Obsidian Entertainment’s newest game, Avowed, set to be released in 2024, takes place in the same Age of Sail fantasy setting as the studio's earlier Pillars of Eternity games, a world where magic and muskets are wielded in tandem and scientists study the nature of souls. The Pillars of Eternity games, tactical computer RPGs in the style of Baldur’s Gate, had Dungeons & Dragons-derived, classic high fantasy character classes. Does this mean Avowed, an RPG that more closely resembles Skyrim (by way of Obsidian's The Outer Worlds), let players customize their characters with powers from every Pillars of Eternity class, or will certain player abilities from the PoE series just not work with Avowed’s first-person perspective?
The main character of Avowed will be an envoy sent from the Aedyr Empire to a mysterious island called the Living Lands in order to investigate and purge a supernatural plague. With lore from the Pillars of Eternity games, plus the distrustful dialogue in the new gameplay trailer, it’s clear that the player character of Avowed is no savior to the people of the Living Lands; rather, they are the agent of a distant, colonial, imperial power, sent to impose order with violence, guile and spell craft.
Avowed Gameplay Trailer Reveals Spells From Pillars of Eternity’s Wizard & Druid Classes
When Avowed is released by Obsidian Entertainment in 2024, the player will definitively be able to use spells from Pillars of Eternity’s Wizard character class. The recent gameplay trailer, ed to YouTube by Xbox, explicitly shows the player carrying a wizard’s signature spellbook while also casting spells taken directly from the Pillars of Eternity games: massive fireballs, the homing projectiles of Minletta’s Bounding Missiles, and the creature-levitating black hole that is Pull of Eora. A split-second clip in the trailer also shows an enemy being trapped by a spell that summons vines to ensnare their legs, a form of magic that resembles the Tanglefoot spell Pillars of Eternity Druids can use.
If Wizard and Druid spells from Pillars of Eternity will make their appearance in Avowed, odds are good that spells from the Cleric and Cipher classes will make an appearance as well. The healing and spells of PIilars of Eternity Clerics would be a valuable tool for Avowed players trying to keep their character and companions alive, while the mind-altering psychic spells of Ciphers, fueled by the weapon strikes they land on an enemy, would give players a fun reason to switch between melee attacks and spell attacks on the fly. That being said, magic spells may not be the only supernatural power to make the jump from Pillars of Eternity to Avowed.
Avowed Might Have Powers From Pillars of Eternity’s Fighter, Ranger, & Barbarian Classes
Though the magic spells from Pillars of Eternity steal the show in the recent gameplay trailer for Avowed, there are some interesting non-magic player abilities shown from a first-person perspective: a charging shield bash attack, a leaping attack that cracks the earth, an enemy sniped from the shadows with a bow and arrow, and so on. Each of the abilities and weapons in the Avowed trailer seems to correspond to specific martial classes from Pillars of Eternity and Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. The shield bash resembles the staggering abilities of the Fighter class, the ground slam resembles the leaping abilities of the Barbarian class, and the bow snipe seems to resemble the optimal fighting style of the Ranger class.
Avowed’s First-Person Gameplay May Not Fit Pillars Of Eternity’s Monk Or Chanter Classes
Obsidian Entertainment's last RPG, The Outer Worlds, didn't have the option of unarmed combat. Since Avowed is built on the same game engine as The Outer Worlds, Obsidian might have similar issues implementing abilities from Pillars of Eternity's Monk class, the most pugilistic class in the game. Many of the Monk’s pain-fueled abilities in PoE are also centered around the concept of mobility, like dashing across the battlefield, or hurling foes away with one-inch punches. If not precisely implemented, these abilities could be disorienting from Avowed’s first-person perspective.
The Chanter class from Pillars of Eternity may also be a tough archetype to work into the gameplay of Avowed. The two core abilities of Chanters in Pillars of Eternity are Chants, a sequence of songs that bolster allies and hinder enemies in a circular radius, and Invocations, powerful spells that become available after a certain amount of Chants are sung. In a first-person action RPG like Avowed, the Chanter class’s gameplay loop of subtle magical auras and periodic explosions of power may be less fun for players to handle, though useful for NPC companions to possess.
Source: Xbox/YouTube
