HomeFeaturesAvowed
Avowed’s rickety combat feels like the undoing of its lush fungal worldBut perhaps it’ll grow on me, like the fungus
But perhaps it’ll grow on me, like the fungus
Image credit:Microsoft
Image credit:Microsoft
I have no idea how novel thisreallyis within the overarching Pillars world of Eora. Speaking as a newcomer to the setting, it was enough to keep me fussing around in the editor for half-an-hour. There’s a predictable price for embracing the game’s New Weird elements, however: other characters might find you repellent.
Image credit:Microsoft
The area design so far consists of meandering corridors that split and double back on themselves occasionally at the behest of puzzles. There’s a bit of platforming and the opportunity for stealth, with enemy alertness icons and tall grass to lurk in. At fleeting intervals, the dungeon design reminded me ofDishonored, though this absolutely isn’t an immersive sim.
Image credit:Microsoft
The Living Lands make for some gorgeous scenery - with allowances for capped resolution on the preview build, anyway, which made the game look horrible blown up on my 4K display. It’s the Caribbean but high fantasy, sort of. It does box you in, however, with sloped and tumbledown surfaces that staunchly refuse to be jumped on, and some overt invisible walls. There’s a lingering sense that you’re roaming a landscape that really wants to be explored in isometric or top-down view, with simplified binary distinctions between navigable areas and scenery.
The awkwardness also applies to combat, which is real-time with dodging, blocking and cooldowns on abilities and magic. You can equip two sets of weapons and gear at once, switching between them on the go. Melee options include double-handed, guard-shattering hammers, daggers for quick strikes, and shields for the abject cowards. Spellcasters get wands and grimoires that contain multiple spells, including palmtop flamethrowers and lightning bolts that, yes, conduct through bodies of water.
There’s also a radial freeze-frame menu to help you aim fussier abilities, give your companions orders, and plan out elemental or status effect combos. Enemies, meanwhile, range from hyperactive lizard folk to magisterial, sorcery-lobbing skeletons, with the expected mix of melee, projectile and support archetypes.
Image credit:Microsoft
I hope this is just a question of getting used to the game’s rhythms, and venturing beyond the opening pedagogy - prologue fights tend to be stagey. It could also be that the build I have is just quite old - Obsidian haven’t dated it, but there are obvious placeholder elements such as hand-drawn cinematics with WIP labels. As things stand, I came away from my Avowed preview newly enthused to check out the Pillars games, but for the wrong reasons: I want to experience this setting without the above annoyances. Fingers crossed that the final release in February 2025 will persuade me otherwise, because Mystic Meg deserves her day in the sun.
