until Starfield is done with the spotlight. Once we do, I expect Obsidian's characters to start getting all the attention. When I asked Patel what she hadn't been able to do with the isometric Pillars RPGs that she's excited to do in Avowed, she brought it back to the companions without hesitating.

"In most of our games companions have been optional, which I think offers a wonderful degree of choice to players, but it means there's a limit to how deeply you can tie them into the core story. With Avowed we decided companions are going to be core. They're going to be part of the experience. And that means we can invest so much more in them and tie them much more closely, and personally, to the events and the parts of the world the player is encountering."

And can they die?

This time there was a pause. "You'll have to see," Patel said. Until 2024, then.

 

[FreeKaner]

Gameplay trailer showing nothing related to menus, character screen, inventory and such doesn't bode well. It was just graphics and animation showcase rather than "gameplay" trailer. I hope they will have another video showing this at least has a level-up and skill tree more complicated than Skyrim.

 

[Old Hans]

This game is gonna be trash. Every game with a pretentious voiceover non-enginge graphics trailer is automagically garbage tier. This is just like the trailer for Tours and Tournaments for CK3. The trailers have nothing to do with how the game works! Lifestyle advertising for video games. Like when cig, beer, or drug commercials show people having a pool party or playing beach volleyball with hot mid 20s girls.

is it even possible to make an exciting Crusader Kings trailer? dramatic music plays as the player clicks through an event which ends with him getting a +10 opinion modifier from his 1 county vassal

 

[Drowed]

Honestly, it's much less about budget and much more about art direction. Even Outer Worlds has a more interesting world, which is terrible to think about because it itself was already a game without much inspiration. By comparison, check out its launch trailer side by side:




Avowed seems even worse, somehow? Generic landscapes, colours and lights used in an incoherent way that either leave the whole scene with the same monotone or are used with such great contrast that they don't seem to be part of the scene itself. To stand out, you either need to make a game that impresses with its technical execution or its art direction. If you fail at both, that's the result.

The only hope of saving this game is if the story and/or exploration are particularly good. Given Obsidian's recent track record... I'm not optimistic.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Latest Elder Scrolls Online expansion looks sick, gj Obsidian!

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Magic looks cool. I want to see uncut gameplay before saying anything else tho.

 

[conan_edw]

Seriously, I can't comprehend how the art could be this bad. Starfield + ESO are looking much better than Obsidian's knock offs. Even inXile's new game is looking way better and if I'm not mistaken they have way less employees than Obsidian.

 

[Artyoan]

​

CEO Feargus Urquhart told me that in scope Avowed is more akin to Obsidian's past RPGs like The Outer Worlds in size than it is a sprawling open world a la Skyrim, though that was actually Obsidian's initial pitch. When the developers sat down and focused on what Obsidian does best—stories and companions, in particular—the more compact scale came naturally.

• The world is lightly systemic: think water and lightning interactions, but not the ol' bucket-on-the-head trick

 

[AwesomeButton]

Like Baldurs Gate, but serious, with guns, rennesance at adult psychology.

A real Frenchman would never misspell "renaissance".

 

[Butter]

Codexers talking 90% about graphics. Never change.

 

[Fearlessjay]

In fairness Inxile's new game looks pretty good. Easily the biggest surprise so far except for the endless Like a Dragon games.

 

[0sacred]

Codexers talking 90% about graphics. Never change.

it's not like they showed anything else of substance in the trailer. Of course, the absence of many things you'd expect in an RPG also speaks volumes.

 

[Delterius]

Codexers talking 90% about graphics. Never change.

oh is there something else in the trailer

i guess the magic won't be as boring as in skyrim, but that's it really

 

[Rhobar121]

To make it funnier, Microsoft supposedly doesn't care what its studios are doing, which means that if Obsidian fucked up, it's only their own fault.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

U niggas talking about Graphics. Let's talk about Fampyrs.

 

[Gahbreeil]

FORGE

YOUR

Destiny?

DESTINY

 

[thesecret1]

The only new thing shown in the trailer is that the game will be uglier than we thought.

 

[Cross]

Codexers talking 90% about graphics. Never change.

What else is there to discuss? We already know what the setting is like from the Pillars games. They've already said the combat is going to be like Skyrim, and the few seconds of combat they showed seems to confirm that.

And a lackluster art style is often indicative of a lack of creativity in other aspects of the game. Bethesda is an obvious example of this, with Morrowind being the last game they made that had an interesting art style.

 

[Drakortha]

Where do they get this generic as fuck music? do they search google for "generic trailer music" then call it a day? Uninspired TRASH.

 

[Roguey]

CEO Feargus Urquhart told me that in scope Avowed is more akin to Obsidian's past RPGs like The Outer Worlds in size than it is a sprawling open world a la Skyrim, though that was actually Obsidian's initial pitch. When the developers sat down and focused on what Obsidian does best—stories and companions, in particular—the more compact scale came naturally.

"Came naturally" i.e. development was such a disaster and they lost multiple leads until they decided to scale back.

"In most of our games companions have been optional, which I think offers a wonderful degree of choice to players, but it means there's a limit to how deeply you can tie them into the core story. With Avowed we decided companions are going to be core. They're going to be part of the experience. And that means we can invest so much more in them and tie them much more closely, and personally, to the events and the parts of the world the player is encountering."

Ugh, mandatory companions.

You know even Planescape Torment didn't have mandatory companions.

And can they die?

This time there was a pause. "You'll have to see," Patel said. Until 2024, then.

That is, they'll be immortal unless the story kills them.

 

[axedice]

"In most of our games companions have been optional, which I think offers a wonderful degree of choice to players, but it means there's a limit to how deeply you can tie them into the core story. With Avowed we decided companions are going to be core. They're going to be part of the experience. And that means we can invest so much more in them and tie them much more closely, and personally, to the events and the parts of the world the player is encountering."

Even though they dropped the ball after Avellone left, Obsidian has always been better with companions compared to other mainstream studios. So this quote kinda surprised me. Outerworlds companions were shit, so maybe Carrie is referring to that?

And besides, what the hell is she talking about that companions "have been" optional? Does it mean companions are mandatory now?

 

[Falksi]

Thank God for games like Caves of Lore

 

[DeepOcean]

I wasnt expecting cutting edge graphics but I also wasnt expecting the "my first game made with random assets from Unity's/Unreal asset store" vibe of this Avowed trailer. Honestly, if it wasnt for Obsidian's name and you claimed this was yet another o those janky steam survival games, I would believe it.

 

[santino27]

"As someone who's come through development as a narrative designer, companions are a huge part of the experience and draw for me both as a player and as a developer," Carrie Patel said. "One thing we wanted to do with Avowed was make sure the companions felt really integral to the story. In some games they're optionally recruitable, but in Avowed they're deeply tied to the story, tied to your party… we really wanted to create this sense that you're in this big wild frontier, you're going on this adventure of discovery, and you have this small but tight knit crew with you. The sense you're adventuring through the wilds together, sharing in the discovery and the danger. These people are just as much a part of your story as the larger events that you're getting in the middle of."

The way you interact with other characters in Avowed will be similar to The Outer Worlds, where your dialogue options reflect the tone you want to want to use. "We try to hit a sweet spot when we're writing dialogue options where we invest enough personality for those options to be fun and interesting, but also leave enough space around them so that the player can really invest whatever headcanon they built for their character into that option," she said.

Mandatory companions from the company who write ass cancer in human form.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Game looks like complete ass.