Earlier this year, Avowed made its way over to the PlayStation 5 as part of Microsoft’s continued push to a fully multiplatform strategy. Amidst this lineup of Xbox Games Studios titles now on PS5 – which has included hits such as Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon 5, and even Gears of War – Obsidian’s fantasy action RPG stands out with its distinct Elder Scrolls vibe, albeit set in a more vibrant world that ties into the Pillars of Eternity universe.
For those who don’t remember, Pillars was independently developed by Obsidian and crowdfunded via Kickstarter. It was a huge hit for the studio, part of a resurgent CRPG subgenre that once dominated the PC gaming space in the late 90s and early 00s, before the advent of heavy hitters such as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Witcher made the jump to a more action oriented style.
You don’t need to have played Pillars of Eternity, or its sequel Deadfire, to understand what’s going on in Avowed, though there are naturally references to people and places that exist within this rich fantasy realm. As an Envoy of the Aedyran Empire, you are sent to the Living Lands to investigate a spiritual plague known as the Dreamscourge that mimics The Last of Us and its love of fungal mutations. Despite there being an existential threat on the horizon, Avowed’s story is a slow burn. Upon laying anchor at the main city of Paradis, the narrative quickly shifts focus to highlight the tensions that exist between its native conquered peoples and the influx of Aedyran settlers.
In true Obsidian fashion, Avowed wastes no time in conjuring up a compelling cast of characters that includes a core cast of companions and antagonists, as well as a patchwork of memorable quest givers. The aforementioned companions are a key part of the overall experience, aiding the Envoy in combat, exchanging banter, and weighing in at certain junctures of the game’s story. It helps that the voice acting here is top notch with your first companion – Kai – being portrayed by Brandon Keener, Mass Effect’s Garrus Vakarian.
Speaking of Mass Effect, there’s definitely some crossover with BioWare’s landmark RPG series when it comes to combat, too. Players can have two active companions at any time, popping up a radial menu during skirmishes to activate their allies’ abilities on specific targets. However, instead of plasma rifles, tech implants, and biotics, Avowed allows you to master an arsenal of fantasy melee and ranged weapons, as well as arcane powers.
There’s a surprising amount of flexibility, mainly driven by the game’s dual loadout system. With the press of a button, you can switch between your two equipped weapons sets, clutching a wand and grimoire one second before brandishing a giant greatsword the next. By mixing various accessories and pieces of armour, you can tailor your own playstyle though, ultimately, this will be influenced by how you choose to spend Avowed’s finite attribute and skill points.
The similarities to The Elder Scrolls are abundent, but there are also some crucial differences. Avowed’s game world is fairly big, but it isn’t as sprawling as say, Skyrim, or Cyrodiil, nor is it loaded with as many side quests. That’s far from a bad thing, ensuring that players don’t feel too bogged down or overwhelmed, providing just enough distractions while keeping the attention focused on the main story.
Exploration and traversal are two areas where Avowed evolves that Elder Scrolls-like RPG template. There are other aforementioned games, like Mass Effect and The Witcher, which feel flat when it comes to level design. Here, environments offer a lot more interactivity as you vault and climb obstacles, with verticality also influencing combat encounters. There’s even a small amount of platforming, and light spell-based puzzling – one common example is frost magic to form temporary icebergs to bridge a gap and reach a treasure chest. While not terribly advanced, Avowed’s exploration gameplay feels rewarding and we’d be surprised if The Elder Scrolls 6 didn’t offer something similar.
There are other smarts touches and features we’d like to see more widely adopted across the genre. For many years now, the codex has been an in-game staple for RPGs, giving players a handy database where they can read through a veritable database of lore entries. Avowed takes a more intuitive approach to this, allowing you to pop up an overlay during cutscenes and dialogue. This menu will cherry-pick a shortlist of codex pages that are relevant in that exact moment, detailing any key characters, factions, or concepts mentioned in the conversation. It’s a fairly straightforward feature though one that is immensely helpful, especially for those players who are juggling multiple games and need a refresher on certain story elements upon returning to the Living Lands.
It’s quirks such as these that keep us coming back to Avowed, demonstrating Obsidian’s mastery of the RPG genre. Delving into the game’s menus, you’ll also find a whole host of elements which can be customised to suit your exact requirements beyond a simple difficulty slider and handful of accessibility options. For example, completionists can opt to have loot and collectibles appear on the mini-map if they wish, while the more hardcore crowd may want to scale this back.
On a technical level, there’s not much to note between the Xbox Series X and PS5. The real difference for those that dove in last year comes with the Anniversary Update, which is available across all platforms. This added some new races to play as, made some quality of life improvements such as nuanced difficulty adjustments, and introduced a New Game + mode to reward replaying the game.
Avowed, like so many Xbox Games Studios titles, deserves more attention. It’s incredible to think that it was one of three games released by Obsidian in 2025 while some of Sony’s own first party studios struggle to release more than one big game per console generation. While there is room for Avowed to expand and improve through further sequels, nothing about the game feels hemmed in or constrained by the fact that its developers were juggling multiple big projects. With Xbox still struggling to reestablish its footing with core franchises like Gears and Halo, Obsidian has been doing much of the heavy lifting and, in hindsight, was probably one of Microsoft’s smartest acquisitions to date.
