With a release date late this very year and more than enough build up to start a fan club rubbing our hands together for it- why am I not excited about Avowed even so close to launch. At this point this really isn't a case of 'wait until I see more and then it'll hit me', I just don't seem to be feeling the game at all and that's both a reflection of what the game actually is and what the fool version of myself wanted it to be so very badly. Obsidian are not a company I hold in any small regard, I consider them some the great RPG creators of the modern age and will die on several hills to defend the absolute majesty of 'Tyranny'- rest in peace for what was an evocative world that could have spawned a absolute cracked of a series! Outer Worlds practically had me frothing at the mouth when it came up to launch! So what is Avowed just making me sigh?
Unfortunately I think The Outer Worlds might have had something to do with it. As much as I enjoyed the game at the time, The Outer Worlds just didn't manage to live up to everything I wanted it to be at face value- lacking the malleable RPG dripped world and story which made Fallout New Vegas unforgettable to me. There is choice, to be sure, and significant paths towards finishing the main story- but nothing that is a patch on what New Vegas offered. No complex factions that balance against and around each other as they struggle over the narrative, no ability to play an evolved game of cat-and-mouse with all the leading factions as you play them off one another- No ultimate pathos between you and your companions as you reach the apotheosis of your journey. The Outer Worlds was a good RPG, don't get me wrong. But I expected something great.
For everything we see of Avowed the more it looks like something on an almost identical path to what The Outer Worlds was- and indeed the studio themselves have even evoked it's name to give people an idea of what to expect and, more importantly, what not to expect. Avowed has no interest in giving us a simulation of a world to live and explore in at our own past, like the Elder Scrolls series does. Avowed does not want to bother translating it's complicated Tabletop inspired gameplay systems faithfully over, like Baldur's Gate 3 did. Avowed isn't even going to give us an open world. And I'm just... not feeling a game produced to the exact same standards that The Outer Worlds was. And what makes that especially strange, is the fact that I think the Pillars universe has some crazy potential!
Pillars 1 and 2 are kind of dark fantasy verging titles that are made special and unique by the bizarre relationship the player character has with the various gods that rule the world and the how they work with the idea of souls. Pillars 1 really put the mechanics of the world at the forefront of the narrative you worked through how the universe functions on the metagame and the way in which theological divides shape, develop and destroy lives amidst even that, the armpit of the Eora. Pillars 2 put you in direct contention with the personalities of the gods themselves, hearing them bicker, forging their favour, splitting hairs over philosophical diatribes. It really did offer an experience like no other.
The universe that Avowed is entering has so far teased itself tantalisingly over the years but now- maybe I'm just finding my first glimpses at the so called 'Living Lands' underwhelming. Deadfire wowed with it's incredible isles dripping with culture and character, and if Avowed actually manages to follow that framework for storywork we could have a suitably spongy narrative to play around with at the very least, which at most might give us hints of what we could get if Obsidian ever put their backs into a New Vegas 2, but I can't see this meeting them at their best- which feels a bit odd after all these years. If working under Microsoft with their money, and stepping on the best franchise to get a leg up, isn't enough resource for their best effort yet- are they ever going to get there? I get that Obsidian pride themselves on great smaller games, but they have the talent punch above their weight too, don't they?
It was definitely the ambition of The Outer Worlds that soured me so much. The story they decided to tell within their worlds space felt so ludicrously tiny that I just couldn't accept being told the universe was any bigger than the confines of the playspace I was navigating. It's like the polar opposite of Starfield's problem, where the scope of the world building is so grand nothing you ever explore feels of consequence or immediately interesting- The Outer Worlds felt so tiny I genuinely bawked when I see The Outer Worlds 2 announced as I said "Really? What more story is there to tell?" Which really shouldn't be the case with an RPG! Perhaps their DLC really picks up the slack in that area, I haven't had the pleasure yet. (But I intend to, at some point.)
I'm trying to ignite my fandom, every few months I come back on this topic. I'm trying to extract all the positives, put myself on the road, but I just come away hollow. Maybe I've lost the capacity to love. Other Obsidian fans are getting there, rising up the hype train, getting on the band wagon, and I'm cold to it all. The good ending is that I'm off base and when the game drops it's that special brand of Obsidian that has me hooked and laughing and loving once again, but that's everything I wanted out of their last game. I think it's myself to blame for expecting so much out of this studio that clearly aren't interested in the same things that I am- but I still want to hold on hope that the Obsidian I love is in there somewhere.
Pillars is on the back burner following the under performance of 2, Tyranny never got off the ground because people brushed by one of the best RPGs of it's time, Fallout is a maybe depending on how desperate Bethesda gets. I guess I just thought Obsidian were in a healthier position than they are, and Avowed isn't their big stab into the AAA world, but more another gentle hop on the road they've been on for over a decade now. And to be fair, looking at how the industry is eating itself around them, maybe it's better they aren't sinking triple A budgets into triple A games and turning over triple A numbers of staff in the process.
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