Avowed

[radiofloyd]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-07-23-obsidian-reveals-avowed-a-first-person-rpg-set-in-the-pillars-of-eternity-world

 

First-person rpg set in the world of Pillars of Eternity. Not to be confused with the point and click adventure game Unavowed...

[mmmark]

This runs the huge risk of people calling it Avoid. We’ll probably have to wait 3 years to find out. 

[radiofloyd]

https://www.eurogamer.net/brand-new-avowed-footage-shown-at-xbox-games-showcase
 

More info about the game here:

https://www.pcgamer.com/avowed-rpg-obsidian-preview-magic-interview/

 

[mmmark]

On 24/07/2020 at 01:18, mmmark said:

This runs the huge risk of people calling it Avoid. We’ll probably have to wait 3 years to find out. 

 

I was 1 year out

[DANGERMAN]

It looks different in tone to that original reveal but I thought it looked pretty good. More of an action Skyrim 

[mmmark]

 

[radiofloyd]

Looks like a safe bet to be good. Just gives 8/10 vibes as of right now though. 

[one-armed dwarf]

To be honest, call it a reductive hot take but it looks super average and derivative to me. I'd like to be wrong though but there's nothing here that seems new post-2011

 

But can't help but think of the unfortunate timing, in that they make a game of this style when people are pretty burned out on this particular first person loot-em-up template post Fallout 4/Starfield. Meanwhile isometric RPG is pretty hot right now and a traditional Pillars 3 might have had some more success

[HandsomeDead]

I think if they meaningfully pull off "it's fantasy New Vegas" they might get interest but it's hard to show that and might require some post release word of mouth.

[Maf]

I’m with Dwarf on this one and will go a step further and say the game looks garbage. It’s also never made sense to me why you would have a Skyrim game when you own the Skyrim studio, just had Skyrim in space, have Skyrim online active, and have Skyrim 2 coming down the pipe. It’s along way down the pipe, but still.

 

Maybe it’s just what the developers want to make, which if so glad they have their freedom. Maybe there’s a twist to it somewhere and when it comes out it’s fun. I want to give it the benefit of the doubt.

 

But after the big gameplay reveal yesterday I’m super sceptical and has left my interest very low. 

[HandsomeDead]

Considering how Cyberpunk and Starfield's gameplay trailers shown a game that looks like it's Titanfall or something by presenting it's combat in a way that isn't representative of what 99% of the game is gonna be I think Avowed actually looked very representative of what games like this are actually like.  I'd rather not be begging to be mislead.

 

And not resting all their fantasy stuff in the Elder Scrolls basket is good, actually.  It's a sad state we're in if a game that functionally looks to offer and Elder Scrolls like experience but can't get over the lack of that branding on the box.

[one-armed dwarf]

What people mostly like about Obsidian games afaik is their writing and quest design, which tends to offer the kinda reactivity which promotes role playing very well. The thing with the demo is they do indicate they want to do that here, with morally oblique dialogue options. But question is how do decisions like that funnel into and promote different role playing options and immerse you in a series of decisions, or is it one-offs. 

 

The demo focuses a lot on not very exciting combat, which is kinda why I get more interested nowadays if an Obsidian game is heavy on text cause it's more of a distillation of the things they specialise in. I suppose New Vegas was the one where they managed to strike a balance between both worlds, but I actually didn't think the exploring in that game was good at all. I was a bit disappointed by it, should go back and finish it though. At a certain point tho it feels like there's something lost in the tradeoff of trying to appeal to a broad audience

 

As for Cyberpunk, you can play that game like a psuedo-Titanfall if you want. It did a pretty good job of that stuff, but it was more the gestures towards Deus Ex that were more underwhelming in the final launch product.

[Maf]

I’m not trying to say Skyrim is the be all and end all of fantasy games, or there can’t be another first person fantasy game, it just looked so boring I’m trying to see what it brings to the table which is interesting. Maybe the quests and story are what separate it, and I get that stuff’s hard to demo, but even looking at what they showed it’s so stale. More NPC’s standing still, throwing their hands around while picking dialogue options. 
 

Add to the fact there are so many options for this type of game already available, particularly on Xbox, it’s just like why. 

[HandsomeDead]

I'm not even the biggest fan of these games but it's just alarming thinking of the idea that yet again there could be a game arbitrarily decided to be "the bad one" despite it being pretty par for the course.  Like another Forspoken.

 

Maybe it has always been a problem with Obsidian that they always work within well trod ground, not doing the technical ground breaking stuff but it's been the case a few times their games have more lasting appeal.

 

But none of us have any real idea how it'll be in the end.  Maybe a Pillars 3 was  the right choice instead of this.  Speculating over pre-release trailers is just hot air.

[radiofloyd]

I didn’t have a negative reaction to the trailer by any means but Graham Smith of RPS wasn’t blown away:

 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/obsidians-first-person-fantasy-rpg-avowed-is-coming-this-autumn

 

The discussion continues in the comments.

 

By the way, I think there’s a decent likelihood that Pillars 3 will happen now following the success of BG3. Also, I don’t think that Josh Sawyer is heavily involved in this or The Outer Worlds 2.

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah from what I heard before Josh was pretty heartbroken at the lack of support for Pillars 2 and isn't super keen on doing a third, but you could see new directorship taking the helm cause of renewed interest in that type of game 

 

Who knows tho

 

To be clear tho, I'm not trying to throw pebbles at this game like weirdos did over Forspoken (a game I gave a chance to*, but it wasn't very good imo). Purely just going off the brief here. I'm open to having my mind changed by a demo which focuses on the things which this demo doesn't seem to focus on

 

* a chance which cost me 70 euro. Ooofers, ouch

[shinymcshine]

"PoE 2 Deadfire" was great - much more enjoyable than the first game.

 

I think my degree of expectation for Avowed will be somewhat tempered by the distinct averageness of "The Outer Worlds" which just lacked any real standout features that we'd not already seen in many other games.

[Maryokutai]

Outer Worlds is IMO the only legitimate reason to be somewhat skeptical about this, because otherwise Obsidian's pedigree is really good (I'l defend DSIII until my last breath) and despite some people saying the opposite I think the stuff from yesterday looked pretty promising. Sure, combat looks janky, but when has 1st person RPG combat not? Go back and watch literally any TES trailer, no matter how often they squeeze those clips through the PR softener, it's always looked bad. This being the game it is I'm also positive combat won't even remotely be the main focus of the game, despite the trailer from yesterday suggesting something different. But it was clearly edited in a way to make it look as 'game-y' as possible to the bigger audience. 

[Maryokutai]

Tiny bit more footage in this starting from 2:45:

 

 

I think Rich from DF summed it up pretty well in their podcast in the sense that (paraphrasing) nothing they will show from this will make you fall off your chair but if you know what you'll be getting into there's a good chance you will enjoy this. And that pretty much mirrors my feelings about is well, as mentioned in the previous post.

 

They also mention here that it's the alpha build, so basically by the time they recorded this the game still had another year in the oven to go.