A couple of days ago, The Verge’s Tom Warren reported hearing that Avowed would suffer a small delay to give it more breathing room from an otherwise busy Fall game release schedule. A few hours ago, Xbox confirmed the news, revealing that the game is now set to launch on February 18, 2025. New gameplay for Avowed will be shown in a live stream scheduled for August 23.
They also reminded players there are lots of games made by Microsoft-owned studios on the way. World of Warcraft: The War Within, the tenth expansion for Blizzard’s premiere MMO, launches on August 26 (and you can read all about getting ready for it here). Age of Mythology: Retold, the remastered version of the classic RTS game, is due September 4. The turn-based grand strategy game Ara: History Untold from Oxide Games (Ashes of the Singularity) is out on September 24.
Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, the first expansion for the popular hack-and-slash action RPG, launches October 8. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is out on October 25. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, an updated version of the already amazing flight simulation game, will be released on November 19.
Three more Xbox first-party games are due in 2024 without a fixed launch date: Stoic’s side-scrolling multiplayer action-adventure game Towerborne, the Shattered Space Starfield expansion, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Moreover, Microsoft has a three-month exclusivity deal with GSC Game World for STALKER 2, which was recently delayed from early September to November 20.
As for Avowed, Obsidian Entertainment seemed very confident about hitting the 2024 launch, so it must have been a Microsoft directive. The studio’s website even briefly listed a November 12 release date before getting amended. The developers certainly won’t be able to add new content to the RPG, which will be on the short side of the spectrum for the genre, in just three months.
However, that’s plenty of time to fix bugs and improve performance, which could help deliver the most polished Obsidian game to date. RPG fans still have Dragon Age: The Veilguard to look forward to this Fall, with BioWare set to announce the date later this month.
