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RPGAction RPGAdventureOpen World
Avowed
The Living Lands call. Your soul answers. Welcome to Eora.
Xbox Series XPS5
Published by Xbox Game Studios · Xbox Series X · PS5
Storyline & Lore
The island is alive. Not metaphorically. The Living Lands breathe, bleed, and remember. And they have been waiting for you.
You are an envoy of the Aedyr Empire — a diplomat sent to the Living Lands, a remote and mysterious island chain on the frontier of the known world of Eora. The Pillars of Eternity universe has always been about souls: their nature, their cycles, their corruption. In Avowed, the corruption has come to the Living Lands in the form of a soul plague — a Dreamscourge that infects the minds of the island’s inhabitants, trapping them in nightmares they cannot escape. Your official mission is to investigate. Your real mission, as it always is in an Obsidian game, is whatever you decide it is.
The Living Lands are not one biome. They are a patchwork of ecosystems crammed together in ways that should not work but do: crystalline caves beside volcanic vents, lush jungles overlooking frozen peaks, bioluminescent forests next to sun-scorched badlands. The island chain is geographically impossible and narratively justified — the land itself is shaped by soul energy, warped by centuries of spiritual overflow into something beautiful and terrifying.
Your companions are Obsidian’s bread and butter — deeply written, opinionated, and morally complex. Kai, a pragmatic mercenary with a code of honour that bends but never breaks. Giatta, a scholar whose intellectual curiosity masks a darker agenda. Marius, an Aedyr soldier questioning everything he was trained to believe. Each companion has a personal questline that intersects with the main narrative and evolves based on your choices and your relationship with them.
The factions of the Living Lands pull you in competing directions. The Aedyr Empire wants control. The native inhabitants want autonomy. The scientific Explorers want knowledge. The Covenant wants spiritual order. And the Dreamscourge wants everything. Navigating these factions — making promises you cannot keep, betraying allies to save others, choosing between the lesser of several evils — is the core of the experience.
Obsidian has built a world that rewards curiosity and punishes assumptions. The quest design is dense with choices that have consequences hours later. The writing is sharp, literary, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. And the ending — there are multiple — depends on who you trusted, who you betrayed, and what you believe about the nature of the soul.
Gameplay & Core Systems
Avowed is what happens when the studio that made Fallout: New Vegas, The Outer Worlds, and Pillars of Eternity builds a first-person action RPG in Unreal Engine 5. It plays exactly as good as that sounds.
First-Person & Third-Person Combat
Avowed offers both first-person and third-person perspectives, switchable at any time. Combat blends melee weapons (swords, axes, maces), ranged weapons (firearms, bows), and magic (soul-based spells from the Pillars of Eternity lore). The real magic is in the combinations: freeze an enemy with an ice spell, then shatter them with a heavy mace strike. Entangle a group with vines, then set them on fire. The elemental interaction system rewards experimentation and makes every encounter a puzzle wrapped in violence.
Exploration & The Living Lands
The world is semi-open — large, explorable zones connected by a world map, not one seamless open world. Each zone is dense with quests, hidden areas, environmental storytelling, and faction encounters. Exploration is rewarded with lore, equipment, and side quests that rival the main story in quality. The Living Lands are visually stunning — UE5 renders bioluminescent fungi, volcanic glass, and ancient ruins with the kind of detail that makes you stop and stare.
Choice & Consequence
This is Obsidian. Every conversation offers options. Every quest has multiple solutions. Faction reputation tracks your decisions and opens or closes entire questlines. Companions approve or disapprove. The game tracks hundreds of variables and delivers consequences that feel organic. If you lie to a faction leader in Act 1, it comes back in Act 3. Obsidian’s quest design is the gold standard, and Avowed delivers.
Key Game Mechanics
Elemental Spell Combos
Freeze enemies and shatter them. Entangle and burn. Shock and amplify. The magic system encourages creative elemental combinations that interact with the environment and enemy weaknesses. It is the most satisfying spell system in a first-person RPG since BioShock.
Dual-Perspective Combat
Switch between first-person and third-person at any time. First-person maximises immersion for spellcasting and ranged combat. Third-person gives better spatial awareness for melee. The choice is yours, and both are fully supported.
Obsidian-Grade Choice & Consequence
Faction reputation. Companion approval. Branching questlines. Multiple endings. The studio behind Fallout: New Vegas delivers quest design where every decision has weight and consequences ripple across the entire game.
Companion System
Deeply written companions with personal questlines, opinions on your decisions, and evolving relationships. Take two companions into the field at any time. Their combat roles complement your build, and their commentary enriches exploration.
Living Lands Environmental Design
Bioluminescent caves. Volcanic badlands. Frozen peaks beside tropical jungles. The Living Lands are geographically impossible and visually stunning — UE5 renders a world shaped by soul energy into something that feels alien and alive.
Gameplay Video Showcase
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