What Happened with Avowed? 

Outerworlds world size was fine, it was how they utilised that space that was problematic. There was very obvious points of interests, towns, certain sites, and crash/abandoned facilities, just with larger barron fields. The thing that bothers me is the limited world interactivity, and the color, I expected a darker tone based of the original trailer, and the new stuff makes the world like like Outerworlds but- as people have said, with swords and magic. Still interested, but much less than I was.

We need to accept that there won't be an 'Obsidian unleashed' moment. Getting bought by MS brought them financial security to explore a wider range of ideas, but it clearly was not to build the studio up to rival BGS. In fact, it seems like Playground's second studio is the one being built up to be that.

People seem to forget the majority of the team at Obsidian that made New Vegas is long gone. We likely won’t ever get the ideal combo of developers that made New Vegas ever again.

I was generally fine with everything until I heard the size of the world. Outer worlds was a short and sweet experience, but I rather invest my time in games that I can really sink my teeth into. I am sure some will appreciate it though as not everyone wants to spend days, months, or even years exploring a world full of secrets.

At least we are getting starfield

Not being open world is fine if that means more depth and density, but with 2 races and outer worlds level size, then it just feels like a smaller game, not a denser one.

Until we see gameplay footage at 6 months before launch, it should always be a “wait and see” scenario ACTUAL gameplay mind you, not a scripted CGI run that mimics gameplay but will never wind up in the game

There are a few reasons. One is the debut trailer with the last few seconds, that bit set expectations. Then we had insiders claiming the dev was aiming big, bigger than Skyrim. Apparently at some point the team decided it was too ambitious for a too small team and they rebooted it a few times. We were never supposed to have known that info anyway. I am disappointed too, I really want a bigger game than ToW from them, but Obsidian isn't ready for it, unfortunately.

I'm honestly more looking forward to Clockwork Revolution than Avowed right now. And I didn't even know the former existed before the showcase.

Avowed is definitely the type of game that should be open world. I would be okay with this hub system if they were each like a district/state sized area. If they’re small areas like in outer worlds, that’s kinda a bummer

Its weird, seeing Obsidian opinions getting lower and lower, while Bethesda with Starfield is just blowing everyone's expectations. Also quite sad... I want them to both succeed, for each of their games to do well and be good.

I really liked the Outer Worlds. Was just too short. I was hyped for Avowed because I assumed it'd be bigger with a darker tone

The outer worlds just didn’t hold my interests but i cant tell you why. I really do hope Avowed will be more interesting

This has gone from being my most anticipated game to being more a case of "well, I might get it I guess". It really isn't what I thought it was going to be. Starfield is now my most anticipated title, easily.

Jason Schreier said that Avowed has gone through some reboots so it makes total sense that the art style of original trailer and this last one are so different.

The trailer gives me big heroes of moght amd magic dark messiah vibes which is a huge plus! Even if the graphics isnt exactly what i wanted or the world not being open. I will love this one for sure

I do not care about this trailer being different to CGI reveal trailer feel. But that lighting + oversaturated color + MMO animations make it look and feel like ESO with higher graphical fidelity.

The thing that bugged me about Outer Worlds' more linear design was that there was fairly little replay value compared to bigger open worlds (like for example New Vegas, ironically), since I tended to complete the smaller hub-worlds 100% and then move on to the next. The lack of distinguished character classes reinforced this feeling, since I could experiment with pretty much every build within a single playthrough. Although, if Avowed's story is well written, I wouldn't mind an Outer Worlds in Pillars-setting.

Grounded, Pentament, Avowed and Outerworlds 2. Obsidian as a company was stretched between delivering 4 games of varying sizes. And then some people were also hoping for a successor to FallOut New Vegas from them? Honestly it just wasn't feasible for this studio to make anything on the same scale as an ES game, not with all of the spinning plates they have going right now.

I think a lot of people expected obsidian's skyrim and I think before the showcase that was a fair assumption. I am a lot less interested hearing it's similar in scope to outer worlds.

I definitely would have preferred the teasers art style but I will always be interested in a obsidian RPG no matter what it looks like

At the end you say that "It does feel like Obsidian is keeping our expectations realistic and in-check." And I agree, that's what they've been doing.... since the showcase. But Obsidian isn't blind to the outside world, they are in game communities too and they surely knew about the hype and anticipation growing around Avowed since 2020, and made a conscious choice not to tamper those expectations early. It's not entirely their fault, but they also aren't blameless - any time in the last couple years, they could have given us a more clear picture of what this game would be, even just in an interview, but they remained completely silent. This definitely speaks to the development issues imo. As for the art style - I actually really, really dislike it, and that alone might be enough for me to give it a pass. I also thought the Outer Worlds was a very, very poor game and I felt really burned after being so excited for it. But I think art style is really starting to matter more to people - Redfall had a billion problems, but as far back as our first look at the gameplay, I was turned off by a game that looked like fortnite with vampires (and early on I thought the game would probably be pretty bad too.) Art style really is important. It's pretty much the most base-level thing that can get your audience to look your way, and I think a lot of people just are not interested in the bright, cartoon-ish aesthetic now - it works for a goofy game like Sea of Thieves, but it just doesn't feel like it fits right for Avowed.

So Avowed for me it's all going to be on the gameplay if they can translate the Pillars magic system with depth and satisfying effects and animation. Outer Worlds I didn't vibe with the aesthetic or the setting and story. They were some genuine good aspects but the gameplay loop was also lacklustre so it didn't have anything outstanding to make it good. From big open world Rpg I usually find that the more focused and tailored slice of DLC questlines are of much better quality and story than the wider main open world. So the smaller scope is not necessarily bad, I'm ready for a more tailored RPG adventure.

The art style thing is weird to me.. it was a cg trailer with a second or two showing a spell being casted that was it and I find it weird that people got hyped about the game from that . Game looks alright to me i'll try it out anyway

I thought this would be somewhat of a Skyrim clone but smaller. But the style change from the first trailer to now is just devastating. Basically changed the dark mysterious atmosphere into a sparkly colorful fairytale vibe. I wanted enemies to be scary and that it would be a overall dark fantasy world. But now it's just as much of a disappointment as elder Scrolls online. Some people might like it but for me it just misses the mark with the atmosphere.

I don’t like that, the worst part about the outer worlds is it’s size. It’s so short it’s so small for a rpg. People like complaining about like game but for a rpg I want to get lost in that world like CP2077 or a FO4

I’m cool with Avowed being on the smaller scale like The Outer Worlds. As much as I love Bethesda RPGs, there are more times when playing them where I feel like I’m just coasting from place to place. No real direction and I only decide to do main story missions cause I just think “we’ll I got nothing better to do.” The smaller more contained experiences keep me invested and wanting for more somehow. All and all, I’m still excited and will be playing this game day one.

Welp....all i hear is Avowed is no longer on my top list of anticipated games =/

this is honestly the exact kind of game I was always expecting avowed to be so my opinion hasn't changed at all. I'm really excited about the color and big presence of magic too, because low magic settings have been beat to a pulp and heavy magic isn't given attention outside top-down games. I think it's really the first of its kind in its field and I'm hype for it. I am however quite upset that in such a magical colorful world my only two race choices are human and elf. I would have loved to play anything else, especially a unique race to the POE universe that I could have learned about. I think that was a major mistake and it honestly has me considering passing the game. I just hate the idea of being confined to a basic race in a world full of ones that are so much cooler waving in my face that I can't play. It's like playing a racing game where there's tons of cool new super cars around you but the only two cars you can drive are a pickup truck and a minivan. It's like seeing a dog in a game and not having the option to pet it. In a high magic setting with unique races, getting to role play a cool race and explore and divulge in their culture is a major central feature of fantasy RPGs. Imagine playing skyrim and you can only be an imperial or a breton. You just have to look at the orcs, khajiits, dark elves, and such and just cope with being shafted.

I like playing all the cool new rpgs. I don't have hundreds of hours to spend on every one. Because of this, I really enjoyed the shorter length of Outer Worlds and I'm ok with Avowed being shorter as well. I'll have Starfield to come back to as needed between finishing other shorter games. Just like Skyrim has filled that role over the last 10 years.

The visuals look like a fantasy tie-in for The Outer Worlds

id prefer maybe a more dark and gritty, but i think i could still have some fun with this

This is why Josh Sawyer is Obsidian's best game director. He should have been in charge.

My hype for avowed now is -666. Is a cheap AA small game they oversold for years. And now is a watered-down scarcely Rpg with less choices that Pillars.

I'm looking forward to playing TES VI in retirement. Don't expect any good fantasy RPGs until then.

As long as it has a unique character and vibe along with good story and enjoyable gameplay then art style can take the back seat

As a graphic designer, seeing how that logo got so brutally downscaled shows just how much the scope of this game shrunk. I get that they enjoy making smaller games with smaller teams but they got so much potential to go big. Really hope they can get their hands on Creation Engine 2 for whatever they build next.

I'm a fan of the Elder Scrolls Oblivion leveling system. I know it wasn't perfect but no system is. It comes down to prefrence. Basically in order to improve a skill you need to use it. Felt more realistic and made more sense to me. I honestly hope it's a system like that.

Avowed looks like an MMO, high fantasy flashy exagerated magic effects that makes watching the screen difficult, too much going on there for a levitation spell. Or Whatever.

Hi @Juicehead I have a quick question for cyberpunk if “Nocturne Op55N1” mission is my only save for cyber punk I have 78 hours on that build do I have to restart to play the new Dlc because it won’t even let me play free roam because I don’t have a save before the nocturne mission

We get enough fan blaming from the Industry, we don't need anymore thanks Juice. They set the expectations, theirs(probably what they were aiming for at start) and ours, with that original trailer. It's most likely that there was a creative shake up inside and the guys that wanted to make the Better Avowed lost or something. Regardless of what happened, it's clear as day that this Skull&Bones looking fantasy Outer Words, is not what Obsidian sold us years ago; so really F them.

This is making me sad i was really hoping for something like you said obsidian unleashed

i feel like they’re not ambitious enough simply aiming for another outer worlds which is y i feel they will always be in bethesdas shadow this feels like a AA game

What a shame. I've been a fan of the Pillars of Eternity series even since the game was first crowdfunded back in 2015. Its world always depicted to have dark, gritty environments with some photorealism. This trailer throws all of that away by showcasing itself as an Outer Worlds clone with swords and magic.

After Outer Worlds, I'm heavily skeptical.

I was expecting Avowed to be a Obsidian AAA game. If they going for the scope of AA game like the outer world then thats disappointing. Still need to see more of this game, but for the love of god please dont make the main story short like pillar 2.

New Vegas is my number one game of all time but avowed really does feel like a game pass type of game

I was expecting a bigger, darker, more serious world, but as soon as I saw the recent trailer, I had a strong feeling it would be of similar size and quality as Outer Worlds, which is not a bad thing.

I was also a bit puzzled by the trailer. For why they decided to go for an Outer Worlds style world, I imagine not least it was about lacking technical capabilites + manpower. They are still a way smaller company than Bethesda with waaay less experience with these kinds of games, so time alone to figure it out on a technical level must be enormous. Which is also partly evidenced by the statements about getting combat to feel good, I reckon. They are also split on numerous projects. So in the end, I totally get the decision and it doesn't say anything yet about the quality of the game, it'll just be different than many (myself included) might have expected. Maybe they should have proactively managed the publics expectations a bit better, a lot has been read into the few bits of information that were around and not least because of this there is a lot of disappointment around. Still, there were a few things that definitely seemed a bit rough to me or made me a bit sceptical. First the environmental/level design of the "wilderness", especially the colorful mushrooms everywhere seemed a bit out of place and not very well thought through. The interiors looked gorgeous and very PoE though, to my mind. Then this heavy focus on combat: yeah, its a fun and also important part of obsidian games, but I'd really thought they focus a bit more on the story and the world. Maybe they are so proud of how they worked out the combat, no idea. But it felt a bit slashy and generic-fantasy like this (especially with that "Forge. Your. Destiny!" bs). Still, I'm very excited and also trust Carrie Patel to direct it well. Just hope their limitations vs. their ambitions doesn't lead to a worst-of-two-worlds scenario. We'll see!

The art style change is really disappointing , we have so many games with that stylized cartoony look and it would've been nice to have a darker tone , not necessarily photorealstic but something between elden ring and skyrim would be great

I can't help but feel it comes off as lacking ambition. I get the idea of focusing your scope of a project in order to actually create a product, but comparing them to other studios makes me question if I should even consider getting it at launch. Larian, the studio who made the Divinity series, have shown experience with each of their works. The leap between Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 is outstanding. Even their biggest competitor, Bethesda looks to push what they're capable of. Outer Worlds was received at the middle by players as not bad, not fantastic, just a decent rpg. I would expect that being under Microsoft's wing that maybe this game would get a lot of support, but instead it feels like they're being rushed to a finish line. I love the world of PoE and I hope this game delivers but honestly each time the devs speak out my expectations get lower and lower. Like come on, there's so many races in Eora and you just pick two? I just want to be a godlike...

For me seeing obsidian is an AA studio, yea it's an AA game.

Love how people can hate or love something before they play it.

I still think it looks great. I'm just excited to see the Pillars of Eternity universe expand

Here is my thought Its going to be like the Witcher 3 in map and quest style. You know like the Witcher 3 has 3 different areas you travel to and between with lots of content. Obsidian knows how to write an RPG so lets not cry its all over yet, we have all the way to 2024 to see more about the game. Its been in development for a while so lets just tamper our expectation and trust that obsidian wants this IP to succeed! These are the guys who wrote FONV and KOTOR

Perfect example of why fan hype can be bad for gaming..Avowed will now forever be judged off merits the devs never intended it to be judged off of

I came into the showcase as an avowed fan, left the showcase as somewhat of a starfield fan.

idk what people are complaining about. What they showed looks really interesting and the magic gameplay looks fun. They have another year or more to work on this. I like that its a smaller game like outer worlds. Not everything needs to be huge open world maps. I rather have smaller more focused areas. People just like to complain I swear. They saw a trailer and everyone just assumed it would rival Elder Scrolls, while Obsidian said no such thing.

Translation: The guys tried to make a Skyrim, saw that they couldn't handle it and now they're making excuses with "Focus on the narrative".

ill probably just save my money on this one

Looks like an old school dungeon crawler. I think art style feels like an asset flip and is too bright though

That trailer hit me like a ton of bricks. I was extremely disappointed. I've since settled into a new set of expectations for this game both in terms of its look and scope. It is no longer one of my most anticipated games, but I will play it. And, who knows, maybe they'll enhance the graphics some before release?

Avowed is still my most anticipated Xbox game (does Starfield count if I was already hyped for it before it was an Xbox Studios game?). I enjoyed Outer Worlds enough that even if it’s “copy paste Outer Worlds, splice in some Skyrim, publish” and that’s all it is, I’m so. Friggin. Excited. The POE world is super cool, and color saturation isn’t enough to ruin that for me.

This change reminded me of what destiny fans lived this year .... LIGHTFALL to LiGhTfAlL

The graphics look lacking, best way I can describe it, I wish they went either for more stylized or higher definition, right now it just looks like "realistic" graphics from 10 years ago. I hope the gameplay is good, I loved Outer Worlds, I'd love play some more of that kind of gameplay.

I think that this being a smaller game could be a good thing a lot of great games that were widely praised were small and sweet

I’m disappointed with what happened to Avowed. I thought Obsidian was going ALL in on this one. I was really looking forward to Avowed.

As long as the combat is fun and the story is interesting I'm good. No one had faith on Grounded or Pentiment and they ended up surprising everyone, so I have confidence that this will be another Obsidian banger.

I can't remember the last time I was so bummed by a game reveal. As someone who's favourite game of all time is Fallout NV and who is also a fan of the Pillars of Eternity games I thought Obsidian would finally be able to really show what they can do with microsoft in their back and go for something that wows us. Something as big as Skyrim but more complex and deeper than Bethesda writing. The fact this isn't that but something that I can't describe in any other way than unambitious looking, despite the fact that they don't NEED to make relatively small games like the outer worlds anymore, now that they are owned and supported by microsoft, is just crushing. Like often happens there's lots of sycophants now that try to crush anyone who is critical of that decision but I don't think this will help the game. I wish Obsidian all the best but as things stand now I think Avowed will flop. I'm sure there will be lots of comments here, like anywhere else, of people claiming the looove this decision and that games should be shorter anyway, that they're bored of open worlds.. etc. and honestly good for you, but it won't make the game more successful.

Avowed almost looks like what I’d imagine the Fable reboot would look like lol

After playing baldurs gate 3 I really don’t want to hear any excuses from game devs. Everyone shuld up their game.

Gonna pass on this one, I liked NV because it didn’t compromise between RPG density and size and although I don’t dislike any of their games post that I now understand it was an anomaly in their catalogue. Happy for those who will enjoy it though their rpgs are anything but bad

Thats ridiculous, because this game looks amazing. It fits the pillars art style pretty well, and it not being as dark and broody as the first trailer is... fine. Gameplay looks awesome, and I'd love to see more of that world in a first person game.

I don't really mind the semi-open world part, but these visuals man. The game just looks like a fantasy GAAS game ala ESO or even a mobile game. Extremely plain and inoffensive looking.

Graphics wise, it seems to me the more vibrant colors actually fit the PoE games way more than the depressing grey tones. Those games looked quite colorful, which contrasted with the dark themes, and I expect this game to do the same. I was expecting a story set in the PoE universe, so I am still very excited, but I can see why some people are disappointed this isn't Skyrim but with good writing.

Ability based. No Skills Can’t interact with objects. Small Only two races Short story Just like the Outer Worlds Man…it’s like they tailor made this game to be everything I didn’t want it to be. I’m still going to get the game but my excitement is almost entirely gone. This is really frustrating.

I’m excited to see what happens with this game! I actually like the art style and gameplay looks pretty cool! Plus bigger world doesn’t mean better. If they decided to go with a smaller world then it was probably for a good reason.

They did not say it was the size of Outer Words, and they also name-dropped KOTOR 2 - the idea was that it's a setup of multiple open world and not just one large one (Outer Wilds and KOTOR 2 are not the same size btw - so you cannot really claim any particular size just based on that game also being mentioned). It's baffling how much someone can hear words and just fly off the handle to make extraordinary claims like effectively "it will be the same size as the AA outer wilds game which was clearly hamstrung by the budget it had". This is just fud, but whatever, it will come and delight or it wont.

If combat looked like Dark Messiah, people would be hyped. It looks like Skyrim. Swords in Skyrim work the same as fists in Doom from 1993, just with nicer animations.

I do not like how much this is being compared to The Outer Worlds… when I seen Avowed I was hoping for open ended first person Pillars dark fantasy RPG, not vibrant smaller scale medieval Outer Worlds.

Wow! I can’t wait for the avowed hands on game reviews drop. One month into release should be good enough for us to get a feel for the game and what it is/has become.

The graphics and combat of avowed can be easily recreated with Skyrim mods. The only thing that I dont think could are the hit reactions

It’s basically outer worlds with spells and fantasy medieval which I’m actually cool with

I'm looking forward to seeing more gameplay. I think it's premature to write this game off with the trailer we got.

Avowed being a Pillars of Eternity themed take on Elder Scrolls with Microsoft money backing it up is what drew me in in the first place. Avowed being downgraded to just being POE Outer Worlds now is a massive hype deflater to me. It feels like Obsidian Entertainment isn't really utilizing their new found Microsoft backed recourses to their full potential.

Hopefully we'll have open modding resources so that as in case of Skyrim, content creators can change the game or add whatever new features they want.

Anyone else think this sounds like a low budget knock off of Greedfall with a personal twist on the art? 😅

The hate Avowed's gameplay got only shows me how much people secretly love the creation engine

Where is that interview?

I'm definitely still super excited. I adored the Outer Worlds, wished it was a little longer but felt the DLC helped flesh it out. I can't wait to see more of what we can do in this game.

Disappointment should not be a surprise. Chris Avellone, Gonzalez, Brian Mitsoda all great writers and designers left Obsidian ages ago. Don't expect great writing, design and story up there with Kotor 2 and FO:NV.

I'm definitely disappointed, but I agree that eventually that will fade. The outer worlds was a solid game, and I think for this new take on the IP, it's a safe bet to reproduce that. I hope that the Outer worlds still tries to go bigger and harder than the first, though, because while Avowed will still be a pretty new experience, having 3 similar tone-d games of similar sizes, 2 of which are in the same space is going to start getting boring. I think outer worlds 2 has to do something novel to keep people's attention at the end of the day because of this.

I for one was not a huge fan of The Outer Worlds. The world wasn't that interesting (i.e., travel between locations, points of interest, variety of enemies, etc.), so Avowed being described as similar to The Outer Worlds in terms of size and breadth has dampened my excitement. I'll continue to keep an eye out for the game, but my expectations are much lower than before.

i dont know. i really liked the concept of a grounded fps fantasy but when i saw the gameplay i was just impressed by the magic and the overall combat gave me dark messiah vibes which i didnt know i wanted but know im more hyped about it.especially because its made by obsidian

I’m still expecting avowed to feel better to play and more rich than the outer worlds, so even though I’m slightly skeptical I’m still excited to see more.

Looks like it's gonna be one of the games of all time.

Wild guess here, the tone shift might have taken place because it would have some sort of impact on how we would have received the next Skyrim.

Had to look at the 2020 trailer to the trailer we got now. I can see it, the first trailer had you thinking something with the darkness of say diablo 2 or 4. Ended up with something a lot brighter. I mean I think what I saw in that 2023 trailer looked amazing. I love first person sword fighting/scrolls like games.

Outer World was... fine. I beat it once and didn't feel like going through it again, or do the DLC. It felt a little... try-hard with trying to have that ironic retro feel. Like fallout in space. The most interesting character to me was the ship AI. So if Avowed compares most to that, not a selling point to me. I dunno... unless it reviews amazingly I'm not really interested.

Great to know it's the current topic and I'm not the only one who disliked the new art direction of the game. Reading the comments to the trailer I felt like I was either crazy or the only sane person in a crazy house. Seemed like everyone couldn't hold their excitement.