Avowed

This game has been released for over a year and still causes constant shader compilation-related crashes. This has only been an issue on Windows 11 running on my AMD Ryzen 5700X3D/RTX 4080 rig. I've experienced zero crashes on my living room Bazzite PC, running on an AMD Ryzen 5600X and Radeon 9070XT. I can't recommend this for anyone running a Windows OS.

This game is aggressively mediocre. Not truly bad maybe, but also not worth your time or money. It does nothing really well, nothing is memorable. Not even in the areas, obsidian used to shine in. If there where bandit camps and map towers, you could mistake this for an ubisoft game

Лучшая рпг от первого лица со времен skyrim

What the hell happened here? I've just finished a really enjoyable playthrough of PoE 1 and 2, and now playing Avowed feels like slogging through something outsourced to a third-party studio. The writing would be subpar for any other developer, but coming from Obsidian, it's downright abysmal. Dialogues are full of MCU-like quips and it seems most people you meet (companions and NPCs alike) are always playfully sardonic regardless of who they're speaking to or how grave their situation is. Even leaving quippiness aside, people in the Living Lands have the mannerisms of 30 year old redditors from L.A., not of colonists eking out a living in a supernaturally deadly frontier in a 16th century analogue. Avowed seems like it takes place in a different Eora from Pillars of Eternity I (and even II), with PoE 1's attempts at depth, groundedness, melancholy, and grittiness completely gone. Speaking of groundedness, I'm not a fan of Avowed's atmosphere. The environments are ultra-colorful, vibrant, shiny, and completely different from what I'd expect from the PoE setting (even considering the Living Lands' distinct quirks). It is closer to Outer Worlds or Borderlands than anything else. I don't mind evocative and fantastical landscapes - e.g. Tainted Grail was fantastic in that regard! - but here the aesthetic just seems haphazard, kitschy, and out of place. On a technical level, the graphics look good but are very unoptimized for their level of fidelity and the game runs worse than much better looking products. Gameplay-wise, Avowed is not good so far. Playing on Path of the Damned, the combat is not at all hard, but the progression mechanics are supremely annoying. Player skill and character talents are largely secondary behind equipment upgrades, which determine most of your character's combat performance. Continuously having to upgrade my same old equipment feels like the grinding of Berath's Wheel itself, as if I'm playing some sort of engagement-baiting crafting/survival game rather than an open-world RPG focused on finding interesting and diverse loot. Instead of being a way to keep using one's favorite weapons throughout the game, or to tweak gameplay styles, or to break the game by crafting ridiculous items/echantments, the crafting mechanics here are an MMO-like progression blocker. Ultimately, I have to wonder what Avowed's claim to fame even is. It lacks the freedom and exploration of Elder Scrolls games, it lacks the well-written story of Obsidian games, it lacks the combat of e.g. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, it lacks the immersiveness and cinematic charm of KCD, and its 'vibes' do not appeal to me at all. Maybe the point is to have a good all-rounder that does not revolutionize any one aspect but does a bunch of things well? Even in that regard, Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon blows Avowed out of the water, unfortunately. Avowed really makes me worry that Obsidian is going down the Bioware route, cementing a fear has slowly been building up since 2018. I'll say one good thing, and that is that blowing xaurips away with a flintlock feels very good on a primal level. Also, the music is nice! 6/10. I'll update this review if my opinion changes as I play more.

Boring after the first 2 acts.

Ни одна игра от Obsidian, кроме South Park, не заслуживает положительного отзыва. Конкретно этот кусок сжв-кала интересен и играбелен только из-за крутого сеттинга и бодрой боевки. Да и других игр такого масштаба с магией и средневековым вайбом сейчас просто не выходит. Цена завышена раз в пять. Это как купить Genshin Impact, только с персонажами из Starfield. Советую сначала пройти версию из зеленого магазина, как я сам и сделал.

constant crashing

Mediocre RPG with a lot of diversity. Your first companion is gay, almost all military leaders are women and 70% of characters are black. This doesn't affect the gameplay though, so let's get to that: Fighting is pretty cool (I played as a fighter with sword & shield). Opponent variability could be higher. 20 hours in and there is like 6 different kinds of enemies. The weapon system is pretty plain also. There is 3 kinds of ranged weapons, 4 kinds of one-handed weapons and 3 kinds of 2 handed weapons + magic. All weapons appear in different rarities and enchantments. So magic seems like the way to go. In the beginning I tried to follow the story and diaglog, but the NPCs and your companions talk an abhorrent amount. Also you have to make like 20 dialog choices per interaction most of which don't affect the outcome at all. This really makes the game feel like a drag and made me lose all interest in the story. As far as I was following the story: As soon as you leave the court of the emporer 75% of your dialog options are thrashing the emperor (even though your backstory includes him saving your life). Also your people are disliked in the living lands. So 75% of your dialog options are derogatory towards your own herritage(?). Virtually all characters of your herritage are flawed and portraied as evil or incompetent (often by their own countrymen). All in all a leftwing fewerdream of a story. Eldenring is better in every way except if you want an easier game

No listed notice that enemies only respawn in select areas. forced to have a companion. Choppy FPS Enemy respawn signifies, it's on. not, limited. all or nothing. also no notice of forced companions, why bother with a bow build. no challenge, when companion just aggros everything. No option, no choice, to get rid of, Companion. Of course, once you find out about that. you have to use gold to reset build, or restart, game. heaven forfend enemy respawn is, done, correct. A setting for turning it "on" but keeping it, limited. Is disingenuous and a misrepresentation. If the User desires to build levels. Let them, "but it's not balanced". then you're max, and game is over. or NG+ only to do it all over, again. so gotta do NG+ to benefit. by repeating, everything. Instead of, doing so, to begin with When someone notices a feature, Respawn, On. Reasonably, what can they expect? Unless Patch Notes become required reading at, every launch. Because by the time they realize On *really* doesn't mean, on. "Technically" The 2 hour window, has, passed

It's good, not outstanding, but solid in what it does. Full AAA price is a bit much - for the 40 Euros I paid, it is absolutely worth it. Combat and exploring are really fun, the world is beautiful. Just don't expect deep systems and interactivity - it's a nice setting for exploration and combat - not more, not less. I think that's fine. I liked the main story well enough, but side stories/quests and compagnions were rather uninteresting for the most part, and - unfornunately - way to chatty. I guess there is a lot more in it for anyone familiar with the Pillars of Eternity lore, but I think they could have saved on the amount of writing and voice acting they put in the game and instead focussed even more on combat, especially with greater enemy variaty. All in all, the game was better than I expected it to be and I would recommend.