Avowed Developer Interview – Video

Lord Cognito of the Iron Lords Podcast, LOGNET, and Defining Dukes fame sat down with MrMattyPlays to interview members of Obsidian Entertainment to talk about Avowed. The game is their upcoming fantasy RPG set in the world of the Pillars of Eternity universe.

Avowed Interview

The Dukes sat down with Matt Hansen, Art Director, and Ryan Warden, Production Director from Obsidian Entertainment.

Players will take control of the Envoy from the Aedyrian Empire. The Emporer sends the Envoy to the Living Lands to investigate the soul plague that is infesting the area. Of course, the Envoy soon discovers that there is more than meets the eye during the investigation, which leads to a deeper rabbit hole. Avowed takes place in Eora, which was introduced in Pillars of Eternity.

A Class Free System

Matt Hansen highlighted that Avowed doesn’t have a traditional class system. Instead, players can mix and match abilities. Grimoires will provide access to spells. If there’s a particular ability that you liked from that Grimoire, then players can imprint it and learn it permanently without the use of the spell book.

How Avowed Benefited from the Delay

Both Warden and Hansen said they were relieved to have an extra couple of months to polish up Avowed. Moreover, shipping the game in February 2025 also provides an opportunity to shine and not take away the spotlight from other titles, including the recently delayed Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.

The Importance of the Radial Wheel

During the interview, Warden was impressed by how different players used different play styles in combat. A large part of that is utilizing the skills of your companions. Skills can be mapped to the D-Pad, which allows players to quickly execute them. Each companion has four active abilities that can be executed quickly. Naturally, there are almost limitless possibilities to create synergies with your companions.

Dynamic Content and Situations

One of Obsidian’s design philosophies revolves around content that may be missed by players. Wherein some aspects of the game can be hidden away from players. But they are still created and placed in the game, which will create a magical experience for players who do discover them. For example, during the demo, there is a room filled with spiders where the floor is flooded. Players can launch shock attacks to electrify the flooded floor to do extra damage to the spiders.

Exploration That is Rewarding in Avowed

A big part of Avowed is exploration within an open zone region. There will be a lot of density for players to uncover and they will be handsomely rewarded for their curiosity. Ryan said that one of his favorite parts of the game is found early on in the game. There is a lighthouse that players will encounter and climbing to the top you can see the entirety of the open zone region. At the top, the music kicks in, and the seagulls call which creates an atmospheric experience.

Players can expect zones to be as big as The Outer Worlds but with a lot more density. Best of all the developers double-downed that the game will respect players’ time.

Your Decisions Matters

Matt Hansen said that Avowed has both micro and macro endings. Avowed is not a massive open world, instead it is comprised of multiple large zones. Each region has its own unique storytelling beats and communities. Companions help add context to those stories. The Envoy can either wreck people’s days or become their savior, based on the decisions they make.

On the macro side of the Avowed‘s endings, there are multiple variations. In fact, there are more than 50 unique endings players can achieve.

Performance is Still Up in the Air

When it comes to performance, Obsidian did not give a clear and concise answer of the expected FPS of Avowed. It will be a bare minimum of 30 FPS but with exquisite effects in place. As of writing, there is no definitive confirmation of the final target framerate for the game.

Check out the full video interview below.