When Avowed was first revealed via that cinematic trailer of an arrow flying across a desolate, battle scarred wasteland I wasn't sure what to make of it. Coming to find out that the game itself would be set in the same world as Pillars of Eternity, I had even less of an idea of what to make of the game. But as Obsidian Entertainment slowly started to reveal new details and I got the chance to go hands on last year, I was cautiously optimistic that this could be a fun filled action RPG. So, was my optimism rewarded?

Before I get into the review, I did want to highlight that this review will be spoiler free, I will explain the basic plot outline and name two of the companions that you can travel with, but that will be all.

So, you are the Envoy, personal errand boy of Aedyr’s Emperor, and have been sent to the Living Lands, in order to discover the source of a mysterious plague and stop it by any means. Before you can set foot onto the soil of the Living Lands, your ship is attacked and you wash ashore upon a nearby island, though many of the crew were not so lucky. It is here you get your first taste of the plague and what it means for your investigation, but your orders are absolute and you push onto the main island. After making friends with a local militia member, you are joined by Kai, a former Rauatai soldier and the pair of you head into the wilds behind Paradis, in order to find the leaders of the town. With progress made, you will leave the safe-ish walls of Paradis with Kai and Marius, a local dwarf who is known for his rich knowledge of the lands. There is a lot of detail that I have left out from that set up, for obvious reasons, which is honestly doing a disservice to the game.

The story has a lot of moments where you get to choose what happens, and the choices are not easy ones. There is one choice you have to make where it is about how many you kith you want to kill, there is death with either option, but there are repercussions to both. Depending on whom you have travelling with you as well, there will be different advice given, which can tip you into a different choice. What is interesting is that people will respond to the choices you have made, for some folks they will curse you out, others might refuse to talk to you or even not sell to you. There was a decision that I made, in error, and everyone around me freaked out, thankfully there was an option to say I changed my mind, but I can’t imagine how things would have played out, if that option was not there. Now it is not all sunshine and rainbows, as there are some issues with the story, the big one is that once you are done with the story, you can’t explore the world at your leisure. The other major gripe that I have with the story is that occasionally, the choices you are given to choose from, are all versions of the same progression option, i.e. yes or no. Not being able to tell someone no sucks, because everything is based around your choices and being only given yes options, even if one is sarcastic, feels like it is stripping the choice from you.

Story aside, I was really eager to see how the gameplay would evolve as time went on. Now Obsidian Entertainment has a pedigree of creating some incredible first-person adventures and that legacy is safely nurtured here. Before I go any further, there is an option to switch to a third-person viewpoint, so if you are not someone who enjoys a first-person perspective, you can toggle that. I did try the game in a third-person for a while, only an hour or two, but it felt wrong somehow to me, so I stuck with the first-person viewpoint for the rest of the game. There is little doubt that melee combat in first-person games tends to suck, outside of insta-kills in a shooter. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Cyberpunk 2077 and even Dead Island 2 had weird combat with melee weapons and I am overjoyed to report that is not the case here. No matter if you wield a sword or a great hammer, if there is an enemy in front of you, your attacks will go for them. If you charge up your attack, something you will likely want to do a lot, it will also ensure your aiming at the enemy ahead of you. I did notice that occasionally the game would move me forward, just a little, to ensure I was going to hit and it was something I appreciated. The game will not just teleport you around, so if you swing your sword at someone who is ages away from you, you will just swing at nothing.

Thankfully, for those who like to take aim from a distance, Avowed does offer a range of, well ranged weapons. In the preview build from last year, I actually spent a lot of time using a bow, which doesn’t require you to collect arrows. Sadly, they did nerf the power of the bows in the final release, but there are still plenty of upgrades you can unlock, more on those later, to make it feel better. My usual modus operandi was to take shots from afar with the bow, take down any enemies I could and deal as much damage to the rest, before I swapped to my two handed sword to get into the mix and finish off the remnants. Early on I did pick up some special metal, that no blacksmith would touch, until I got to the final major town and when they crafted something for me, it was a very powerful gun. Up to that point, I shied away from using the guns in game, as I felt the reload speed was not worth the hassle, but this gun was so powerful, before I upgraded it further, that it was worth it. Across my time with the game, I often bounced around weapons and I can honestly say that there was no horrible one in the mix, it just took a bit of time to learn each type.

I mentioned before about upgrades and now is as good a time as any to talk about those. There are two main types of upgrades, general character and class types. The general character are things like getting more health, strength or dexterity and improve a few stats at once. The class type upgrades are for the classes you can choose from during the character creation screen, I want for a ranger class. There are three class skill trees to choose from and you don’t have to be a Warrior class to choose from that tree, which I am very thankful for. There are multiple skills in each tier, hitting level 5, 10 and so on, unlocks more of them. Most skills have multiple levels as well, such as a ranged weapon doing 35% more damaged when charged up, then 50% and so on. Because of the sheer number of skills and the lack of restriction on obtaining them, apart from your character level, it should provide for a number of ways to play through the game. Your various companions can also get skills, which they will use on their own in combat, or you can tell them to use. Those skills are also used outside of combat, to solve basic environmental puzzles, like having Kai set fire to some bramble, revealing a path or chest.

The final aspect of the gameplay is the world itself, now during my preview time I really didn’t think much of it, as I was just pushing through the main quest line, but now. It is not hyperbole to say that I honestly think this world is one of the best I have ever had the pleasure to explore in a game. Each part of the Living Lands that you visit contains a main town, some smaller camps or towns and a lot of hidey holes for bandits and beasties to call home. There was one time when I saw some bramble blocking a gap and I figured there had to be something fun behind it, so with it out of the way, I pushed through. I honestly found an entire extra space that I didn’t even consider to be there, it was just rich with things to do. But what makes the world so much fun is that everything has tiers to it, and I mean that if you see a cliff, there is likely a way to walk around to it. Or perhaps there is a hole in the ground, well you can gain access to it by jumping into water elsewhere and then swim beneath the surface to find a way in. Each map had dozens and dozens of little nooks to discover and even now, I find myself thinking about places there might be things to discover still.

There are some things that did bother me about the gameplay though, first up is that the upgrade system seems harder than it needs to be. Upgrading your weapons or armour is done by finding materials and then using the station at your camp, simple. The problem is when a piece needs 26 pieces of wood and you can’t find it on trees, only enemies drop it. That would not be a major concern if enemies respawned, but once you clear out any enemies, be they kith or beast from their location, they are gone for good. This means that you have to spend a lot of time exploring every part of the map, in order to find the pieces you need to upgrade. You can merge pieces together, in order to create stronger materials, but each new piece requires three old pieces. The other issue that popped up was with the companions, almost every single time I got hit by an enemy attack, they would shout my armour is useless, the same for when I attacked but for my weapon. At one point the armour I was wearing was as upgraded as I could make it for the area I was in, same with my weapons, as I spent a long time getting the supplies to make it so, but they still told me it was not good enough. I get them wanting to shout out warnings if I was taking damage, but they need to be helpful, not pointless.

Ok, so I loved the combat, the world and the characters, at least most of the time and that seems like a good time to talk about the presentation. I will just come out and say it, the game looks phenomenal. From the time you step onto the docks of Paradis, to your leaving a random cave in Shatterscarp and having the desert sun shine down upon you, everything looks amazing. There were times when I would honestly just stop and be amazed at the world, I remember entering a mine and the suns rays of light were beaming in through the wooden door behind me and I was just awed. The enemy design is unique, though there are maybe six unique creatures, that then repeat a lot, get ready to enjoy the Xaurips and bears in every part of the Living Lands. The kith, the races that live on the island are ok, some like Kai and his fellow Rauatai look good, but then there are others like the Orlans look really odd.

Most of that comes down to the hair, as they are quite a hairy species, any issues with the hair stand out and there are issues. Marius has this sparkling effect on his beard and eyebrows and then whenever you skip a line in a conversation with anyone who has hair on them, which is a lot of folks, it has this weird freak out. There was an instance where I saw someone had a beard, but it did not attach to their chin, so their mouth moved up and down when speaking, but their beard remained in place, it was odd. The only noticeable visual oddity that kept catching my eye was that armour often clipped, Lodwyn was a common sight for this, but even people wearing long sleeve shirts had it happen.

The sound design is just as delightful as the visuals. The games soundtrack feels fantastical and has a grounding aspect to it, which really feels right after a tense battle. Each region has its own melodies and I did find that the final region had some good ones. The creatures sound good, but like their visual design, you will hear them quite a bit as they tend to repeat a lot. For the voice work, there is an incredible amount in the game and I honestly never felt like there was a bad line. There are some characters who are given a pretty substantial roles, not counting the companions and some of them have a decent amount of life to them. The companions are perhaps the stars here, with Kai being a standout. He is voiced by Brandon Keener, who Mass Effect fans will know as the voice of Garrus and while there are some moments you will feel the two are the same, Kai has a richer, slightly more human front. The other companions are good, your millage will vary on how much time you spend with them, or talk to them back at camp.

Going into Avowed I figured I would enjoy the full game; I enjoyed my time with it last year, but honestly, I found the full game to be so good, I just couldn’t stop playing. The reasons why are simple, it looks amazing, plays even better and is just such a wonderful experience from start to finish. The game not letting you explore the world once the story is done feels like a cheap decision and I hope they fix that post release. The number of resources available for upgrades just barely meets the count needed and that might deter some folks, but if you explore each location, you should be fine. If you are a fan of any game from Obsidian Entertainment, then you owe it to yourself to play Avowed and if not, you should still play it. The year has only just begun, but Avowed is easily sitting at the top of my game of the year, because it is just so good.