Microsoft’s first big game of the year is an RPG masterpiece

In 2011, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was a massive mainstream hit. Hiding all the nerdy stats and chance from a Dungeons & Dragons formula behind an intuitive design and first-person action game controls, it gave players unfamiliar with role-playing games a massive and intoxicating look at what was possible.

The gaming audience has grown massively since then, but Avowed does something similar. I’m the kind of person who finds it difficult to get into a Baldur’s Gate 3 or a Pillars of Eternity, PC-style RPG with complex systems and troves of background lore, tactical combat and 100-hour play times. But by borrowing the setting and mythology from Pillars, and building the most wonderfully streamlined and enjoyable take on a Skyrim-style first-person RPG, developer Obsidian showcases the kind of incredible storytelling and fantasy world-building people love in PC RPGs, but in a breezy action-focused game you can stroll through in 50 hours or less.

The game casts you as an imperial envoy, sent to the frontier of a wild and diverse island known as The Living Lands. Many of the people there view you as a coloniser, and there are already hostilities breaking out between the empire’s forces and local resistance.

Meanwhile, a mysterious plague is killing the crops and sending the people and creatures feral, a vicious order of paladins aligned with the empire have unsurprisingly turned out to be total fascists, and a mysterious god-like voice reaches out to your character telepathically the moment they arrive. You have a lot of work to do.

A land alive

You don’t have to go it alone, thankfully, as you soon run into former pirate Kai and grow your crew from there. The story is dense and political, and at first, I wasn’t sure how much was going over my head given my ignorance of Pillars lore.

Magic plays a big role in the world of Avowed, even if you like to stick to swords and shields.

An early quest had the envoy helping a lady whose home had been invaded by dinosaur men, which concluded with the reveal that she and the main dinosaur man shared a soul. I decided my character should treat this with compassion, but only because there was no option to say, “Is that really something that can happen?”

It only took an hour or two for me to get caught up, thanks to the myriad books lying around and a handy lore button you can press during conversations to see what terms mean. In fact, I fell so in love with the world that I may just go and play Pillars of Eternity after all.

In the early part of your journey, you pass through medieval villages, an underground temple surrounded by waterfalls, a farm tended by reanimated corpses, and a sealed temple left by a civilisation thousands of years past. From realistically rolling and crashing waves along the coast, and neon fungus in shining caves, to dense and damp forest campsites under glowing starscapes, it can be a breathtaking game to look at, too.

Like any good RPG, the meat of the game is the quests, the journeys, and the decisions you make that shape your character and the world around you. And despite the compressed size (and the fact the game is made up of a half-dozen big levels rather than a contiguous open world), there’s just as much of that meat here, arguably of better quality, and way less gristle and fat.

The core narrative tension is your presence in the Living Lands as an emblem of tyranny, and how you deal with that is up to you. You can be the empire’s lapdog, siding with the forces already there and admonishing the locals for their customs and practices that are illegal under imperial law.

Conversely, you can become a liberator, standing up against the paladins of the Steel Garrote and protecting the people’s right to their own homes. As expected, in good fantasy storytelling, there are strong undertones of compassion, tolerance and progressive social values. But there is also always the option to be an absolute villain and cut people off any time they try to tell you anything, which is fun, too.

Side quests are abundant, as are hidden secrets and loot, and jumping and climbing all over the map to poke your nose in every corner is a delight. It’s often rewarded, too, not just with rare gear but with story implications; find and stop a group of plotting rogues and you might prevent a nearby city being razed to the ground later in the game.

Avowed is filled with secret spots that you’ll find only if you go looking.

The impact of the story and quests are constantly reinforced by the characters you meet, whether that’s in passing or through long conversations with your crew at camp, which adapt surprisingly well to your choices and actions. Even when you’re on the road, you’re frequently hearing funny banter from rangers or villagers, or a reminder from your crew that the objective area of a side quest you may have forgotten is nearby.

Steel and sorcery

Combat is a highlight in Avowed, which is rare for an RPG. The sound design does a lot of heavy lifting to make attacks feel violent and satisfying, and I love how an enemy’s defeat is communicated visually by their collapsing, disintegration or being sent flipping away by an axe strike. But the best part is how many options you have to express your own play style through fighting.

For one-handed melee weapons, there are swords, spears and axes. You can mix and match any two you like or if you only want one, you’ll be able to block with a shield or the weapon itself. But then there are also one-handed ranged weapons you can mix in: magic wands, grimoires (books that let you cast one of the four spells written therein) and flintlock pistols. Sword and gun is a powerful combo, even if reloading takes a second, and magic users will find wand and grimoire make for a much faster and more action-focused feel than most sorcery in RPGs.

There are also huge two-handed melee weapons that pack an extra wallop and can be used to block, but are slow and will tire you out quicker. For two-handed ranged weapons, there’s the silent bow, and the loud but deadly arquebus (or long rifle). Most importantly, you can set up two different loadouts and switch them with a button press, so you don’t need to go into a menu to switch from your ranged set-up to your close-quarters crowd-control gear.

Sword and spells is a good combo. But maybe go for a light or medium armour so you don’t use all your stamina and essence (which you need to cast magic) too quickly.

It will take some experimentation to find what works for you but like the rest of the game, the weapon system is streamlined and thoughtful. You use whatever you want, and as the opponents get tougher, you either acquire new gear or gather resources from the world to upgrade your favourite.

Since you can break down any weapon to create resources (and get a refund for those you’ve invested), I never felt punished for switching to a new type of weapon, even a dozen hours in. The real fun comes with unique weapons, which all have their own look, stats and special characteristic, for example poisoning on power strikes, or doing extra damage to enemies with full health. Collecting the right resources lets you enchant these weapons to unlock one of two powerful effects, making many opportunities for synergy.

I won’t dive too deep on the armour, accessories, skill tree or magic systems, but they all follow what seems to be the game’s mechanical thesis: keep it fun, and get rid of the bloat. Take the stamina system as an example. It still exists because the game doesn’t want you to be able to spam claymore strikes without taking a breath. But in most games, sprinting also consumes stamina, which is a bore; here, running is free.

At a more macro level, the lean design makes for an elegant, flowing loop of gameplay since challenges do not scale along with you as in other RPGs; quests and enemies at a higher level than you indicate you’re moving through the game too fast. That makes upgrading your weapons and armour mandatory as you go, which in turn leads to exploring for resources, which exposes you to more of the world.

It also means returning to earlier levels lets you feel like an overpowered god because you’re one-shotting enemies that used to be tough. (And by the way, the resources you get from the early areas can be combined to create the resources you want for late-game weapons. Again, it’s about making sure you’re never wasting time).

I understand that some players will balk at the idea of an RPG as concentrated and compact as this one, but this is the most I, personally, have enjoyed a game in the genre since Skyrim. It does feel strange to finish the journey and not really have much in the way of optional quests and collectibles left over. But, on the other hand, it’s refreshing to get a full experience without an overwhelming time commitment.

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