Obsidian’s Avowed is the cure for “Souls-like” action-RPG fatigue

Preview build shows a rich, colorful world with satisfying, zippy combat.

In the years since Dark Souls first hit the scene, the action RPG genre has been overrun with "Souls-like" games that emulate FromSoft's general vibe. That often applies not just to dark settings and punishing difficulty but also to the slow, deliberate management of every movement and attack to survive even simple encounters with your life and stamina intact.

While that approach definitely has its place, sometimes you want an action-RPG with a little more color, a little faster pacing, and a little more, well, action. After spending a few hours with Obsidian's Avowed, it already feels like just the thing for action-RPG fans who want something a little less Souls-like.

All politics is local

From the start, Avowed is layered with all of the vaguely medieval high fantasy tropes you'd expect from a game spun off from the Pillars of Eternity universe. Your protagonist is a "god-like," touched in the womb by mysterious immortal beings that gave you mysterious powers but also a disfigured face that led you to be bullied as a child. Eventually, you grow up to be an envoy to the King of Aedrys and are sent over the sea to the lightly civilized Living Lands to investigate a mysterious fungal plague that is turning animals and soldiers alike into unruly, rage-filled beasts.

While the exposition dump introduction is a bit tedious, the storytelling picks up quite a bit in well-voiced conversations with a wide variety of humans and multicolored humanoid species around the island kingdom of Paradis. Through the well-written dialogue, you get a pretty quick feel for the strained politics between Aedrys and Paradis. What the Aedryn people see as an important civilizing occupation, the Paradisans are more likely to see as a heavy-handed colonization. As such, you're treated more often with suspicion and reluctance by the local populace than as a fated hero saving the realm from destruction.

But... but I'm the imperial envoy!

Obsidian / Microsoft

 

I wouldn't bet money on any of those things being true, buddy.

Obsidian / Microsoft

 

The early dialogue trees offer plenty of opportunities to explore the political lore and historical backstory of the world. You can also stumble on some interesting side stories, including one where you end up playing impromptu relationship counselor to a troubled human who has fallen into a forbidden relationship with one of the beasts bedeviling the town.

After taming a few of the more fearsome infected beasts troubling Paradis, you discover a mystical stone that lets you actually talk to the sentient fungus that's causing all of this trouble; it describes itself as "mycelia twining through the loam, taking and giving in equal measure." That first conversation with the reluctant infection itself is full of the kind of heavy-handed mysticism and flowery language that quickly had me tuning out of the story. I'm hopeful that the full game will stay more focused on the more interesting human interactions instead.

Daggers, bows, and spells

If you're used to games like Dark Souls or Elden Ring, you'll find the first-person melee-based combat in Avowed to be downright zippy. You start with a simple dagger that's great for multiple quick thrusts or for a slower, charged attack that lets you lunge in from a few paces out. Getting in close with the dagger can open you up to dangerous counterattacks, though, which are best avoided with a quick sideways or backward dodge. The window for those dodges can be pretty tight, though, and a few stray attacks is enough to leave you struggling to survive with a limited "second wind" recovery.

Pretty quickly, you'll stumble on a bow and a seemingly unlimited supply of arrows, which can be fired quickly or charged for a more powerful volley. This is the safest way to attack most early grunt enemies, as you can keep your distance from foes that can't do much from afar but throw rocks. But the safer option is also the duller one, as lobbing arrow after arrow from a relatively safe distance quickly starts to feel a bit tedious.

The tedium of the bow doesn't really break until you stumble on your first spellbook, which you can hold in your off-hand while gripping the dagger in the other. Spouts of flame, freezing icicles, and blasts of lightning all come standard with the basic spellbook, alongside learnable spells like an enemy-tracking elemental blast and a powerful bull charge that can stun even lunging enemies.

Even early on, the wide variety of available spells—all on relatively quick cooldown timers—can make for some pretty dynamic fights. In one early boss battle with a large, infected bear, I was able to continually pepper the beast with each available spell while also lunging in for a few quick dagger hits when it was stunned or immobilized. By the time I was done with the last spell in my repertoire, my first spell was ready to use again, leading to a satisfying cycle of magical attacks that held out as long as my mana did. Though you do have to manage a prominent stamina meter during these battles, the game seems to be generous enough to make it not much of a pressing issue (at least for my combat-heavy character build).

Through it all, there's usually one or two computer-controlled partners fighting alongside you as well. In many games like this, these kinds of partners feel like more of a chore to manage than an ally to aid you. In Avowed, though, your partners do a good job of distracting large groups of enemies from ganging up on you while also doing significant damage themselves—one actually landed the killing blow on a boss while I was off healing from a stray attack. While you can issue commands and get specific upgrades to fine-tune how your allies work, I've been perfectly satisfied with letting their default assistance round out my battles.

The small preview slice of Avowed we were given access to only touches on a deep, multi-branched ability tree suited for both melee combat and more ranged magic users. We're eager to explore more when the game hits Windows and Xbox consoles on February 18.

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