Obsidians upcoming RPGAvowedtakes place in the same fantasy universe asPillars of Eternity, but structurally its avery different game.
Which parts of the Pillars lore does Avoweds story and systems draw upon?
How does the Living Lands expand upon those existing ideas?
And just how much ofPillars of Eternityis reflected in Avoweds presentation and play?
It was a very natural extension.
If youre going to make a fantasy game, why invent a second entire new world?
says Carrie Patel, Avoweds game director.
So we have a blank canvas to paint on, essentially.
The most significant of these is the structure of the story.
So how do you feel about it, and how exactly do you want to follow your role?
Alongside this vein of political realism, Pillars of Eternity also has a significant metaphysical layer to its storytelling.
This metaphysical element likewise features in Avowed.
Clearly, the themes of Pillars of Eternity run thick through Avowed.
The answer to both questions, according to art director Matt Hansen, is yes.
A lot of the fundamental characters of those games are still present in Avowed, Hansen says.
Its really hard to pull that off in an isometric game.
Where Avowed diverges most from those classically styled isometric games, though, is in its systems.
For all intents and purposes, its a different way of playing.
Yet even here youll find threads of Pillars interspersed among these new systems.
The most notable example is the grimoires, equippable spellbooks that provide access to new incantations for magic-focused players.
Avowed directly adapts this concept from the Pillars games, where players used them to store and recall spells.
We’ve always had grimoires as an equippable item that was always offhand only, Paramo says.
This allowed us to really open that space up a lot more, Matzenbacher adds.
In Pillars of Eternitys lore, nobody knows exactly how deeply the seams of Adra run through Eoras crust.
