If you’ve reached the endgame of Avowed, you’ll know that it barely uses any of the map. And if you haven’t, don’t worry, there are no spoilers here unless you count what I just said as a spoiler. The five settings are all clustered around the edge of the overworld map, in small highlighted sections. I don’t think Avowed is a small game, but it looks small on the map.
It has taken me around 50 hours to do most of what Avowed has to offer, with just a handful of totems and treasure maps remaining. That’s not a small game. And across those 50 hours, there are still a couple of maps where I can see from the way the game traces my steps that there are regions I’ve barely set foot in. When you’re playing Avowed, it feels Goldilocks – big, but not too big.
Avowed’s World Map Makes You Feel Like You’re Missing Out
But the world map is not Goldilocks. The map is Daddy Bear, and not in a fun big-beard-and-leather kind of way. Because it assigns small corners of the world to its five maps, you feel as if you’re not quite getting the full experience. It’s as if someone, somewhere, has paid an extra $15 for the IMAX version of this game and is seeing things at the edges that were trimmed from your experience. Why does it exist?
In the northwest corner of the map, there is an icy tundra we never visit. There’s a lush oasis of paradise in the middle of the map with a lake we never journey too. There are three huge rock structures way east of Shatterscarp we don’t get to see up close. There’s an archipelago, a wild grassland, and so many winding paths. The game never directs you to any of them.
Maybe these are references to Pillars of Eternity I don’t understand, but realistically, you have to know your audience. Obsidian would be selling this as Avowed: From The World Of Pillars Of Eternity if it felt the setting was that much of a hook. As it stands, it just feels like you’re telling me a cool place (because it’s a tundra, right?) exists and I can’t go there.
Avowed does a decent job of building these settings too – while I’m still of the opinion they lack much narrative personality, they are visually distinct. Pretty much all of the game is either city, enchanted forest, or desert, and yet every place you go manages to look different and feel as if it belongs to its own region. This is no mean feat, especially when the loading screens bring more colour and intrigue than the main game. But that just makes you think even more about why there feels like so much wasted space.
Avowed Doesn’t Make The Most Of Its Map
Maybe this icy setting was originally in the game but was then cut. We briefly go through a snowy section while Yatzli transports us through a portal, but we’re here less than two minutes and press quickly forward in a linear direction, only stopping to grab a unique spear. This is also explicitly not the snowy part of the map, but within Shatterscarp, the desert to the south east. Maybe it is the intended setting of future DLC, but if so that makes it feel like content was snipped from the main game to be sold back to us later.
Even if it wasn’t a case of actually taking content away but instead planning a roadmap (as is likely), then a) it still feels bad and b) that’s a dangerous game. My own middling review notwithstanding, Avowed has opened to a warm reception, and its presence on Game Pass should help it reach a broad audience. But content being swept to the side for later is always a risk. I’m still waiting on the quarians to arrive in Mass Effect Andromeda or Daffy Duck to hit MultiVersus. Any day now, I’m sure.
Of course, this will seem like a nitpick. And it is! The actual maps we actually play on are actually good. But the framing in the overworld makes it seem like we’re missing out on so much of the Living Lands. Seeing our settings so bunched together makes them feel small instead of grand, and so much dead space makes the world feel less believable, not more. Avowed’s actual maps are good. But Avowed’s fake map is bad.
- Released
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February 18, 2025