The Unwritten Rules of Avowed Explained

It feels like it has been a long wait, but Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed is finally here, putting players in the shoes of an envoy sent by the Aedyran Emperor to investigate a mysterious plague known as the “Dreamscourge” that is infecting the Living Lands of Eora. Avowed isn’t a massive game, but it’s not necessarily small either. As such, players should find plenty of things to do during their adventure in the Living Lands when they’re not fending off monsters.

While some players might wish to head into Avowed with little to no information on how to have a successful journey, others may wish to know more about the game’s unwritten rules. As it turns out, there are several things that Avowed doesn’t outright tell players that, of course, they can discover for themselves. However, knowing some of Avowed‘s most essential unwritten rules about its exploration, combat, and dialogue can help speed things along for players and make their journey through the Living Lands more efficient and less painful.

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The Unwritten Rules of Avowed’s Exploration

The Game’s Minimap and Their Ears Are a Player’s Most Useful Tools

One of the more refreshing things about Avowed is its lack of map markers, as it discourages its exploration from feeling like a checklist of chores. Rather than holding the player’s hand as they explore the Living Lands, Avowed chooses instead to let players do the exploring themselves. That being said, it does employ a few methods for giving players at least some guidance, though it’s in a way that allows them to remain immersed in the world, rather than needing to check on the map every five minutes to ensure they’re going in the right direction.

Ultimately, Avowed accomplishes this with its minimap and the player’s ears. Lootable corpses, including those that players create by defeating monsters and those that were planted in the world, are marked on the minimap with an “X.” This is extremely useful in Avowed, as it’s not always easy to tell which corpses haven’t been looted yet. The minimap also reveals vegetation that can be looted, so players will want to keep an eye on that as well. If that wasn’t enough, Avowed uses audio-guided exploration to lure players toward collectible items. When players are near a collectible, they will hear a shimmering sound that they can then follow to find the item.

Lockpicks Are Key to Collecting Everything

Lockpicks are very valuable in Avowed, and players should find that out fairly early on if they get right to exploring. There are locked chests and doors scattered throughout the Living Lands that require one, three, or five lockpicks to open. Fortunately, there is no lockpicking minigame in Avowed, but that also means that players will need plenty of lockpicks on hand at all times, as the game replaces a lockpicking minigame with a simple numerical requirement. Lockpicks can be looted from corpses and purchased from vendors, so players should always have their eyes peeled.

There Is Often More Than One Way to Reach an Area

Another of Avowed‘s best features is how it approaches paths to certain areas. Rather than requiring players to take a specific route to an area, Avowed generally allows players to reach that area in more than one way. For example, while they might be able to use five lockpicks to open a house’s door, they may prefer to enter the house through a hole in the roof, so as not to spend that many lockpicks on its door. While exploring the Living Lands, players should never rule out the chances that there is another way to reach an area.

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The Unwritten Rules of Avowed’s Combat

The Power of Food Should Not Be Overestimated

Most modern RPGs incorporate some kind of food mechanic into their gameplay to give players an option other than potions to restore their health or provide buffs. Avowed‘s food system is on an entirely different level, however, and it’s almost to the point of being overpowered. In Avowed, food bonuses stack and don’t deplete until there is a use for them. In other words, players can consume as much food as they want to in order to prep a health return for when it’s needed, with it only being used when health is lost. This can effectively make combat in Avowed extremely easy, as players will see their health constantly and automatically restored if they eat enough food before heading into battle.

Healers Must Be Eliminated Before Anyone Else

One of the more irritating aspects of Avowed‘s combat is its healers, who are even more prevalent in the later stages of the game. Often, players may get a boss’ health down to a sliver right off the bat, only to see the boss completely recover due to a healer somewhere in the background who is keeping them alive. This can make a player’s hard work feel like it was all for nothing, so they should focus on taking out healers before anyone else. They are often labeled as priests and clerics and can be identified by a green aura that surrounds them while they’re casting healing magic.

The Unwritten Rules of Avowed’s Dialogue

There Are No Right Answers

Of all the great things about Avowed, its dialogue is perhaps its best. In Avowed, choices really do matter, and those choices are most often made during the player’s conversations with an NPC. What really makes Avowed‘s dialogue shine, however, is its commitment to ensuring there are never any right answers. Rather than encouraging players to make one choice or another, Avowed ensures players are often left dumbfounded, not only by the sheer number of dialogue options available, but also by the ambiguity of those choices. In other words, as Avowed‘s companions repeatedly express in the game, what matters most is that players make the choice they are most confident in.

Perception, Intellect, and Resolve Comprise the Majority of Skill Checks

Avowed‘s dialogue doesn’t rely too heavily on skill checks, but they are nonetheless present and can have an impact on conversations. The majority of these skill checks (particularly the more important ones) rely less on the physical attirbutes of the player’s character and more on their mental attributes. Specifically, Avowed‘s Perception, Intellect, and Resolve attributes are the ones that will most often appear in skill checks. So, if players wish to take advantage of said skill checks, they should prioritize allocating points to those attributes.

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Systems

Released

February 18, 2025

ESRB

Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence

Publisher(s)

Xbox Game Studios