Last week, we finally gota proper look at Obsidian’s new role-playing game Avowed.
The Pillars series is a real-time-with-pause, traditional CRPG, played from an isometric viewpoint.
There’s a huge amount of ocean in between.
Related to that is the question of “when does Avowed take place?”
They can’t help but affect the entire world and everything living in it.
(By the way, there’san extended version of the Avowed Developer Directthat I recommend watching.
It’s not drastically different but does give a better sense of combat in the game.)
Key to this are “loadouts”, which was a word we heard multiple times throughout the presentation.
Need a sword and shield for these enemies?
Need a two-hander to break this one’s guard?
Need a pair of wands to pelt these enemies with magical attacks?
It’s that kind of thing.
What I wasn’t clear on, though, was how the player’s innate magical abilities are used.
How was the player doing that?
We didn’t see a UI, he tells me, because one hasn’t been definitively decided on.
As for character development, Avowed will be a classless game.
Avowed will also have companions to adventure with, and we got a glimpse of them in the presentation.
Then there’s more player-driven abilities that the player can access as well.
Is it a context-sensitive thing?
“Yeah, exactly,” Paramo answers, but that’s as much explanation as I get.
But as Gabe is saying, their abilities are there for you to deploy tactically."
You’ll be able to level-up your companions and choose where their skill points go, too.
But you won’t be able to romance companions, notably.
“you could’t romance your companions in Avowed,” Patel confirms.
“Don’t panic,” Carrie Patel tells me.
“And we hear that.
So we are continually improving as we share more.”
So there’s a lot of pressure on Avowed that comes from that.
But Microsoft has not transformed Obsidian or its capabilities.
It actually sounds like the studio is the same size it’s been for a while.
So that gives you an idea."
They just expect a good game.
It did very well with that model.
The team was able to tailor their content and the pacing of the experience accordingly."
“Scope is definitely not equivalent to quality,” she adds.
