Avowed was featured with a new story trailer at yesterday’s Xbox Game Showcase 2024, and an Obsidian blog post briefly mentioned a November 12 release date before being corrected.
However, the real meat in terms of new info came today via the latest special episode of the Official Xbox Podcast, which hosted Avowed Game Director Carrie Patel. She brought some new footage (though unfortunately it is only available in Full HD) and revealed plenty of new information, starting with the fact that the game will indeed feature a third-person camera option, in stark contrast to all the footage released so far. That will certainly be welcome news for all those players who can’t stand first-person view due to motion sickness issues.
Patel also demonstrated how Obsidian aims to make it very clear for players when one of their equipped weapons is ineffective due to its lack of upgrades. Besides just not doing enough damage, you’ll also get very obvious visual and sound cues that you need to gather enough resources to enhance the weapon.
The footage then showed some pretty nighttime (Avowed features dynamic time of day) scenes and a glimpse into the party camp, which is where the player character and their companions will rest, recuperate, and most importantly chat about what’s happened.
Moreover, we got another look at the character progression. On certain level milestones, players will get to increase their attribute points: Might increases damage and carry weight, Constitution increases health and poison/bleed resistance, Dexterity improves attack and action speed, Perception increases critical hit chance and max range, Intellect augments Essence and elemental resistance, and Resolve increases stamina and reduces the cooldown of Second Wind.
On every level up, the character will gain one ability point to spend on skill in the Fighter, Ranger, Wizard, and Godlike trees. Avowed is classless, so you can freely choose to spend everything in the Wizard (or any other tree) or just make a jack-of-all-trades character. Some of the skills will also be helpful in traversal, such as Fan of Flames making quick work of the brambles that blocked a certain path. A respec option is available for those who may regret spending points in a certain direction.
Throughout the podcast, Obsidian provided a look at how to resolve a quest in two opposite ways. The player character needs to acquire the heart from an ancient forest creature, and the user can opt to slay her brethren (which will lead to a confrontation once the creature realizes you’ve killed them all) or use stealth to avoid the guards and obtain the item with a diplomatic approach.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Carrie Patel also expressed confidence in the studio’s ability to release Avowed this year.
I’ll say, just having come from the studio last week, the game is looking fantastic. The team is putting a lot of love into the polish. So we feel very good about 2024.
It also may be the case that Obsidian and Microsoft are waiting to see the release window of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which may be revealed tomorrow alongside the first look at gameplay. After all, they’re both fantasy action RPGs likely headed toward a November launch.
As a reminder, Avowed will be available for PC and Xbox Series S|X, and it’ll be on Game Pass from day one.
