Avowed: "Everything Woke Turns To S***" Obsidian Edition

[Kindred Spirit]

Avowed is the example of what happens when devs are too busy on The Message they're not focusing on making anything good. The jank might be tolerable if the storyline and narrative qualities were tolerable, but it's not. There's a good idea for a Skyrim mod or three in here like with spellcasting books adding a casting hotbar, but nothing worthwhile for a whole game. Even the progression isn't really open world, it's a sequence of four map locations you go through in order.

"Remember Pillars of Eternity?"

This review is courtesy of the PoE fans in the family bankrolling the purchase because they still had some faith in Obsidian that the company hadn't crushed, and I was all too willing to watch them get kicked like puppies because they didn't heed my warnings. And then I get to review it in full.

That's now three people fully done with everything Obsidian until the company can prove they've not become overhyped garbage.

The main premise behind Avowed sounds great, and should have fit in with PoE lore nicely, but the main problem is that there's often too much California Politics in the game given a quick coat of paint that there's actually very little Pillars of Eternity lore when you scratch beyond the surface.

There ARE some good bits that stand out, but compared to PoE and PoE2... you can safely pass this one by, as it truly earns the nickname "Dollar Tree Forgotten Realms".

"Remember Ultima?"

We got this instead of another actual Pillars of Eternity game? Why?

This is garbage. I originally stated that it was on the Two Worlds II side of The Outer Worlds. I was wrong. Avowed is the Ultima IX for the Pillars of Eternity franchise.

Yes, it even feels like it needs to explain "What's a paladin?"

RPG Design:

"Remember Alpha Protocol?"

Obsidian obviously doesn't.
Don't even begin to compare old Obsidian with this, it hurts.
The design here is much worse than The Outer Worlds.

I don't need them, but those with bad direction sense will definitely notice the lack of dungeon maps.

You progress linearly from zone to zone, with backtracking allowed, through four zones. Each zone has one story-critical event that you need to do for supporting your choice between Right and Wrong, as this game likes to portray without any nuance. If you don't do the thing then you'll get a worse ending slideshow outcome for that region, with some supporting dialog for your choice, but that is all.

That's right: for having non-binary choices in character creation the actual RPG choices are binary Fascism or Bleeding Heart. And that's the ending in a nutshell with a mushroom growing out from it.

There, I spoiled it for you. The bit with the mushrooms is just a minor McGuffin in comparison, especially to how the NPCs react to it, and you, as Imperial Envoy sent to investigate it. After a while they seem to just forget your face has anything on it. That's because there is no twist, because the game keeps beating you over the head with the themes standing out from the rest, which is bad.

Avowed is basically Message of Environmentalism given a clumsy Anti-Colonialism wrapper, and that's about as far as the RPG design bothers to try supporting, as does the writing support for the larger lore in PoE's world.

Basically, Obsidian spent millions of dollars to re-create South Park's Rainforest Shmainforest as a video game, just added in Dollar Tree Stormtroopers and Ewoks.

Combat:

"Remember Dark Messiah of Might & Magic?"

The magic is the best part, mainly because the rest is garbage since the rest of the game's design doesn't make any decent use of them aside from rare Kool-Aid Man "Oh YEEEEEAAAAAH!" moments.

Avowed stole a few ideas from games that had better-developed RPG systems than this, including conveniently-placed traps. I'm going to include Dark Messiah of Might & Magic on that, because it had functional NPCs and environments almost 20 years before this turkey could fail doing the same.

Oh yes, this game's world is so jank it's unbelievable. See a bunch of graverobbers up ahead? You have to go up to them and talk to them to initiate combat, because otherwise any attacks will go right through them. Conversation does nothing but allows you to intimidate one of the graverobbers away - a commonly-repeated theme it's supposed to pass for a pacifist option.

Which there is NONE because there are bosses, even for stealth/range builds - except when the plot says so for the first act. Yes, we're back to that episode of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Enjoy your MMO kiting combat as ranged, sucker. While you do get a dedicated grenade hotkey, you can't even set mines.

If it weren't for the ability to easily respec it would be even more easy to make a trapped character in Avowed's system. In some places, you might have to in order to bypass bad design the game forces on you.

How ironic.

World Design:

"Remember Fallout?" OR "F*** YOU."

That is the statement sent to players by this MMO quest placing in bad parkour. There is no other way to state that the player is actively hated by those who designed this game. At first, the idea of more vertical level design appeals that there's going to be some decent levels of some complexity and variety, inspired by the locations offering some potential.

Hahahaha, no. Potential wasted. It's all to hide treasures you find by tingle sounds, and for some progression-fencing, but for the most part it just sucks. It's taking the bad parts of what Bethesda did to Fallout and actively making them worse and consoletarded. You'll often go from the design newbie's crutch of invisible walls to sudden death cliffs, or voids you have to reload out from. Obsidian should have designed the levels right instead of leaving that uncanny valley of random jumping garbage wearing out everyone's F8 to reload.

See why I mean the devs hate you? This is some console platformer garbage from 15-20 years ago, not the prestigious RPG design we're supposed to consider Obsidian to still have.

There is some quick travel points but there's so much running around you'll still want to carry a +movement speed set around just to skip the bad level designs made that way to feature the bad parkour. All it did is make the bad parkour even worse.

This is certainly no immersive sim and doesn't even try to be even close to The Outer Worlds for design, with NPCs being static objects who can't react to a crime or... anything.

Instead of trying for any FANTASY creativity, Avowed continues to laziness of Obsidian's writers in crafting their allegories with the hamfisting of just making POC Italian with Italian names, language, and accents. They had a chance to make it right here, but didn't. "Do better." as they say.

This world is dead as the souls of the developers who churned it out via ironic corporate mediocrity...

Art:

...and it looks that way, too. Everything in this world is so washed-out and bland that it hurts on default settings, and one of the rare games you'll have to darken because the art direction was obviously work-from-home and phoned it in. On a rotary phone.


Music:

Mostly noodling mediocrity that could be replaced by AI, and probably was.
Obsidian probably discovered it when someone Googled for a sleep aid, because that has been the biggest threat to the family's continued journey through creative banality.

If putting people to sleep was this game's goal, Mission Accomplished.


Pride Representation:

It's not offensively vulgar, it's also not turned into some Pull a Barv or Coming Out At Dinner scene played seriously. There are NO romances, thankfully.

There's Kai, a bit of a catty gay fish, but he's actually okay for most of the references and quips he makes. A lot of other NPCs are some gay queen caricatures, they've just made me laugh a bit, like the furry warning you to not go into a gang area. Nothing offensive, just... a bit silly-seeming, at times, since Tycg is supposed to be married and is standing like that, ready to do the hand thing and complete the teapot.

TL;DR:

Basically, if you can't go for a moment in your life without living in California Politics or you'll die from withdrawal, this game is quite safe for you.

This is not a good direction for Obsidian, especially if they want anyone to have any hope for the state of The Outer Worlds 2.

Is TOW2 going to be this BS parkour in lieu of RPG design basics, too?

[Kindred Spirit]

Like clockwork, one of those in charge of the game are deciding to scuttle it before release, and it just so happens to be the toxic lovelies Avellone was talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig3iqR9-ZP4

Avowed art director Matt Hansen wants to make Elon Musk mad and hints the game is "ultra woke". Or as the dude calls himself "art daddy". (Someone check his hard drive.)

Yes, you'll definitely make someone mad by making a piece of shit that doesn't sell worth a damn, seeing only two small DLCs like The Outer Worlds, ending in Obsidian laying off entire teams because Obsidian's already at that point. This is one of those "fails upwards because they're filling the empty boots of people they've stabbed in the back" kind of stories, where someone goes from concept artist for Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire to an art director on a whole game.

Isn't it great for activists to waste other people's money on shit to threaten the future employment of everyone at the company?

I mean just LOL: https://steamcharts.com/cmp/578650,22380#All

[PresenceOfMind]

Obsidian forum, they are deleting threads talking about woke content in avowed. I say boycott it.

[gromenawer]

Dev is racist against white people: https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/1h0wj88/avowed_art_director_says_the_quiet_part_out_loud/

I think this should be before/above pronouns in the negative review

[Kindred Spirit]

"Art daddy" with a self-hating white guilt fetish to go along with his white savior complex.

Of course he's ok with anti-white racism, he gets off on being publicly flogged.

[d3adf1sh]

was just watching endymion's video from today and this looks like it's gonna be just as bad as Dragon Age with the wokeness and pronouns and a soy junkie as lead dev, what really sucks is they basically already won because they are part of Gayme Pass so they've already been paid for their work.

i personally don't subscribe to any the "rental" services, but if you do have a gayme pass subscription it wouldn't hurt to cancel it and tell them the reason why, because they supporting and pushing this woke trash. (maybe even throw in there that you don't want your kids exposed to that kind of stuff?) but it wouldn't surprise me if it came out that microsoft encouraged more DEI in the game, i mean obsidian is owned by MS now and we've know they've been promoting wokeness in their company.

but it would be funny if sony wised up after seeing how well Stellar Blade did and how bad concord failed that they actually started pushing things back in a based direction, to where the next console war could be something like BasedStation vs MxBox. but only time will tell, me i'll just be sticking to PC as usual. but if it does end up that way my money would be on sony being the dominant console again next generation.

[Kindred Spirit]

When your X meltdown gets picked up by everyone and your company's parent company is publicly notified you're doing illegal shit by Elon Musk...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEzS6sLZzm0

What's that thing they say? It's just a video game, dude. Not worth ruining your career over.

This will definitely help the game sell. Not.

[乱馬 インバース]

'member New Vegas?
Yeah, I don't either.

[Kindred Spirit]

Dude deleted his X/Twitter because he was now a walking actionable liability for his studio's parent company.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3PThTCtnBY

Pity it was all archived, though!

[乱馬 インバース]

Originally posted by Chief Redpill:

his X/Twitter

Hey, now. The correct pronunciation is Xitter ("Zitter"). Also, amazing to see Chris Avellone fighting/pushing back in full force now. He really needs to rip them all a totally new one.

[Kindred Spirit]

Originally posted by Kawayol:

Originally posted by Chief Redpill:

his X/Twitter

Hey, now. The correct pronunciation is Xitter ("Zitter"). Also, amazing to see Chris Avellone fighting/pushing back in full force now. He really needs to tear them all a totally new one.

I've known Chris for a while, ever since I've bopped around Irvine doing some work. Then I GTFO'd from the Waste Coast but kept in touch. He is guilty of being a guy and not what he was accused of. The industry has lost his talent and others like him from the Chilling Effect his persecution caused, and he has been one of the better playtest-designers around. He can go through someone else's design, in Fallout: New Vegas' case JE Sawyer's, and point out imbalances and flaws and be really fucking thorough about it without any hard feelings.

And if you're lucky, he'll even doodle a cartoon of what he would think works better in the margin of the design doc you handed for him to review.

[Kindred Spirit]

Thread updated with some new info about the character creator, which seems to be BG3-level respectful. I'll update with more info, or check out any details people want to have looked in the game.

So far, as said in media, no romances or anything like that. Obsidian seem to have avoided the BioWare mistakes altogether.

Official reviewers seem to be told to hide jank in later areas, will add more if seen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OQaVPH7njE

[Kindred Spirit]

Big jank - all those who were trying to say "it's just like Outer Worlds!" are full of it, because in Outer Worlds you can discreetly kill off characters or even wipe out an entire settlement and the game would respond. Here? The usual "F5 Fuck You F8 Resume" to annoying characters, like the mayor of Edgewater, is gone.

NPCs are hard invuln to the point attacks go right through them.

In some ways, this is closer to Two Worlds 2 than Skyrim or Outer Worlds. But it does have some polish where it would matter, like with combat. I'm liking the mix of combat skills so far, offering some fun combinations to freeze an enemy, charge in and possibly smash them into ice shards, and then follow up with more spells or a pistol shot.

And of course because that seems all that Obsidian can write about anymore, anti-colonialism themes. Can't have a [current year] Obsidian game without anti-colonialism themes. It seems lately in modern writing you can't have more than one location without one colonialisming another, as if the target core audience of ungrateful yuppie larvae miss hearing that all the time from their college days (and they still expect us to pay their student loans for them).

I also wonder if the art director has something wrong with his eyes, or this is how he's expressing his hate for the rest of the world besides himself. Forget his tweets, this is the true crime against humanity.


GOOD
Speech options - they have plenty of different text options for character backgrounds, with numerous skill checks in speech
Conversation options and skill checks allow you to sway characters to your side in fights or to just run away from their "boss"
Combat has some fun combinations
The trade window is MUCH better than Skyrim's (but that's not difficult because Skyrim's is legendarily bad for causing exploits in the silliest of ways)
They tried for verticality in level design for parkour and climbing for secrets

BAD
The art director is probably going to try pastels in his next game if he thinks this is going to do anything but be meme'd on.
Obsidian still dresses their NPCs funny, especially the Aumaua. Since they're paying for an art director he can do his job here, too.

JANK
Every passive NPC has a non-contact order with every attack you try. It simply goes right through them.
There doesn't appear to be a crime system AT ALL - it's possible so far to take everything that isn't nailed down

COOL
Gun Mage - this is actually pretty fun if the art direction doesn't make your eyes bleed

LGBTQIA2SHDTV+
No romances, so that reigns things in a LOT
I've tried many of the obvious "flirting" lines and they go into more info instead of anything more

Kai (aqua-scaled companion) will make some mild gay innuendo jokes in response to a couple of attackers threatening you (Brentis and Pod). This is only encountered by selecting "Do we have a problem?" at any point in the encounter.
Brentis: "We have a problem alright, and I have the solution tucked in my sheath."
Kai: "Unless you're hearing that from a handsome stranger in the bathhouse, that's usually an invitation to trouble."
Kai: "And not as fun as the kind you get in the steam."
It's entirely skippable as they are meant to die, so that's quite a statement for imagery, there.

[d3adf1sh]

https://youtu.be/pyCy2a7h_4Q
Obsidian is Fallen - Lotus Eaters Daily (youtube) 12min

[Kindred Spirit]

Obsidian definitely cheaped out by hitting Randomize on the character generator instead of having an art director with a clue. Having someone with a sense of fashion or even clothing design for your fantasy setting becomes incredibly necessary in first-person view, because holy shit it's a fugly clownshow so far. The DEI hire bandits looked normal by comparison to the poor lizard-people turned into broccoli, then dressed by the blind with no sense of color matching or compliments.

After having played Avowed...
I'm going to agree with Matt Hansen: Please, ANYONE replace him.

This shit is UGLY.

[REBirthTheEdge]

Obsidian hasn't been good since Fallout New Vegas.
I think that's all Chris Avellone.