I have been playing and streaming the new release from Obsidian: Avowed. I purchased the game before the Early Access period for a staggering $90. I never pay the exorbitant fee for Early Access pre-orders. However, this time, many factors aligned that made me think to myself, "You know, I want to try something new, and I want to do it right now." So I did my best Veruca Salt impression and threw my internal objections to the wind.

So, here we go with Early Access night one! Was strangely excited to fire this game up, despite the constant negativity coming from the Anti-Woke crowd. I decided to start up my new content series entitled, "Trash or Smash," where I go into a game blindly and decide quickly if the game is worth picking up (smash) or avoiding (trash). I know. Super creative. (I also realized that I captured the game in the completely incorrect color space. Check the VOD. oops.)

My initial impressions were simple: I kind of enjoyed it. 

As I spent more time with the game, I began to enjoy it more and more. I found myself eagerly awaiting the next time I got to dive in and explore the mini sandbox that was presented to me. Now, if you know me, which I am sure you do not, I generally do not waste my time with exploration in these types of games. I usually plow through the main story and any interesting side quests available. But with Avowed? I did the questing as per normal, but I was constantly exploring. There is loot to be found just about everywhere. I was digging it.

However, it seemed that many did not enjoy their time with it. Where I found a delightful little "Elder Scrolls - Lite" experience, some were expecting an analogue; the expectation was that this game was to be some sort of "Skyrim Killer."

It's not a Skyrim Killer

Let's get this part out of the way. Avowed is not supposed to be a Skyrim killer. The similarities exist between both games in that they are first or third person fantasy games, with generally open free-explore areas. Beyond that simple comparison, they are two entirely different experiences. Where Skyrim has a major focus on story, simulation, and immersion, Avowed focuses on story, world, and action. The gameplay is the star of the show in Avowed.

I've seen countless videos and posts on X about the lack of realism in Avowed. Truly, if that level of realism is what you desire in your fantasy game, then, Avowed may not be for you. If it really matters that your arrows disappear after a few seconds, then, you likely should avoid this game. If you're after a fun game that might make you turn off the over-critical part of your brain for your play sessions, then you might like Avowed.

I found Avowed to have a very similar gameplay loop to Skyrim, but, in my opinion, all of the Bethesda BS was trimmed out and the loop was streamlined. I can absolutely roll up and do a short play session in Avowed and feel like I accomplished something. 

So, What is it, then?

Avowed is a fun game set in the Pillars of Eternity universe. It should be treated as a separate entry to the series, though there are plenty of nods to the previous entries in the PoE space. 

I played the game on PC and the performance was generally good. I run an AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX graphics card. Just don't enable the ray tracing which was on by default (another oops). Avowed is a very pretty game and definitely had a few moments where I looked out across the environment from a high perch and said to myself, "Oh wow. Beautiful!" This phenomena seems to repeat itself each and every time you travel into one of the new zones. Always exciting to see more!

The story and decisions you must make through the story are quite good and thought provoking. Apparently I screwed up a semi-secret quest line and the consequences were an entire city being burned to the ground! At the time of writing, I am nearing completion of the third area; I have a sneaky feeling that there will be a fairly heavy decision for the protagonist to make which will have major repercussions throughout the game world. This is the kind of stuff in games that I live for!

Final Verdict

No surprise here, but I really like the game. I'm not going to give it a score or anything arbitrary like that. Just understand that I am a guy with a set of tastes that may or may not line up with yours. I'm going to complete the game, and I am very much looking forward to doing so. As a matter of fact, I might even do a different playthrough where I make completely different choices along the way.

But no matter what, I'm JT, and I was right...