Avowed Review

"The Scourge of Dreams"

Campaign

February 20, 2025 at 6:31pm
By Jason Stettner

Part of the Pillars of Eternity universe, this is quite a change up for the franchise providing a first person focused role playing game while retaining the heavy lore the series is known for. You’re sent off to the Living Lands as an envoy of the emperor being whatever sort of divine Godlike character you create.

The choices you make and the impact you have on this potential colony will change the life of the people here forever. You’re largely here to figure out what’s happening with this Dreamscourge, a horrifying plague of sorts. Avowed is a decently extensive narrative driven adventure with a few large open world hub areas to explore. You’ll find various items, gear and other fun surprises that will aid you on your journey.

The main story is actually fairly extensive with various supplementary quests to take in. It’s not quite as endless as many role playing games tend to be these days, it respects your time while having some mechanics that are a tad padding oriented as well.

The narrative has you going from a shipwrecked tutorial island to slowly meeting a cast of characters, select ones becoming companions and others being individuals littered across the way. The companions were all fun in their own ways, with some unique interactions to possibly have as you get to know them but no romance is present here.

You’ll venture with up to two of them across these environments with areas that will require certain individuals and they’ll all have input in what you’re doing along the way. When it comes to choices I did feel that this game was a tad lighter on heavy impact moments compared to The Outer Worlds, which lead to some parts of this experience feeling shallower than what I had anticipated.

You definitely do carve a path throughout this game, but I was hoping it would dive in deeper. The lack of charisma or say persuasion checks sort of added to this, not to mention a slight step back in companion control. It comes across as a more tamed take on what Obsidian had with The Outer Worlds which at times can be disappointing.

Gameplay

This is focused on being a first person action role playing game but there is the option to play the game in third person if you so choose. It’s got fast paced frantic combat to enjoy which actually feels great once you get better weaponry. You can even switch between two sets of weapons on the fly which leads to creative uses.

I do however wish they didn’t lock access to fun weapons or gear behind their specific setup system here. So within this game the enemies are difficulty tiered based on weapon or gear you have. It’s quite sudden, and you’re often caught off guard by the changes. It’s awkward honestly. You need to go find gear in side activities or buy it, which you often won’t have money for unless you do side activities.

It doesn’t necessarily take a long time, but when I’m forced to stop doing main quests to gather gear it does feel awkward. That aspect reminds me of something from a Ubisoft game which I didn’t love, as it felt odd compared to how The Outer Worlds played things. Again, it’s not the end of the world as you just need to explore around which is fine but it does feel like padding because you’re halted suddenly at times in a jarring way.

I would have liked the power trip a bit more in this one, but yeah at one point I had to stop for two hours to gather gear to then be able to continue the story. Going back to combat it can be really satisfying when you have the right gear. Splashing spells with a wand or slashing enemies with a special ultimate bloody axe.

It seriously looks spectacular when you get going. I mix that with the aesthetic of the game which I quite enjoyed, hits the fantasy element very right. Vibrant visuals mixed in with this twisted Dreamscourge aesthetic. It’s grand, at the same time it does also carry that very typical Unreal Engine 5 rock style that makes it look the same as similar Unreal Engine 5 games.

You do get some variety within environments from a twisted magical area to a desert and even a small venture through a frosty landscape. There are a few areas to visit across your journey. It’s also neat that when you kill enemies they don’t come back, so in theory the world can be emptied.

When it comes to the visuals you do get a few choices on Xbox Series X. Because it’s Unreal Engine 5 everything will be temporally scaled. First up is quality mode which is 4k taken from a lower resolution at 30fps with ray tracing featuring some aspects of lighting and parts of reflections.

There’s also balanced mode which is again 4k taken from a lower resolution at 40fps with the same ray tracing feature sets. This requires a 120hz display. Finally there’s the performance mode which is a dynamic 1080p 60fps with ray tracing removed, if you have a 120hz VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) enabled display you can go beyond 60fps.

Pre-launch it was choppy on all modes, most launch it’s much better but there are still drops no matter how you go about it. I found balanced to be the best performance/visuals but in a second run on performance mode only it was largely fine. I did notice crashes often.

The Conclusion

Avowed is an enjoyable adventure in a very colorful and distinct world, I just wish it was slightly less shallow. It feels like a step back in role playing mechanics in comparison to The Outer Worlds; which is a very, very similar game to this one. It’s a good time, with some choices in how the story goes and an interesting supporting cast to your customized Godlike hero.

You get to use some rather cool weaponry from various types of core slashing weapons to magical things such as wands. You may even get to unleash some neat Godlike abilities too along the way. It feels fast to use, gives you enough control and can be intense when it’s flowing. At the same time the random tier gating felt off on this one, somewhat jarring at times.

I do feel that most role playing fans that want something more action oriented will find this charming and a fine venture to go forth on. It respects your time for the most part, provides distinct environments to explore and has some well balanced mechanics. Some really creepy looking enemies, nice traversal and a decent selection of places to visit. I quite enjoyed the experience.

Read our The Outer Worlds Review
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Avowed Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by Microsoft

Rating Overall: 7.8