Avowed PSA: You Can’t Kill Chickens

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Summary

  • Killing chickens is an RPG rite of passage. Have you really played Skyrim if you haven’t slaughtered Riverwood?
  • But in Avowed, a missclick won’t turn an entire town against you. Chickens cannot be harmed whatsoever.
  • In fact, even the villagers are immune.

Upon arriving at Claviger’s Landing, I promptly strolled towards the nearby farm and began to brandish my sword menacingly at the livestock. It’s almost tradition in Skyrim to massacre everyone in Riverwood following an unwitting slaying of one of their barnyard fowl. However, fear not, a misclick in Avowed won’t lead Hadvar’s entire kin to turn against you.

I made numerous attempts to char them, cast spells on them, and fire at them using my flintlock – all to no avail. The same holds true for other farm animals, including the peculiar bird-like creatures often referred to as ‘cow birds’. Contrary to popular belief, you cannot eliminate random townsfolk or critical characters in the Living Lands. Instead, it seems that every inhabitant of this realm remains… indestructibly alive and well.

What I’m saying is, they aren’t like characters in Skyrim who can take numerous attacks and keep going. Instead, these entities are immune to attack from the start. It’s fortunate that we can’t slaughter their livestock, right?

Chickens Are A Gaming Staple

In Skyrim, getting swarmed by players from Rorikstead to Whiterun due to harming a chicken in Riverwood has become quite the internet joke. However, it’s not just Skyrim that puts these feathered creatures through the wringer. Similar events occur in other Role-Playing Games (RPGs). For instance, in The Legend of Zelda, killing chickens causes the entire flock to turn on you. Earthworm Jim features a robot chicken boss fight, which could be seen as a more reasonable reason for eliminating these birds. In Fable, there’s an entire competition centered around kicking chickens!

Not all games penalize you for killing birds, such as Red Dead Redemption where you can knock them out or catch their feathers instead. Minecraft allows breeding and cooking them alive in a confined Redstone box, a concept humorously mocked in some films. In contrast, The Outer Worlds (developed by Obsidian) does not penalize you for killing chickens at all. These small creatures in its dystopian sci-fi settlements are free to be harvested as you please.

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2025-02-20 14:34