Avowed is quickly shaping up to be Xbox’s first big hitter in 2025, and a major landmark for RPG fans. While developer Obsidian Entertainment have released great games since they were bought by Microsoft back in 2018, those of us who have adored the studio since Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout: New Vegas, and Pillars of Eternity have been desperate to see what the studio could accomplish with a full-on Xbox exclusive RPG, and with all the blockbuster power that comes with it.
It goes without saying that when we got the call to visit Obsidian Entertainment HQ in Irvine, California, we jumped at the opportunity to neglect the sunshine and instead stay indoors pouring over every facet of Avowed available to us. That means talking to the great RPG developers responsible for this rather unique and funky fungal take on the genre, and, of course, spending many hours with the opening of the game. We get into it all, from getting started with questing, meeting the companions, the combat, and more – all while discussing it all with the many individual developers that have been crafting it.
Despite the Skyrim comparisons, Avowed is an Obsidian RPG first and foremost: “Let’s bring in all the greatest hits”: Simply put, Avowed is Obsidian Entertainment at its best. It’s not just an epic new RPG, but one that feels truly like a culmination of everything the developer has wowed us with through the years. This feels like an RPG that only this team could make, at this moment. We unpack everything that happened in our visit to the dev’s offices as we speak to the team about the long road to building this pivotal RPG, as well as getting into the nitty gritty of what we got to play while we were visiting!
The ten things we love about Avowed: After spending hours with the opening of the game and trying different builds and approaches, Avowed is an RPG that really puts its best put forward to get you into the action and have a taste of everything as quickly as possible. Which also means several elements have already jumped out to impress us. Watch us cut about the Dawnshore ourselves as we get to grips, showing you all the little things we love already from the characters to the types of gear we use. We’ve also loved chatting with the party so far, even if you can’t romance them.
Avowed’s Kai, who shares a voice actor with Mass Effect’s Garrus, has me hooked on the RPG after only 3 hours: It’s true that you can’t romance companions in Avowed – it’s just not that kind of game. But that also can’t stop us from loving the characters in our own way. While it’s early days yet and we’ve not properly spent time with most of the cast, we’ve already become quite charmed by Kai, a merman-like Coastal Aunauma who guides you through Dawnshore, the first area you come to within The Living Lands. It certainly helps that Kai is voiced by Brandon Keener (Garrus Vakarian from Mass Effect). Either way, already becoming obsessed with spending time with just our first permanent companion is a great sign for the party to come.
Avowed might look like Skyrim, but its director says Obsidian’s new fantasy RPG is actually much closer to The Outer Worlds than anything from Bethesda: Talking again to game director Carrie Patel, we discuss how the studio’s own identity is coming through in Avowed. For as much as attempts to pigeon-hole it have been made, there’s a strong throughline from Obsidian’s prior work and their latest RPG as you might expect. “You’ve still got a variety of styles of content, and certainly plenty of humor and levity that is largely character-based,” says Patel.
Avowed dev channels Baldur’s Gate 3 by admitting that “the core of RPGs is missable content” that most players might not ever see: We chat with region director and senior area designer, Berto Ritger, about crafting a huge world made to quest in. Games like Avowed need to both make the most of what they build, while also having ample room to make players feel like they’re discovering new ground.