Despite the recent delay to February 18, 2025, Obsidian Entertainment continues to show off more of its upcoming game, Avowed. We recently heard that the number of endings is double-digit, and the studio also confirmed the frame rate target of 30 frames per second on Xbox consoles.
Now, YouTuber Enfant Terrible has posted over an hour of new gameplay footage (available in gorgeous 4K resolution) that shows off three different archetypes players will find in Avowed: Blood Mage, Barbarian, and Ranger. The action RPG set in Eora, the world of Pillars of Eternity, has a classless system. As such, players will be free to customize their main character however they like, but specific playstyle can still be achieved.
At Gamescom 2024, Obsidian was also interviewed by the Iron Lords Podcast. Here, Art Director Matt Hansen and Production Director Ryan Warden explained one of the less talked about systems featured in Avowed: the radial wheel, which allows players to stop time and think strategically about what they’re doing next, and how companions factor in.
Ryan Warden: We also have those abilities that are available to bind to the d-pad, so if you want to quickfire one of those abilities, no problem, and if you want to have a little bit more momentum in your combat experience, no problem, just quick bind that too to the d-pad. If you want Kai to come in with Fire and Ire, which is one of his abilities where he kind of draws aggro on enemies to act a little bit more as a tank, no problem, you can do that. Just quickfire that from the d-pad. Each companion has four active abilities. You’re going to have to make some choices because there’s only so many buttons, but you get to remap them to your heart’s content.
Matt Hansen: To add on to that a little bit, each of those abilities also has a series of upgrades that you can get that can very fundamentally change how that ability works. There’s lots of different ways you can build your companions and combine them, too. Kai and Marius have different ways of synergizing than Giatta and Yatzli. So much of the game is about this idea that you’re stronger together with your companions.
As mentioned above, the release date of Avowed is now set for mid-February on PC and Xbox Series S|X. However, with Microsoft already confirming the PlayStation 5 launch window of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, it’s looking increasingly likely that the game may be released there at some point in the future.
PCs will likely offer the best experience anyway. Obsidian has partnered with NVIDIA to support NVIDIA DLSS 3 and ray tracing, although we don’t know yet which effects will be enhanced by ray tracing.
