Summary
- Avowed respects player agency by avoiding traditional affinity mechanics for companions, letting players make choices freely.
- Companions in Avowed will stick around regardless of player choices, focusing on story over gameplay benefits.
- Avowed’s companion system focuses on emotional impact, with choices likely to upset someone, setting a new RPG standard.
At the heart of any Obsidian Entertainment game, and now Avowed, is player choice. Since it began its work with the development of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, Obsidian has proven itself to be one with an affinity for player agency, allowing the players themselves to have some degree of control over their character’s personality and morality, as well as the game’s narrative. Avowed keeps that tradition alive by maintaining its developer’s respect for player choice, to the point that not even the game’s companions are going to stop players from going their own way.
A lot of choice-driven games with companion systems tend to wrap the player’s choices around their companions by offering benefits in the form of gameplay or romance, but Avowed avoids that altogether. This ends up truly freeing players to make their own choices, as their gameplay remains unaffected, regardless of the paths they choose throughout Avowed‘s narrative. More than anything, this approach results in a companion system that is more story than stat, urging players to weigh their options more carefully, not because they might miss out on unique gameplay benefits associated with their companions, but because they are likely going to let someone down no matter what decision they make.
Related
Avowed’s Merchants Are More Than Just Mindless Vending Machines
Unlike most modern RPGs, Avowed’s merchants prioritize increased immersion when it comes to their design, offering unique personalities and dialogue.
Avowed’s Companion System Gives More Weight to Every Decision
Avowed’s Companions Don’t Have True Affinity Mechanics
Most modern RPGs that feature companions embed affinity mechanics into said companions that keep track of the player’s relationship with them. Generally, this results in the potential for players to make a game’s companions their romantic partners, and can lead to a more fleshed out character arc for those companions in the process. In their own way, they are rewarding, but systems like these also come with a significant downside. Rather than truly respecting player agency as they claim to do, they urge players to make choices that would only increase their affinity with the companion they want to romance (or the companion that will benefit them the most gameplay-wise), thereby somewhat limiting them in the process.
When players make a choice their companions don’t agree with in these games, their affinity with that companion decreases, thereby encouraging them to make choices that only that companion agrees with. Things are much different in Avowed, however, as its companions don’t have true affinity mechanics. As such, players can make any choices they want to make in Avowed without thinking about who they want/need to romance or what gameplay benefits they will acquire by strengthening certain relationships.
Unlike many other RPGs where companions will even leave the player’s team or not show up for a final battle if their affinity isn’t high enough, Avowed‘s companions will stick around, no matter what choices the player makes.
Some of Avowed’s Biggest Dilemmas Are Going to Upset Someone
Although Avowed‘s companions lack true affinity mechanics, that doesn’t mean they will be entirely unaffected by the choices that players make. However, rather than those effects being realized in the player’s affinity with their companions, they manifest on a much more emotional level, with any companions who are disappointed with or hurt by the player’s choices openly expressing their discontent. What makes this especially difficult is the fact that some of Avowed‘s biggest dilemmas are going to upset someone, regardless of the player’s decision.
In that way, Avowed‘s companion system is truly something special, as it makes the game’s companions less of an object, less of a stat, and more of an actual person that players might not want to let down in the end. Instead of players simply being able to move on knowing that they got the better part of the deal, whether that part be romance or unique companion-based gameplay benefits, they are forced to live with the consequences of their decisions and the contention with their friends that may come after. It is in this that Avowed‘s respect for player agency is fully realized, and it arguably sets a new standard for choice-driven RPGs that claim the player’s choices really matter.
- Released
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February 18, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence
- Publisher(s)
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Xbox Game Studios