Avowedis Obsidian Entertainment’s next first-person RPG. It picks up the setting from thePillars of Eternitygames but with a new, first-person perspective akin toThe Outer WorldsorFallout: New Vegas.
There are lessons thatAvowedcan learn from all three of these games as a first-person fantasy RPG. There’s also enough variation between the games to show that Obsidian doesn’t always reliably pull off the best parts of its previous titles in later games. Here’s whatAvowedcan learn fromNew Vegas,The Outer Worlds, andPillars of Eternity.
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Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout: New Vegasis one of the most beloved games in the franchise, developed by Obsidian and published by Bethesda. Although the settings are completely different,New Vegashas a lot to teachAvowed. For a start, the game’s opening is extremely conducive to open roleplay while still having a clear plot with high stakes and interesting characters.
At the start ofNew Vegas, the player character is shot in the head by a gangster named Benny, who steals the Platinum Chip the Courier was delivering on behalf ofMr. House. They somehow survive, however, and wake up in Doc Mitchell’s office having been patched up. This opening is great for several reasons. First, it does not prescribe anything about the player character besides a single job they took to deliver a package. Although later DLCs bring back some deliveries from the Courier’s past, the game still never establishes anything about the Courier’s age or origins, giving the player free reign to roleplay as whoever they’d like.
The second smart thing about this intro is that it leaves the player character’s motivations entirely up to the player. The plot with the Platinum Chip is certainly intriguing, and some players may be driven to find Benny and exact revenge. It’s also completely reasonable, however, for players to avoid the man who once shot them and left them for dead, count themselves lucky, and head out the opposite way through the Mojave Wasteland. In contrast theBethesda RPGsFallout 3and4make it extremely hard to justify ignoring the main quest, particularly inFallout 4where the Lone Survivor believes their infant son has been kidnapped.
Finally, Obsidian should keep some of the unique skill checks seen inNew Vegaslike low intellect dialogue options,Black Widow, Confirmed Bachelor, Sneering Imperialist, Terrifying Presence, Cannibal, and all the other perks that give the player unique options while talking to NPCs. Along with the Courier’s lack of background these traits make every playthrough feel like a fresh experience with unique roleplaying opportunities.
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The Outer Worlds
Considered a new take on the New Vegas formula wasThe Outer Worlds. Set in a distant solar system,The Outer Worldsshared many themes and mechanical similarities withFallout. It even carved out its own little fandom. However, without Bethesda’s engine or theFallout 3assets to work with, there were some areas where it fell flat thatAvowedwill need to avoid.
For example, unlike first-person Bethesda RPGs likeFallout 4andSkyrim, the player inThe Outer Worldshas far fewer opportunities to interact with the environment. They can’t move corpses or items, sit down in the captain’s chair of their ship, or drink water from natural sources. While this might not seem like much, features like these make a world feel far more like an RPG than a FPS by giving the players more opportunities to immerse themselves.
WhileThe Outer Worldswas split into several space stations and planets,Avowedwill be an open-world game set inthe Living Lands, a northern frontier. The Living Lands will need far bigger settlements. Although well positioned buildings and posters make locations like Edgewater and The Groundbreaker seem large, as soon as the player begins exploring or brings up their map they’ll see just how small the explorable areas are. This is particularly noticeable in the city of Byzantium, where the player can only explore a sliver of the city.
UnlikeThe Outer Worlds,Avowedalso needs more enemy variety, and more ways to deal with non-essential NPCs beyond mowing them down in great numbers. The game could also do with a fully fleshed out crafting system. The more roleplaying variety the player is offered inAvowed, the better.
Pillars of Eternity
Pillars of Eternitymay not be a first-person RPG, but with their shared setting the game most closely predicts the tone ofAvowed, and there are still some lessons the new RPG can learn.Pillars of Eternityhas a rich lore, a fascinating cosmology, and an in-depth plot. However, its seriousness often left its world and companions coming across as cold and detached. The story can be serious and its stakes high, butAvowedneeds companions who show warmth like Minsc, the hamster-loving warrior fromBaldur’s Gate. Without that, Obsidian can’t expect players to be as invested in their followers.
Pillars of Eternityalso gets wrong whatNew Vegasgets right. InPillars of Eternitythe player is exposed to a cultists ritual that makes thema Watcher, a person able to read souls and see their past lives. If the player doesn’t track down the cultists, they are told, their character will go insane.
With Benny, the player might pursue revenge or simply avoid him, but in both cases it feels far more like a personal, in-universe decision rather than the player just following the plot’s demands. The main character inAvowedneeds the option to ignore the main quest, and should be positively motivated to do it, not negatively. This may not need to be the case for all RPGs, butObsidianhas shown before that it works particularly well with the open-world RPG formula.
Avowedis in development for PC and Xbox Series X.
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