Summary
- Avowed was originally a multiplayer take on Skyrim, but went through two reboots before its eventual release.
- The game was delayed to balance out Xbox Game Pass releases, not due to development troubles.
- Avowed has received generally positive reviews, with praise for its gameplay, exploration, and story, despite some bugs.
A recent interview with Avowed’s director, Carrie Patel, has revealed that Obsidian Entertainment’s latest title was originally a multiplayer take on Skyrim. Avowed was in development for six years, and the game was rebooted twice during this time, removing all multiplayer elements as it took its current form.
Avowed was originally announced during the Xbox Games Showcase in July 2020 and released a few days ago for PC and Xbox Series X/S, becoming the latest game set in the Pillars of Eternity universe. So far, Avowed has received generally positive reviews, with some critics praising its gameplay, exploration, and story, but criticizing its bugs.
Related
Avowed’s Delay Was Worth It For One Obvious Reason
Avowed was set to release last Fall but was rescheduled to February 2025 in order to let other games breathe, and that delay has one clear benefit.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Carrie Patel shared a bit of how hard it was to develop Avowed. According to the director, development began in 2018, and the original idea was to create a mixture of Skyrim and Destiny in Pillars of Eternity’s setting of Eora, allowing gamers to adventure together with their friends. However, by 2020, it was already clear that the multiplayer component of the game was not working as intended, and Avowed suffered two reboots, completely ditching this aspect. After the second reboot, Patel entered the team of around 80 people as the new director, essentially starting over the project from scratch.
Avowed Was Rebooted Twice, and It Was Originally a Multiplayer Take on Skyrim
According to Patel, entering the project after the latest reboot was a difficult task, especially considering the large size of the team, and the challenges of communicating and “building the tracks while the train is moving forward.” The title then suffered from two major pivots. The first one was to double down on Eora’s lore, and the second was to abandon the open world in Avowed. Obsidian was struggling to create a fully Skyrim-like open-world experience, and dividing the games’ areas into open zones like The Outer Worlds was seen as a better way forward.
Curiously, it was not the development troubles that caused Avowed to be delayed. Last year, Phill Spencer revealed that Avowed’s delay to 2025 was mostly to balance out the number of games on Xbox’s Game Pass service, which had several noteworthy releases late in 2024, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, STALKER 2, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
Fortunately, everything worked out and Avowed had a successful release. While opinions about the game vary from positive to lukewarm, Avowed quickly became a big hit on Steam, appearing on the top seller’s list of Steam’s US chart despite being available as part of Xbox Game Pass.
Welcome to the Living Lands, a mysterious island filled with adventure and danger. Set in the fictional world of Eora that was first introduced to players in the Pillars of Eternity franchise, Avowed is a first-person fantasy action RPG from the award-winning team at Obsidian Entertainment.
You are the envoy of Aedyr, a distant land, sent to investigate rumors of a spreading plague throughout the Living Lands – an island full of mysteries and secrets, danger and adventure, and choices and consequences, and untamed wilderness. You discover a personal connection to the Living Lands and an ancient secret that threatens to destroy everything. Can you save this unknown frontier and your soul from the forces threatening to tear them asunder?
- 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