Avowed (2025)

[game]

Apr 02, 2025

I rarely touch games longer than 10-12 hours, and even more rarely play RPGs or ARPGs. My reviews are subjective as hell—pure gonzo—but this time I'm a complete tourist. That alone says something about the game, doesn’t it?

Avowed is a simplified RPG with a heavy action slant. You can’t avoid combat—you have to kill and grind, grind and kill again. Fair enough, some quests do offer peaceful resolutions, letting you properly role-play. You can also pick dialogue tone, poke into people's business, or stay tactful. It rarely affects the world much, but it helps build a narrative in your head. Enough for me, but hardcore RPG lovers might find it shallow.

As you gain experience and level up, you earn points to upgrade base stats and special abilities. No auto-leveling here—shooting dudes in the head from a mile away might be your jam, but that alone won’t improve your stats.

The game’s lore stems from Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2, which I never played. Luckily, for tourists like me, there's a glossary embedded right in the dialogues—genius in how unobtrusive it is.

Dialogue gets almost as much focus as combat, and it's damn easy to sink into. Brilliant writing makes NPCs feel human, and companions are so fleshed-out they practically beg for spin-offs. Voice acting? Fucking music for my ears. Plus, everything can be quickly skipped—a feature I appreciated during some tedious moments, and handy for replays.

Why did I end up sinking 70 damn hours—unheard of for me—into this game? Simply put, the art direction is so fucking phenomenal, coupled with strong writing, that I believed in the world immediately. But there's one snag…

I fell in love with the first location and didn’t want to leave, but the plot demanded it. The second location quickly drained my enthusiasm, and soon I was playing on autopilot. Thankfully, the narrative suddenly kicked me awake again, raising stakes dramatically. I have no idea how many people dropped the game here out of boredom, but it's a shame, considering how amazing everything before and after that slump is. Ironically, this second location contains a pivotal plot twist, brilliantly removing masks and sharpening the game's ideological conflict.

The core conflict: imperial colonizers versus island natives. The empire is slowly absorbing new lands, and the islanders hate its guts. The Living Lands’ residents deliberately left their home countries seeking a freer, if less organized, life. You play as the Emperor's envoy investigating a mysterious plague. Locals don't openly despise you, but they're wary enough, so naturally…

…I spent the whole game helping the islanders, happily smacking imperial fucks in the face. Ended up role-playing a sort of “good CIA guy” with an anti-colonial streak 😁 Immensely satisfying, even though I occasionally caught shit from my fellow imperials.

And damn, it’s beautiful—and tech-savvy. Avowed is considered the smartest use of Unreal Engine 5 yet, though even that can't save you from occasional stutters.