Avowed (2025)

Genuinely shocked how up-in-arms people were about this game. I had a fantastic time with it, even as someone who is a massive CRPG fan/player. I grew up on Blades of Exile, and have bought and played near every CRPG since. Even saying that, I still had a great time playing this despite it not being Pillars 3.

Maybe some of it is the Capital G Gamer outrage tourists; maybe some of it is people who play crazy amounts of open world RPGs (I play nearly none) and are burned out on the style unless a game is revolutionary; maybe it's the reasonable reaction to the price point (no matter how good I don't pay $70 for ANY game; i paid $35 and feel very satisfied); no matter what, I really enjoyed Avowed. Every playthrough I've done of Pillars 1 and 2, I've always wanted to just run around and explore EVERYTHING, wishing I could see it all closer up and more detailed. Avowed gave me that. I had just as great a time learning about all the cultures in Avowed as I did in White March and Pillars 2. Not much more to say, it was a really enjoyable game.

Article: Avowed Review - High Fun Per Square Foot

Score Report: 8.25 / 10

With Avowed, the team at Obsidian manages the rare feat of grasping the scope of the project they’re building, and hitting the mark on most of the places it aims for. It’s not the biggest role-playing game, or the most innovative, but as I played, I was constantly aware of how much fun I was having by just letting the game carry me forward. Avowed is a confident and fulfilling fantasy adventure without pretension, accomplished by a studio that knows what it’s delivering. It may not change your world, but its world should be more than enough to satisfy.

• Matt Miller

I am addicted! The poster for this is kinda bad because it did not pull me at all. Every time I saw it in my GamePass menu I was like, "what is this game?" because it had that weird skull with colourful mushrooms things as the key art.

I guess that is a big part of the game but it does not really feel like it matters and I had no idea it was a big open(ish) world action-RPG! It feels like Better than Fallout combat with better than Elder Scrolls level design and some of the cool RPG bits from Baldur's Gate 3... so ...GOOD GAME!

I am on the second "map" and probably have 20 hours and am playing with any free time I can steal. It really sunk its claws in. So far so good.

Spent 2 hours in this game, couldn't go any longer than that. While the combat is fun on the prologue island, I got a feeling it's gonna be really tedious halfway through the game. The UI looks horrendous and cartoony. The writing is a bit weak and some characters won't stop throwing new words at me so I have to keep looking them up the in-game glossary in between dialogues. Looking at the reviews online and even on this site, people sure are mixed on this game.

In a way, this game reminded me a lot of Greedfall but at least I managed to finish that one because I have nothing better to play at the time. Plus, that game is a AA title at best made on shoestring budget so I can forgive a lot of its shortcomings. I think most of my gripes with this game is because I just finished KCD2, a huge RPG that somehow managed to keep me entertained for 70+ hours. Had I played this before that, then I might have found some enjoyment here.

Finally finished it. I loved the story and the fact that it seemed to give you some real choices about how it would end, not just the good path, the bad path, or the snarky path. In the end, the allies you have when you decide the Living Lands fate seem directly related to earlier choices of what leaders to support or overthrow.

Final boss was a bit of a letdown in terms of being an interesting fight. But the game's strength are much more about the PC interactions and the intermediary adventuring and combat. Fantastic.

This game just has an unacceptable number of crashes. It is so good that I keep playing it despite this but I am just about at my end. Had 2 hard crashes on the multi-stage final boss fight. I am going to try one more time and then just throw in the towel.

The boss fight isn't hard and mostly fun but this is just stupid.

Been enjoying my time with this game. Nothing too standout except maybe all the quality of life elements: Re-spec at any time, can send unused items to your stash or break down anytime, eating food auto selects the best item based on your current hp, and a few others.

My big gripe is that the stability is pretty bad. I regularly get boot-up or shut-down crashes. I am playing on two different PC's and yet the game has problems on both.