Avowed

very nice

Obsidian does solid work. No reason to go back to 15 year old Skyrim with Avowed around.

Good

Are the fighting and jumping mechanics clunky? Sure. Is the story mid, but still interesting enough to listen? Absolutely. Good enough for me.

This game is Dying Light meets Baldur’s Gate - a combination I can imagine nobody thought of, but is actually kind of genius. This game is a 10/10 at its best, but at its worst, it can be incredibly frustrating. I will start with the good because, despite how much I will be ranting at the end, I do believe the good outweighs the bad. A note to get out of the way: One thing that people make a mistake with when buying this game is expecting it to be like Skyrim. It is very much NOT like Skyrim, but I don’t see that as a fault. Do not expect Skyrim, because the only thing this game has in common with that one is the fantasy setting. Graphically speaking, it isn’t one of the best looking games of this decade, but there are some gorgeous views in this game. It’s not cutting edge, but it’s stylized in a way that feels timeless enough that I can imagine myself playing this game in 20 years and still finding it pretty. The music is also on point, albeit not outstanding. I consider the story and the characters to be very good. I have not finished the game yet, but so far I have been gripped. It doesn’t hold its punches either - there are genuine consequences, both preventable and not, and the world will be changed by the player’s hand. There are even some side quests that hit hard. The only unfortunate thing is that you can’t roleplay your character like you’d expect from an RPG. For example, [spoiler]there is a quest where you may choose to blow up some ancient ruins, special ruins that likely contain information lost to time forever. One character, a scholar of these ruins, is upset by this. There is no option at all to understand this character’s point of view despite her having a good point. You just have to be an ass to her about it. My character is a scholarly rogue and would understand the value of what was lost, so why can’t she just say that?[/spoiler] There are several instances like this, including in the main quest, but almost all of them are in the latter two sections of the game. There are only ever 3 or 4 options to respond with, and sometimes that isn’t enough to make my character act the way she would. As for the characters, particularly the companions, they are equally as interesting. There has yet to be a companion I do not like, and every one of them is unique and likable. It’s good to see devs that understand followers are nothing if they aren’t good company. Especially in this game, because they are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in combat. As for the gameplay, here is where it gets a little weaker. One annoying thing is that enemies, which almost all have ranged attacks, can hit you from a mile away. The player, though? You're beholden to range. And, in case it didn't seem bad enough, the "difficulty" is via bullet sponges alone. They get more health and more damage, that's it. Otherwise, no issues with the intended combat - the gameplay is solid and fun when it works the way it's meant to. The issue is that it frequently does not. Parkouring around a bandit den popping heads with my blunderbuss feels incredible when nothing goes wrong, but I'd wager ~20-30% of the time, there's some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. These bugs don't get me killed, but sometimes they do. Since the combat is trivial (on medium difficulty), I've died more to bugs than I have combat. Sometimes, a vital shot is a blank, or I dodge when I want to jump and plummet to my death, or the physics glitched out and sent me off a ledge. Here's a list of the most atrocious bugs in the game, still unpatched as of July 2026: - Sometimes, the guns don't work. This is the worst bug in the game. Anyways, DO NOT BUY IZMALT'S METEORIC APPARATUS IN HIGHBORN. This gun, for whatever reason, experiences this bug constantly. It's unusable. The dodge and the jump mechanics are both tied to the space key. This makes sense, but the game is a little finicky. This would be fine if there weren't a lot of dicey parkour bits in cliffsides, high towers, ravines, etc. that result in your ankles being relocated to your lung cavity if you miss a jump. It goes in reverse too - in combat, sometimes you jump instead of dodge and get smacked for it. - Sometimes, your character just stops. Like, dead in your tracks. It takes a second or so to get moving again and it happens at both opportune times and inopportune ones. I do not doubt that this can happen midair, and I pray it never does. I'm going to flag this as a "possibly my fault" bug since I haven't tried it out with a different keyboard or controller, but it doesn't happen in other games. - The game is unoptimized as ♥♥♥♥ and there is no sweet way to put that. I spent the first 5 hours messing around with my settings until I reached a perfect balance, and I get frame drops and stutters near constantly. My PC ran Cyberpunk 2077 perfectly fine on high, but most of my graphical settings are on low or medium and this game still ♥♥♥♥♥ itself when launched. The loading screens in particular are long, sometimes reaching up to 5 minutes. I have changed my playstyle to avoid load doors for as long as possible. HOWEVER, in all my playtime, I've only crashed once, so good job Obsidian. - Some quests are simply bugged. There is one quest that is a mix of bugginess and bad quest design, causing it to be one of the most infuriating quests in video games, for me. If you have played the quest, you know exactly which one, so no need for spoilers. Just know going in that some side quests are going to have resolutions that piss you off. Aside from the bugs, the game also has some balancing issues. One of the issues that haunted my playthrough was how you’re punished based on playstyle. Some weapon types are better than others, meaning if you want to optimize your build, you’re going to be using a two-handed weapon. The sad part is that two-handed is, in my opinion, boring and limited in skill expression compared to others. I consider the best gameplay in the game to be pistols, but the issue is that pistols don’t have much going for them. They have low damage and are slow to reload and you don’t get to choose when to reload. The game also seems to be aware that the best way to play is two-handed, because the ratio of two-handed legendary weapons to any other type of weapon is absurd. Guns and grimoires legendaries are particularly rare - I’ve only found one of each. Wands are also rare to find legendary variants of, but less so than others. Shields and one handed weapons are common. My final gripe is one that may be a pro to you, but here it is: I get decision paralysis from this game like crazy because it’s constant sensory overload. I’m the kind of person to recheck every corner thrice, which makes this game take a long time to get through. Every corner and crevice has something crammed in it. The game is a maze, there isn’t a linear path anywhere. Dungeons don’t telegraph which route is the way forward or which route is a treasure, so if I go through one, I will almost always go allllll the way back, and go through the other path to see if it’s a treasure. Half the time, this is a different route, and the other half, it’s a legendary artifact that anyone would hate to miss. It’s just obnoxious. It’s not like a yellow paint game either, you can’t tell by looking which jumps are treasure, since they’re meant to be hidden. TLDR: This game could have been a 10/10 if it had more time in the oven. What we got was enjoyable, but there are too many instances of annoyance to justify that rating. The bugs, balance issues, and optimization issues lose it probably 1.5 for me, down to a 8.5/10. I wish Obsidian took their time and I wish the wallets at Microsoft shut their mouths and let Obsidian take the time they needed. I don’t blame the devs one bit for the shortcomings of the game. The influence of the moneybags should end at funding, they shouldn’t get a say in when the game releases. This one needed another few months. Also, the game is woke, which is based.

Avowed may not be the next large scale open world Skyrim killer people were hoping for, but it's still a fun adventure at a more manageable size. If you're looking for 30 plus hours of exploration, enjoyable combat, and lengthy dialog trees then I'd recommend giving this game a try. Pick it up on sale and I doubt you'll be disappointed with the quest that's laid out before you.

love it

I liked it. Other than the long “voice” talks. DLC would be nice.

its goofy in the best way TES4 vibes

I am a die hard Morrowind fan. This is close, as close as you can get to the Morrowind experience.