READ BEFORE PURCHASE

[Johnny]

I played for about 5-6 hours on Xbox and I am seriously bummed to report that:

This game is missing:

-A skill for dialogue. So no specing into diplomacy/deciet/beguiling/etc

-Any crime system at all

-Any theft of any kind

-Any ability to interact with generic town NPCs and I mean ANY. No injuring them in any way, no dynamic quests, no response to anything you do at all NOTHING.

-Any dynamic NPC movement, all town NPCs stand in EXACTLY the same spot, forever. They are literally just non-interactive set dressing. No schedules, no immersion, no life no detail at all, might as well be animatronics at Disneyland.

-Good player dialogue. Like wow, there are genuine moments in the game where your ONLY choices are between the anguish of horridly written ERP, ex: "Are you sure about that? [Raise right eyebrow high with quizzical, vexed befuddlement]" or the soul crushingly embarrassing generic fantasy slop lines such as: "Scholar: I was looking for the brawn to my brains!" It frequently makes me want to curl into a ball and die.

-Any meaningful distinction between player origins aside from some overly archytyped flavor text that I almost never wanted to engage in.

-An option to silence companion NPCs that relentlessly bombard you with the most obvious, annoying and or boring statements you can imagine often spelling things out before you even have a chance of discovering or processing them, LOUDLY and FREQUENTLY regardless of context. You wanna soak in some environmental storytelling naturally? NOPE, Kai is going to bellow in your ear "THESE CORPSES WERE KING SO AND SO'S MEN ON THE JOURNEY TO X LOCATION." About to solve a puzzle or try to think for yourself at at all? NOPE Kai is going to pin you down and scream in your ear "THESE VINES CAN BE BURNED WITH A FIRE SPELL" before you even see them.

-Any ability to play without companions despite them being insanely obnoxious and typically not that engaging narratively.

-Any kind of internal logic at all: A friend starts a bar fight? Do you knock the people you're fighting unconscious? No. You incinerate them in front of everyone over a small verbal disagreement to not even the slightest reaction. "We're the good guys folks." The game is chalk full of these kinds of moments.

Avowed is missing nearly everything I would want or expect from an Obsidian RPG and its systems are sparsely competitive with that of TES IV Oblivion (2006). It's not """"wokeness"""" that makes this game bad. It's sheer mediocrity, laziness and under-delivery. I seriously don't think I have felt more let down by any other game and my expectations weren't even high from the preview footage.

[Johnny]

Originally posted by Katie:

So a game is bad just because the developers didn’t follow your exact expectations? If we applied that logic to every Western RPG, action RPG, or JRPG, half of them would be considered 'bad'—but they’re not.

Why not just enjoy the game for what it is? Avowed isn’t some broken mess—it’s a well-made action RPG with solid exploration, fun combat, and a good story. I can think of plenty of games that tried a similar approach and were way worse, yet still got positive reviews.

The real issue here isn’t the game—it’s your expectations. By your logic, I could call a sports game terrible because it doesn’t have dungeon crawling and romance. That’s not criticism, that’s just being upset that a game isn’t designed for you.

You’re not entitled to like every game a studio makes. Sometimes, a genre just isn’t for you—and that’s fine. But why go on a rant about not being the target audience instead of just moving on?

P.S. I’d bet you’ve played and enjoyed other action RPGs that do exactly what Avowed does—but for some reason, you’re holding Obsidian to an entirely different standard.

"A genre isn't for you?" Have you seen my featured games list? I was more than the target audience, I went in willing to excuse a lot. The reason I don't like this game isn't because I'm holding it to a different standard it's because I'm holding it to the standard of TES IV Oblivion from almost 20 years ago and it's still coming up immensely short. If by "exactly what avowed does" you mean ranging from underwhelming to bad in every category, comparing unfavorably to games almost 20 years old while offering nothing unique or particularly well executed in gameplay and story while constantly glazing you, holding your hand, and haranguing you with overbearing companions that are more obnoxious than charming then no, I really can't recall enjoying a single game like that. Avowed is a mediocre action game with extremely simple combat, little enviornmental interaction, extremely basic options for offense and immensely spongy, highly predictable enemies with some of the most basic AI I have ever seen. Avowed is an extremely bad RPG you can only do exactly what the game wants with different flavors and you can be horrible to your companions and they still like you because they have to, all while missing any ability to freely kill off characters you don't like or solve problems more creatively (even Starfield did a vastly better job at this). Avowed has forgettable characters and dialogue, I seriously can't remember a single joke or moment that made me feel any emotion at all despite playing as recently 2-3 days ago. Avowed has terrible exploration, there isn't a single thing you can find that the game won't scream at you where to look or how to solve with zero subtlety, there is next to nothing to unravel for yourself. It didn't need to be the same kind of game (though that IS what they marketed it as) but it ABSOLUTELY needed to have any claim to fame and it just doesn't. There's nothing memorable or interesting about the experience, it's as soulless as you can get, like the video game equivalent to a D tier marvel movie.

[Tozobi]

Originally posted by Pinhead Larry:

Baldurs Gate 3 lets you kill EVERY SINGLE NPC AND COMPANION and it still accounts for different paths that let you beat the game.

We live in a post BG3 world now, and that's where the bar for an RPG is set.

Granted, this game was in development before BG3 released so we can go a bit easy on the devs but seriously, they need to step it up if they want to stay relevant now.

I find that this actually presents the real problem with this game, and many others.
It is fine to have games that do not pass the BG3 bar. There's space for them too. The problem is, if you do not pass the bar - or match it, asking for 70 euros for what does not really look or play like an MS owned studio game is a really bad choice.
This game would have performed better at a 30 euro price range.
Instead, what we have is a game that is not a direct or gameplay sequel of the PoE series. And one that has even more limited options for things like specific skill checks - since there are no skills whatsoever. It cannot even match the skill check array of their older Outer worlds game, which is the most recent similar game they developed. So going for a AAA game price - and actually a Japanese game one at that, as it is usually those that have absurd 70 euro prices at launch, is a good way to get your intended audience to ignore this.

[Ele]

But hey, it has pronouns!

[Johnny]

Originally posted by Space is the Place:

Originally posted by Fluff Puff:

Sad to know that Obsidian turn in to this... Shame.

Looks to me like more threads from "anti-wokers" saying they have accepted it´s a little bit "woke" but it´s fine are appearing. More and more of the people complaining about pronouns are starting to appear with the mouse icon and saying "oh well... it´s optional".

It´s crytal clear we have another BG3 and KCD2 in our hands, meaning the grift didn´t work, people are playing the game, buying it, and enjoying it. Another success for Obsidian and they are still developing The outerworlds 2, looks like this is a good year for them, cope :)

Don´t worry though tourist, pretty sure in a few days any of your grifters youtubers will tell you where to move on next, but here? you are already irrelevant.

If anything the addition of pronouns and increased diversity aligns more closely to my values but sure just casually project a political ideology I don't hold ( which should have been obvious from the amount of quotation marks I put when using that word) onto me in order to defend a mediocre game.

Originally posted by Space is the Place:

Originally posted by Johnny:

See the difference is that KCD 2 actually added things and improved the experience from past titles, instead of removing half the game's functionality, having mediocre dialogue, making terrible design decisions, taking away tons of options and then having the gall to charge more.

Avowed has no previous titles. It´s a game set on an stablished lore for sure, but it´s not even the same genre as the previous entries and that´s why they went with a different name, rather than Pillars of Eternity 3.

As for this title being the next Skyrim, where did you get that? The developers said several times it wasn´t, it makes no sense for Microsoft to buy Obsidian and ask them to make Bethesda games when Bethesda already theirs as well, and if you were following the devs news you already would have known most of those features wouldn´t be pressent the same way they weren´t on Outerworlds, which is the one game devs keep saying it would be the more similar too, which it is. Also some of the things you say are not present are as many have point out.

Like, for reals, you tell me a game that is like Skyrim. And The Witcher ain´t one by the way, since tons of people say so when it´s not open world, it´s not sandbox and the character it´s predefined, literally conflicts with the 3 mayor pilars of developing on Bethesda, specially since Todd became the boss.

You say "wokeness" it´s not the problem, but let me ask you, do you even think that´s a real thing or that the game has any of it?

But all the missing things I complained about literally were in ToW? Like the complete list, verbatim? W H A T? They didn't have to make the next Skyrim but they did have to make a good first person fantasy action RPG and they utterly and completely failed as far as I'm concerned. And yes they announced *some* of those things to be missing but if they're charging more money I reasonably expect all that missing stuff to actually be replaced with literally anything of value which it wasn't. Instead even more was missing. So it is just directly cut down. Bonus points to you for trying to poison any criticism of the game with politics AGAIN. Extra funny to me because the pronouns and increased diversity align more closely with my values and you just blindly projected an ideology onto me in order to defend a highly mediocre video game.

[Random Kiwi Gamer]

Unfortunately the wokeness is what the forum will fill up with and many will miss this important post.

[Mijj]

When will people understand that this type of game is NOT an RPG, it's an ACTION-RPG which is totally different. For example what you point out is not releveant in an Action-RPG...

[Tozobi]

Originally posted by Mijj:

When will people understand that this type of game is NOT an RPG, it's an ACTION-RPG which is totally different. For example what you point out is not releveant in an Action-RPG...

Pedantry. The Outer Worlds is an action RPG too, You literally spend 90% of the game shooting things, or going from point A to point B so you can shoot things, but it still had skill sets and checks, as well as branching narratives and different ways to solve quests. Action RPGs are still RPGs. What you're referring to is the Diablo branch. Games in that branch are basically just action games with a level up ability system, a completely linear story, and the only RPG like aspect is you picking which ability you will give 2% improvement on (oversimplification, but you get the idea). This is why they usually also get called Hack and Slash ARPGs, rather than just plain ARPGs. It is disingenuous trying to say Action RPGs cannot have RPG aspects in them, when the developer is obsidian, which is basically known for having RPG and story aspects in all of their games to date, even Pentiment, which is not even an RPG at all.

[himocanso]

♥♥♥♥ game worse than outer worlds or pillar of eternity 2

no faction system
no npc reaction
cannot attack npc

[Jem]

Originally posted by SenSx:

Even if the game has flaws, it does not explain that over exagerated bashing.
People want to trash this game for entire different reasons (ideology, political) and try to find some actual critics on the game itself.
It's like when someone is trying to fault you at work with professionnal arguments, while the main reason is that that personn just doesn't like you and will try to find anything against you.
This is an hypocrit attitude, and even the offender doing that is loosing its dignity.

And crticizing the 70-90 dollars price is hypocrite too ?

[Deatheye]

Originally posted by Mijj:

When will people understand that this type of game is NOT an RPG, it's an ACTION-RPG which is totally different. For example what you point out is not releveant in an Action-RPG...

Gothic is an action RPG and has almost everything the OP is talking about.

Gothic was released in 2001.

[Zyrconia]

Originally posted by Boltergeist:

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the very first thing is already a lie

Dialogue is full of skill checks

Reading comprehension people. Plus knowledge of RPG tropes.

A skill for dialogue. So no specing into diplomacy/deciet/beguiling/etc

Absolute factual as far as I can tell. The game has no skill social dialogue skill, there is not a charm or intimidate you can spec into. The RPG trope is that you spec into that by paying a skill point price, so you loose the points spent into the social skill, being i.e. a slightly worse warrior.

Having social dialogue skills and having skill checks are two different things and they you can have or not both at the same time. They are not exclusive. Having a skill check because you have large might is not the same as having had raised you charisma for the last 10 levels so you can convince people with your tongue and not having put those points into strength.

So absolute facts and poor reading comprehension.

Plus, as far as I can tell, the skill checks are relatively low. Almost like flavor options, like the background options.

[Q]

OP has no evidence, no proof whatsoever.

[Fluff Puff]

Originally posted by Space is the Place:

Originally posted by Fluff Puff:

Sad to know that Obsidian turn in to this... Shame.

Looks to me like more threads from "anti-wokers" saying they have accepted it´s a little bit "woke" but it´s fine are appearing. More and more of the people complaining about pronouns are starting to appear with the mouse icon and saying "oh well... it´s optional".

It´s crytal clear we have another BG3 and KCD2 in our hands, meaning the grift didn´t work, people are playing the game, buying it, and enjoying it. Another success for Obsidian and they are still developing The outerworlds 2, looks like this is a good year for them, cope :)

Don´t worry though tourist, pretty sure in a few days any of your grifters youtubers will tell you where to move on next, but here? you are already irrelevant.

Your arguments is equal of your real interest in games. Is zero.
If my beloved company made a pile of crap, i will be honest to call it exactly what it is. Is pain for me to see whats happens, and you are wrong, if you thinking im wish something bad to Obsidian.

[Nikonos]

Originally posted by Fluff Puff:

If my beloved company made a pile of crap, i will be honest to call it exactly what it is.

That is exactly what real gamers and true fans do.

[Sugram22]

when we discard the bugs Outer Worlds is better then this, he explains why and how (i remember it was somewhere in the video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpo4EqhF-Fk
but i can point out some points, if u want u can steal and kill any1, there is possibility of inner turmoil (not the case in avowed, avowed tries hard to be vailguard in few areas), so they can leave u if u go 2far, it doesn't hold ur hand vailguard stile like in avowed, its half of what outer worlds is despite being bigger then outer

this game is at best worth 20-30 bucks, i would get it with 5-10