Obsidian Entertainment’sAvowedis an RPG that fans are watching with curiosity. A debut trailer in 2020 promptedimmediate comparisons to The Elder Scrolls. In an interview withVG247, game director Carrie Patel acknowledges that the project’s initial direction was similar to that of an Elder Scrolls-type game, but the focus quickly changed.
“That was the initial direction of Avowed,” Patel said. “By the time I’d joined the project that January we’d already undergone a shift and were taking a new approach, taking the underlying gameplay that [Gabe Paramo, senior gameplay engineer] has talked about and just building a new context and a new story and a new setting around it.”
Cleanse The Living Lands
Avowed was always intended to be set in Eora, but subsequent trailers following the announcement trailer have felt more in line with what Pillars of Eternity fans might have expected. Avowed is set in the Living Lands, a mostly untamed island to the extreme north of the Aedyran Empire. The major crux of the narrative is the Dreamscourge, a mysterious illness that turns living things into fungal thralls.
According to Patel, the Avowed team has a “good mix” of developers who worked on Pillars of Eternity. In fact, Pillars game director (and number one fan) Josh Sawyer has been involved in the project, advising the team on elevating aspects of Avowed to be more ‘Pillars-like’. Sawyer is partially responsible for the addition of wands to the game, and the grimoire system has his “imprint” on it.
Avowed Director Promises No “Copy/Paste Experiences” Between Main Quests And Side Content
Avowed’s creative director Carrie Patel said the studio puts “the same focus” into side content and main missions.
Avowed is going to have a narrative approach similar to that of Pillars, combining grounded and morally grey political realities with the underlying metaphysical aspects the series is known for. Last month’sstory trailerhas already made the above abundantly clear. As an envoy of the Aedyran Empire, the player is going to have a massive influence on the fate of the Living Lands. We already hear from two opposing sides, Inquisitor Lodwyn wants you to ‘tame’ the wild region while one of your companions Giatta wants you to embrace the chaos.
“We’ve taken the same approach [as Pillars] to storytelling, the same approach to quest design, looking for ways to leave things open-ended so that the player can assert themselves in the world and define themselves in their character through their role play,” Patel explained.
Avowed doesn’t have a concrete release date yet but is expected to release during the latter half of this year.
Avowed’s Tone Shifted Mid-Development To Be Closer To Pillars Of Eternity
“We wanted to embrace something closer to the Pillars aesthetic,” says Avowed game director Carrie Patel.
