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Sum-Up

In-depth analysis further down.


🟩 Pros
🟥 Cons



• Impressive visuals, paired with quality art direction and attention to detail. Eora never looked better, and provides great immersion at all times.
• Satisfying, high quality combat system that feels responsive, dynamic and adequately paced. Despite all the action, it never feels like a chaotic mess.
• Exploration is compelling, as it rewards thorough explorers with plenty of unique items, optional quests and hidden events on a regular basis.
• Interesting and well-written companions. They react realistically to your actions, feel consistent and, to some extent, evolve their opinions through the journey.


• Even on the hardest difficulty, the challenge level is moderate except for early-game and a part of the endgame. If your build is remotely competent, you’ll steamroll through most fights.
• The main story’s writing is only passable; it doesn’t feel nearly as interesting or riveting as those seen in the Pillars of Eternity games.
• Overly simplified, casualized character building and roleplaying. There’s a distinct lack of meaningful skill checks and deeper build customization in favor of accessibility.
• High amount of recycled enemies in the later areas. The initial variety breaks down to insipid, same-y fodder the more you continue onward.





🟨 Bugs & Issues
🔧 Specs



• None to report.


• i9 13980HX
• 64GB RAM DDR5
• RTX 4090
• NvME SSD
• 3840x2160



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Content & Replay Value:
It took me 59 hours to complete Avowed on the “Path of the Damned” difficulty, taking considerable extra time to explore all locations thoroughly and finish all the side content I could find. With multiple possible builds that play out differently and many branching choices, the replay value is good for at least another run.


Do I recommend it?
Yes. If you like first-person, action-focused RPGs this is a valid pick. However, veterans of the Pillars of Eternity series may be disappointed by the comparatively lackluster depth in class-building and roleplaying.


Conclusion:
This journey through Eora might not be as complex as expected, and more streamlined, but it’s an enjoyable one all the same. On its own, it’s a competent RPG that has enough wisdom to not overstay its welcome.



In-Depth

Writing & Worldbuilding
Your travels across Eora will have you assemble an unlikely troupe of companions, each with their own distinct quirks, personalities and ideals. Notably, they’ll have different dialogues between each other depending on who you pick for the party, and even have unique interactions with NPCs if they happen to have something to say on the matter at hand. After most quests and events, they’ll have an opinion to voice about your actions, and often confront you if you behave in ways they disapprove. They feel relatable, well-written and distinct enough. Despite that, there isn’t really a reputation system that will make them eventually leave; that can only happen with one of the final story choices, even if in reality, there are a couple instances where I would have definitely seen some of them quitting for good earlier on. The world is visually amazing and each area has a distinct feel to it, improved further by the excellent soundtrack and ambient sounds. The Living Lands were crafted with care and precision in every visual aspect, and it paid off.
Exploration & Secrets
You’ll explore the Living Lands on foot, traversing large open-world areas filled with points of interest, settlements, dungeons and loot. Exploration feels particularly rewarding for the high amount of hidden loot: in every dilapidated building, crevice, or ridge, there usually is something, be it a generic chest with crafting materials, bits of lore, quest items or unique gear pieces. Sometimes it’s just about parkour or quest-gated areas, on occasion more complex puzzles or, seldomly, unique solutions have to be discovered to access your reward. Variety-wise, most dungeons and optional locations feel unique in layout, although the enemies in them may not. Sure, some of them hide unique bosses and special enemies; however, that’s an exception and not the rule. The fast travel beacons often found in the map are accessible at any time and prove convenient to avoid excessive backtracking.
Combat System & Bosses
Fights in Avowed play out in real-time, with skill-based features such as perfect parrying, dodging and stamina management to take into account. Despite sounding more like an ARPG, it’s nowhere as chaotic; all attacks and actions are well-telegraphed, thus retaining the more tactical feeling of a traditional RPG while, at the same time, having a brisk pacing to all fights. All enemies can be staggered and exposed to a powerful finisher if you manage to build up enough Stun, which is generally higher for slower weapons and spells, and lower for faster weapons like daggers, bows and so forth. All the stats you’d expect in an RPG are present, such as crit chance, passive status effects buildup like frost, poison or bleed with the related resistances or weaknesses, and several unique effects given by weapons or passive buffs give an additional layer of complexity to each fight by synergizing with each other and stacking together.
Enemies hit hard on higher difficulties and have a decent variety of movesets, however it’s fairly easy to craft a powerful build by stacking all the right weapons and buffs together. This will result in most fights being on the easier side, especially when companions can’t be permanently knocked out and always revived, on top of your character having two “lives” with the Second Wind ability for each battle. The only true stopgap to the power creep is the tiering of items in color-coded variants: when you use a lower tier against an enemy of a higher one, you’ll suffer massive penalties to damage, resistances, stun and even speed; it’s not impossible to defeat a Tier 4 enemy or boss with Tier 3 gear, but it’s a frustrating endeavor, since your weapons will become almost useless because of this system. This felt like a cheap way to gear-gate some areas and enforce material grinding, instead of banking it all on raw player ability and build quality. Bosses are mostly unique, although there are some lazily recycled archetypes, and only a few of them truly feel like epic battles.
Character Progression & Crafting
You’ll come across a variety of crafting materials in your travels, mostly from chests and fallen enemies. These can be used at your Party Camp to improve the quality of your weapons so that you can match the progressively higher enemy tiers, craft consumables such as food or drinks that grant passive Mana/HP regen, and in many cases also grant very useful buffs for the tougher battles. It’s quite essential to hoard up materials if you want your weapons to be up to par. You’ll gain XP from combat and quests, and spend points freely in one of the available skill trees without any class or gear restriction. This approach heavily encourages multi-classing, however even with that in mind, the available skills and talents feel shallow and a far cry from what previous games of the series used to be. Sure, this isn’t a CRPG, but even Skyrim (2011) had more complex skill trees and build possibilities than Avowed. This aspect has been streamlined way too much, and those wanting to craft deeper, more nuanced builds will be left disappointed.