Avowed's Only Downside To Displaying Godlike Features Has Nothing To Do With Roleplay

Published Feb 24, 2025

Followed

In Avowed, there is one feature to your character that is not optional to add but can be turned on and off. This is the Godlike feature, usually some kind of tentacle or nautical-themed addition to your character’s head. While it has to be there, you can choose to turn the display off, although the NPC’s will still react as if they can see it even with it turned off. And it actually looks pretty cool, but there’s one downside that has nothing to do with any narrative in the game.

Your character in Avowed is a Godlike, one who doesn’t know who they are at the beginning of the game and is investigating the source of a sickness spreading across the land. Godlikes in this game are those who have been touched by a god, and this leaves a visible mark on their body. We don’t see many other Godlikes, although we run into Sargamis fairly early in the game. However, Sargamis appears to be marked by his gold skin, while we get tentacles sprouting from our character’s head.

The Real Downside To Displaying Godlike Features

It Has Nothing To Do With The Narrative Of The Game

No matter what, NPC’s like Ilora will call out our features the moment they see us. They are often scared or surprised, and you won’t be able to walk anywhere without being immediately recognized. In fact, I found the stealth in this game to be one of the least satisfying elements, as I tend to prefer stealth mechanics to open fighting.

Nevertheless, I am pretty pleased with my character’s appearance on the whole. I never had an issue roleplaying due to the appearance, although I played on the first-person perspective the entire time, so it was rare that I saw it. Interestingly, the main time you see it in that perspective is during the scenes communicating with the god, which was actually very thematic and well worth it.

"It Was Honestly A Challenge": Avowed Took Six Years And Two Reboots To Get Where It Is Today, But There's More To Come

In a recent interview, Avowed director Carrie Patel revealed some of the significant challenges faced by Obsidian during the game's development.

Posts 1

However, there is one big disappointment with this feature. Depending on what you went with at the beginning in the customizer, leaving the Godlike features on is a major disadvantage for the vast majority of hairstyles in the game. Nearly every single one causes a large amount of clipping, hair, and Godlike features intersecting with each other and glitching in and out. It’s annoying if you see them often, which could force you to play in first-person more.

It’s not the end of the world, but it is disappointing that more thought and care wasn’t put into the features. The more annoying part is that there’s no way to change your character after the game starts, so you can’t change a new hairstyle if you want to fix the problem without starting over. Luckily, the game doesn’t seem to have that many glitches that need to be patched overall, so maybe this issue in Avowed will be higher up the priority list for Obsidian to fix.