Avowed PS5 Review
Summary: With a year’s worth of updates, Avowed arrives on PS5 as a quintessential Obsidian RPG that makes the wait feel more worth it.
4.3
Newly Vowed
As an RPG fanatic, modern gaming continues to readily reinforce the age old proverb, ‘good things come to those who wait.’
Avowed has finally arrived to PlayStation 5 just in time for its one year anniversary – and it’s bringing all-new features, modes, playable races and quality-of-life improvements that, being really being honest, ideally should have been available on day one – because they’re awesome.
The all-new content for Avowed (read our launch review) is part of a free Anniversary Update that all platforms (PC, Xbox and now PS5) are receiving, rather than as traditional DLC add-ons, and PlayStation owners get a pretty sweet deal in being able to enjoy all the freebies on launch.
The most significant upfront changes, as a PS5 player playing Avowed for the first time, are the new character races, pre-set character templates, and expanded character creation options. At launch, only elves and humans were available to play, a shame given the richness of the shared fantasy setting of Eora and its inhabitants seen in its parent series, Pillars of Eternity. Now, you can play as Dwarves, Orlans (think furry humanoids) and Aumaua (think cool scaly fish people).
Each new race arrives with their own unique aesthetics and stats, and the new character creation options let you take advantage of some crazier customization options to make your Godlike Envoy look as crazy or as alien as you can – I opted for the spiky protruding scales look to complete the mysterious Court Augur mystic role-play. Unfortunately, the new races don’t seem to be acknowledged in dialogue with characters, so don’t expect any new reactivity to it.
It’s worth spending that extra bit of time in character creation to indulge in the newly added Photo Mode, which works similarly to many other modern games (quickly accessible via the pause menu). There’s just one glaring problem with it – my character was always out-of-focus without tweaking, an odd bug that will no doubt be fixed shortly, but still a bit annoying.
Obsidian has also fine-tuned the gameplay and leveling experience by adding workbenches throughout each world map, additional stun finishers for weapon kills, new abilities for the fighter and ranger class trees, and custom difficulty modifiers for extra fine-tuning of elements like player and enemy damage, stamina, regeneration, carry capacity and merchant prices. For combat heavy players, you’ll also be glad to know that certain enemy encounters now respawn, adding additional challenges on top of the many previous patches that tweaked gameplay.
As a new player with about 20 hours logged into the game in time for the review, it’s hard to completely gauge how much some of these new additions will impact my gameplay experience long-term, but I can definitely say as someone who favours a challenge and visual spectacle, I immediately appreciated the gnarly animations and extra thump (playing on Path of the Damned difficulty) taking down some hard-to-kill Xaurips with wand, grimoire and quarterstaff (the last of which a completely new weapon for mages to fulfill the melee Gandalf fantasy).
New Game + is likely the biggest draw for returning players in particular to dive back into Avowed for a second or third playthrough, and while I couldn’t test it for my own review purposes, carrying over your save file increases stats for NPCs and the cap for attribute points maximum (from 30 to 60) while resetting your level and carrying over your unique items – without any equipment upgrades, however. Godlike powers also get a reset – you can’t be too OP!
Of course, being a game from Obsidian Entertainment, the storytelling, character interactions and dialogue cutscenes are Avowed’s core strength. As a big fan of the developer, I have been impressed with the writing quality and presentation of these important moments, which have apparently been enhanced with the Anniversary Update adding animations to certain character moments. As a new player, I found most dialogue scenes presented rather stiff compared to the game’s contemporaries – outside of the main story interactions – but the density of the narrative, player agency in affecting the story, and its themes more than make up for less impressive mocap. Not to mention fantastic voice work, especially via the companion characters Marius and Kai, who always have something interesting to say as they develop.
World lighting also received a spruce up in the Anniversary Update, and can I say it’s damned refreshing to play an RPG that is so bright? I’m the type of player who loves grimdark worlds first and foremost, but Avowed really leans into the wild and lush wonder of The Living Lands setting and its alien flora and fauna, and I found the colourful artstyle, particularly in the first map of Dawnshore, to be very appealing.
Which leads us into visuals: PlayStation 5 players get access to the same Quality, Performance and Balanced graphics modes as the Xbox version. The first two allow you to choose between the highest fidelity settings at 30fps, or lowered fidelity for a rock-solid 60fps, while Balanced Mode, which is only available for owners of TVs or monitors with Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) supported, offers sharper picture quality at a middle-ground 40fps. Where things get interesting is on PlayStation 5 Pro – toggling an extra setting for unlocked frame-rate results in Balanced mode reaching 60fps in the right conditions, and Performance mode running comfortably higher.
While image quality generally appears softer compared to other games (it definitely looks like a game upscaling from a sub-HD resolution to do the heavy-lifting in Performance mode), I think Avowed is a decent looker (especially when played on an OLED TV) thanks to its strong artstyle and use of ray-tracing for global illumination via Lumen. Daytime and shadows appear particularly impressive in the open map. It’s just a shame that, even though it is listed as PS5 Pro enhanced, it doesn’t seem to take significant advantage of the Professional console’s better specs.
The Final Verdict
I’m really glad that Avowed and Obsidian Entertainment’s back catalogue for Xbox has now made it to PS5. This is a fantastic open-zone RPG with entertaining character role-playing options, an engaging cast of antagonists and companions, and satisfying combat systems that have been rounded out from a year’s worth of patches, bug fixes and content updates. If you’re like me and were waiting for the right time to explore the Living Lands, the time is now.
About the Author
Nathan Misa A senior writer for ImpulseGamer.com and former writer for MMGN and Ninemsn, Nathan has been reviewing video games and interviewing talented developers since 2012. As a nostalgia tragic eternally tied to the glorious 1990s, he's always playing retro gaming classics whenever he's not entrenched in the latest RPG, or talking your ear off about why The First Law book series is better than Game of Thrones - to anyone who dares listen.
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