Avowed review for PC, Xbox Series X

To some extent, Avowed feels like the result of some kind of “Build Your Own Fantasy” madlibs generator just spitting out a scenario: your character is a insert a fantasy race: Godlike who has to stop the insert a magical illness: Dreamscourge from taking over insert a fantasy kingdom: The Living Lands.

What’s more, the way the game plays out kind of supports that. If you were to imagine an Oblivion/Skyrim-esque fantasy game, it would probably look and play like Avowed. You have all the different races, lots of stone and wood buildings, and plenty of greenery. Add in a little swordplay and some magic for the combat, and plenty of dialogue trees to allow for overly long explanations, and you’ve got Avowed.

And yet…calling Avowed a generic fantasy game doesn’t seem fair or accurate. Part of this is because it’s so well-made. Its world may not break any new boundaries, but at the same time it’s so gorgeous that you can’t help but want to explore it. You can see that a lot of care went into creating the Living Lands, and as a result it feels like you’re exploring a thought-out world, rather than wandering around a bunch of interchangeable hills and forests and valleys.

It helps, too, that Avowed seems more focused than your standard RPG. I wouldn’t say a game that takes 40+ hours to complete could ever be described as streamlined, but at the same time, there’s a constant sense of forward motion here. The game does a great job of pushing you towards your objectives, whether it’s the main story or the side quest, without making it feel linear. Likewise, the Living Lands are big enough that you can go off in whatever direction you want, but not so big that you’re going to get lost in them.

Interestingly, for a game that feels so focused, Avowed gives you a lot of free reign when it comes to how you approach combat. If you want, you can approach it as a standard fantasy RPG, and run around hacking and slashing and parrying with your sword and shield. But, at the same time, that’s not your only option. There are guns to be found here, if you feel like shooting your way through lizard people and giant spiders. Even more excitingly, there’s combat magic, if you want to forgo the clash of steel for raining literal lightning on your enemies. Personally, it took me a while to get the hang of switching from sword and shield to wand and grimoire, but with practice it becomes much easier (and a lot more fun).

Just about the only real complaint I had about Avowed was that, in some ways, it doesn’t register the consequences of your actions. To be sure, some of that helps in making the game feel so focused – but, at the same time, you can waltz into someone’s house, steal whatever you come across, and no one will ever complain. From the perspective of being able to build up your inventory, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but for a game in which the dialogue gives you options of being suave, calm, or a total jerk, it feels like a missed opportunity to make your actions feel like they have more weight to them.

But at the same time, I’m not sure that Avowed needs to feel weighty and meaningful to be fun. In fact, I’d say that it’s better because it’s not trying to make itself into a grand statement. Avowed is, as I noted above, exactly what you’d imagine a fantasy epic to be – and it’s all the better for it.

Xbox Game Studios provided us with an Avowed PC code for review purposes.