It’s Hard To Roleplay In Avowed When The World Is So Lifeless

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In Fallout: New Vegas, you come across a town that’s ablaze, with charred crucifixes scattered among the ruins. Out runs a cheerful character, Yuri Lowenthal, who happens to be a Powder Ganger – essentially, an ex-convict with a fondness for explosives. However, his lottery win isn’t a pile of money; it’s a pass that ensures the Legion won’t execute him. Considering the circumstances, he’s doing quite well… until he crosses paths with the Courier.

In my role as a dedicated champion for the New California Republic, where my character, the Courier, strongly supported the post-apocalyptic federal republic, I swiftly eliminated this escaped convict the moment I spotted him. The soiled blue shirt was his undoing, and I reached for my worn Varmint rifle. This wasn’t a predetermined event or dialog choice; it was an organic aspect of the game world that I chose to respond to in my unique manner.

In Avowed, there’s nothing resembling the freedom or dynamic interactions we might expect. The game environment feels like a static stage set for a play, where every character is merely an actor delivering scripted lines. Your engagement with these characters is restricted to a selection of predefined dialogue options, offering little room for creative input. You may choose your character’s personality, but the dialogues essentially follow the same trajectory. There’s no room for actions like killing characters or exploring their personal spaces – not even picking locks on the glowing chests to sift through their valuable items. The best you can hope for is a stern reprimand, such as “hey!” It’s a visually appealing world, but one that feels devoid of depth and authenticity, filled instead with cardboard characters.

Classes Don’t Work If They Only Impact Gameplay

The major issue that undermines Avowed lies in the insignificance of classes. While you can take a cautious approach by shooting enemies from afar with a bow, this stealthy tactic is limited to combat situations. An archer character is usually associated with a sneaky playstyle, often linked to thieves and assassins, but in this game, such roles cannot be fully realized. As I mentioned earlier, there is no real consequence for stealing, so the game offers more of a treasure hunt experience in someone’s private quarters while they are present.

> As a gaming enthusiast, I’ve discovered that even the sturdiest in-game tanks can manipulate locks without any real skill required. Whether it’s chests or doors, as long as you have the right set of lockpicks, they’ll open. Interestingly, your character class doesn’t seem to influence this ability in any way. Instead, the initial choice you make – selecting your Envoy’s background – primarily impacts the extra dialogue you receive when you desire trivial backstory, making it feel somewhat random and unimportant. This game-centric system is quite transparent about its nature, which unfortunately tends to disrupt the immersion in a roleplaying setting.

In other words, the method you choose to obtain funds to purchase a new weapon reveals your character’s personality, and this decision is influenced by your class and character setup. For instance, a Fighter could snatch a name from the wanted poster and embark on a hunt, a Bard might seek hidden treasures, returning with pockets full of gold and captivating tales to share at the local inn, while a Thief may sneak around town under the cover of darkness, identifying an unsuspecting victim to rob.

Although you’re versatile across various tasks in the game, this flexibility makes everything seem similar because there’s little risk or reward associated with shaping your character, known as an Envoy. Your build primarily affects combat, leaving little room for creativity or diverse approaches to each situation, which could otherwise provide roleplaying opportunities beyond dialogue. Consequently, encounters become repetitive and less engaging as the game progresses due to their predictable nature, offering only two solutions: either pick the right option like flipping through a choose-your-own-adventure book or engage in combat.

Avowed Never Sold Itself As An Immersive RPG, But It’s Clearly Missing Something

While it’s true that Obsidian Entertainment didn’t explicitly promote Avowed as a game allowing players to carry out brutal acts like slaughtering an entire town, massacring livestock, and plundering them, it’s important to consider the broader context. The game was marketed as an Action RPG with a strong emphasis on immersive gameplay. The lack of explicit violence in promotional materials doesn’t negate the fact that some players might expect certain levels of freedom and immersion from such a title. The focus on stylish magic and the studio’s distinctive dialogue were indeed highlighted, but these aspects don’t necessarily exclude the possibility of engaging in more aggressive gameplay elements. This is the perspective that seems to be overlooked in many recent discussions about the game.

Avowed is reminiscent of The Elder Scrolls series, with its roots traceable back to The Outer Worlds, which in turn was influenced by Fallout: New Vegas, and both were inspired by Oblivion. Each game mentioned here features a reactive world where your character’s class significantly affects more than just dialogue and combat, enabling you to respond differently to each encounter and problem based on the kind of character you choose to play.

Instead of faithfully recreating the captivating realms that inspired it, Avowed strips them down significantly, leaving behind an emptiness where the charm once resided. Obsidian hasn’t managed to replace this void with anything substantial. What remains is a dull, barren setting devoid of the life and spirit it originally possessed.

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2025-03-08 22:05