Avowed Gameplay Deep Dive - Can it Top Pillars of Eternity? 

Nothing else need to be said exactly how we all feel. I know RU-vidr is gonna be breaking stuff down tear stuff apart telling you you should be afraid you should be excited you should buy you should wait at the end of the day. I really hope this game is good.😊😊😊

I can’t imagine it’ll be “bad” but I want it to be a genuine contender for a “Skyrim-like” Something real huge that I can lose 100s of hours in

​@@Jabberwokee unfortunately he said it's gonna be the size of Outer Worlds. Definitely not that huge

@@justrobin8155 well, huge can be literal but that can also be, you know, empty like Starfield Huge can be multiple zones as long as those zones are reasonably sized and there’s a lot of exploring to do

Tough to get excited for this one, though. Unfortunately, the red flags are all over.

I prefer the level design in The Outer Worlds to the barren wastelands that are modern open world games. I like compact, content dense, memorable, interesting maps, instead of boring, generic, expansive wastelands.

@@badass6300 Both modern open world games and outer worlds designs are dogshit, IMO. Outer worlds got a lot of praise that it didn't deserve. POE 1 and 2 were great games, but whatever they're pitching with Avowed just doesn't seem appealing at all. I hope, at least, that people, that are writing characters\dialogues are not the same as ones who did it for the Outer worlds.

I don't know if this version of Obsidian is capable of making a great game. PoE and Tyranny Obsidian could make great games and had the balls to try new things and stick to their guns. Outer Worlds, Grounded and Avowed Obsidian, I have near zero faith in because their entire business model seems to be Dollar Store Bethesda and Microsoft already has real Bethesda.

@@Ejohns1004 The difference is that both PoE and Tyranny were low budget games. Even the Outer Worlds wasn't an AAA game. The better the graphics get and thus the higher the budget gets, the less a studio can be creative, becuase you step into the hundreds of millions of dollars territory.

@@badass6300 you should give this memo to studios like Larian and Square Enix. They aren't allowed to even attempt to be creative because their graphics are good and their budgets are big. I completely agree. Someone needs to put a stop to this.

I just hope its more than just the combat personally

@@TheRealClaylex Honestly, I want a gripping story with characters that I enjoy in a world that is cool to explore. If the actual combat gameplay is a bit clunky... not sure I'll mind too much, considering how clunky the combat is in Skyrim and nobody really cares. BUT if the combat is somehow incredibly fun while all the important boxes are ticked.... this might just end up being great.

@@paulszki Mhmm agreed. FNVs combat was clunky asf but everything else was damn near perfect

@@TheRealClaylex My big worry is that since Outer Worlds was kind of a "Bethesda game, but lower budget, from the makers of New Vegas" that they have been developing Avowed with the Mindset that the "proven" Bethesda-Formula will surely be a hit with gamers. But only a couple month ago that Formula just did not hit the contemporary nerve of a lot of gamers, who found the overall presentaton (especially dialogue) outdated and generally the gameplay to be boring. (Though part of it is that it was victim of it's own hype plus the truly horrendous procedural planets.) Like, you're making an immersive first person open world western RPG "JUST like Skyrim and Fallout!" and it turns out people now kind of hate that particular flavor. Games like Cyberpunk (and the expansion) are popular because the graphics and animations are so very good, including dialogue scenes, romance, action. But I don't think Avowed has that kind of budget... so what do they do now? Do they (Obsidian) care? So I wonder, if the game might get a delay because Obsidian is now scrambling to not have their game feel like "outdated fantasy version of starfield" with stiff characters that stand around and are starring into your soul. Or even if the quality of their quests, stories etc. are top notch they will want to avoid being narratively thrown into the same bucket as starfield at all costs. Luckily Avowed is using Unreal Engine 5 engine so they could pivot in some regards with their presentation, even if it's just having more NPCs doing other things than sitting or standing around with an unconvincing idle-animation. Coalition could even come in and help them out with some of it, if Microsoft/Phil Spencer are feeling the heat after Starfields mixed reception.

@@paulszki Yup exactly!

Shame it wont be on all platforms like BG3

@@DJ_Blaker Xbox, PC, and mobile. The mobile streaming aspect via xCloud will make it technically available to more people.

@@danumis_ yep not Playstation...

Agree that game was horrible

Yes, if it's anything like The Outer Worlds it will be pretty bad.

@@666slateran666 We clearly played vastly different games then. I could write a whole goddamn essay about how bloody mediocre The Outer Worlds is...

@@666slateran666 Hahaha that's a funny one! Also the lowest bar imaginable. 10 years is like just including FO4 which is a piss poor fallout game although a decent game, something I wouldn't call The Outer Worlds. As I enjoyed FO4, and TOW was more a drag for me.

@@666slateran666 Ow wait I'm starting to see the difference. Especially you liking the 'hilarious' writing. I found it cringe inducing, baffling, Idiocracy levels of stupid. As far removed from the nuanced, mature writing of Obsidian. I hated the writing, I hated the world, I hated it to it's core, it tries to be some sort of over the top capitalist nightmare but it's just an absurd bullshit reality that didn't even exist in 19th century peak capitalism. It was horseshit, maybe to you it was funny but god I found it awful and seeing the hate for the game I'm sure I wasn't the only one. As for interesting characters? Most were so bland and boring, all were ugly, their quests didn't lead anywhere or where super obvious from the start. That's ignoring all the other problems. Gameplay was incredibly easy, FO4 at least had some challenge, TOW was absurdly easy, weapon variaty was non existent, there were more pointless types of food and drink than usuable weapons. Man just typing it makes me annoyed, there's even gonna be a sequel to that piece of average shit when Tyranny 2 or POE3 is likely never happening...

Dragons Dogma 2

I don’t think having companions that can’t die isn’t terrible, mass effect did it and it was still good

@@starflydavis1256 Fair point. To clarify then. Companions who CAN be killed if you elect not to travel with them. Outer Worlds had that at least. Baldur's Gate 3 too. A downed companion can be brought back up, but if you turn them away or don't recruit them, they're as viable as any other NPC to bite the dust.

With a Baldur's Gate 3 level budget

@@utisti4976 yes

At least somebody is optimistic, too many acting like this is starfield

It's supposed to be a spiritual successor of TES. And it's a damn shame that they didn't want to implement a co-op. Because some of us have friends that want to play with, y'know?

Watch Tim Cain's latest videos and see that Obsidian is now like the rest with developers that aren't making great games anymore for several reasons.

1. The budget was cut a bit due to the rescope, but it isn't what you probably think it is. Obsidian rescoped as a studio, on their own terms, and all their big projects lowered their scope. The rescope was to retain their studio culture and has definitely benefitted them in the near/long-term. They are focusing back on storytelling and depth. So basically, Xbox did not forcefully come in to downsize the ambitions of the studio. 2. Freedom has not been hit, repeat, freedom has not been hit. Obsidian still has full creative freedom, and it's up to them if the game succeeds or fails. 3. If you don't like the graphical style, then that's fine. The game will still retain a similar style to the trailer/ToW, but it "isn't all so indistinct visually," and it isn't all "bright and happy town." (Quotes by verified Obsidian dev Briar Diem).

Spot on, Durance from PoE1 and Serafen from PoE2 are two of my favorite characters in all of gaming

Same

I am getting a little tired of the first-person-only trend. I don’t care if the developer thinks it’s more immersive, I want the option to choose my preferred immersion!

Third person all the way.

Its going to be played regardless since it will launch on gamepass Day 1

All BG 3 did was add bad D&D mechanics and make it worse than Divinity OS. Pillars 2 turn based was more fun that BG 3.

@@chrismeandyou ret ard

if people really bought the POE 2 we could have it already . I would like to see how the world continues after the ending

You should play a character in BG3 and just make the choices you want to make and just don’t care about your companions reactions and see what happens lol that’s the point just make a character and roll with it and see what happens.

Not every game needs to be open world. The lack of it could result in more dense and detailed play areas. We’ll see how it turns out I guess cause it can also be just plain bad

@@goatygoat2709 of course. Baldurs gate did it well. Outerworlds wasn't dense enough to warrant the lack of open world

Graphics are always the last thing to get attention

lmao the CGI trailer wasn't even the real graphics though? unless you mean the dark tone then yeah.

Compared to the AAA, AA, and Indie trash games that are the vast majority every year that aren't worth paying for, a 1st person RPG that is good (possibly not great) is better than the rest. It was figured out how to make it the best genre a long time ago. The industry has only gotten worse now with SJW politics.

Pillars 2 is better in every way compared to Pillars 1. And it has turn based.

POE1's writing was too high-brow for most gamers. I don't care how much of a fart huffer that makes me sound, I said what I said.

Obsidian really learned from The Outer Worlds, they are really trying to lower people's expectations. I think they went a little overboard tbh. They showed off the game during the late stages of the pre-alpha stage (lighting was unfinished and art was not fully refined yet), a developer thought that it was unfair to compare it to The Outer Worlds (they acknowledged that Feargus was trying to keep expectations down just in case), the game isn't all "bright and happy town" like the trailer may have suggested, it is not all so indistinct visually, and there is a lot yet to be showed. (Points here were taken from comments made by a verified Obsidian developer, Briar Diem, in response to the trailer). The game itself is still very Obsidian, but they are still utilizing Xbox's funding and tools to make this a more ambitious/bigger game than their last (while still not being as big/ambitious as other AAA RPG's like Starfield or Cyberpunk). This time they don't have a tight budget or strict time constraints (For example, their Alpha/Beta period will be their longest one yet with Avowed. Past Obsidian games only had a few months in these phases). I think Obsidian hurt themselves by showing a short trailer when the look of the game was unfinished. But it's fine, because for example people have mostly forgotten about the initial Starfield gameplay trailer that wasn't well received. Let's just wait until late-January to get another look at the game.