Like many recent AAA releases, Avowed has a number of accessibility features that allow gamers to tinker around with certain aspects of the game and improve them to their liking. Players can, for instance, customize the game’s combat by disabling aim assist, blood visibility, and incoming attack warnings. They can also toggle off the “Auto Activate Companion Abilities” setting, so that companions can only attack on a player’s command. These features can make Avowed easier or more challenging, depending on what players choose.
In addition to combat, Avowed gives players the ability to adjust many of its HUD and camera-related features, such as head bobbing, camera shake, aiming reticles, objective markers, and field-of-view. Players who are looking for a more immersive experience can even turn off the game’s HUD entirely. While all these accessibility features are nice to have, it would be especially great if Obsidian gave players the option to disable the dialogue camera, just as Bethesda recently did with Starfield.
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Avowed Should Let Players Disable the Dialogue Camera, Just Like in Starfield
The Camera in Starfield Zooms in During a Conversation, But This Can Be Disabled
In Starfield, whenever a player initiates a conversation with an NPC, the camera always zooms in on their faces. Throughout the entirety of said conversation, players see the NPC’s face and basically nothing else. Unless there are multiple NPCs talking, there aren’t many camera cuts during conversations and, as such, players don’t get to see their own characters in these moments. Conversations in Starfield don’t look cinematic or nearly as good as the impressive dialogue sequences in other contemporary RPGs, such as Baldur’s Gate 3 and Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.
Bethesda games have had this stilted approach to dialogue sequences for decades. Conversations in almost every AAA Bethesda RPG, from Fallout 3 to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, largely amount to nothing more than staring at a character’s deadpan face for several minutes. The only exception to this rule is Fallout 4; since it features a voiced protagonist, conversations in this game are a bit more “cinematic” compared to other Bethesda titles, though they still aren’t that great when stacked up with other AAA games.
Fortunately, Bethesda gave players the ability to make conversations more immersive in Starfield in a post-launch update for the game. In May 2024, the company introduced a new feature in Starfield‘s settings menu that lets players toggle the dialogue camera off entirely. When this feature is disabled, Starfield fans can have conversations with NPCs from whatever perspective they desire, even in third-person.
Obsidian Should Add This Quality-of-Life Feature from Starfield to Avowed
Considering how useful this feature is, it would be nice if Obsidian took a page from Bethesda’s playbook and added it to Avowed, as well. Much like Starfield, the camera in Avowed also cuts to a close-up of a character’s upper torso when starting a conversation. To be fair, this doesn’t feel as stilted or abrupt as it does in many of Bethesda’s older RPGs, but it’s not that much better. Although players are sometimes able to see their characters when talking to NPCs in Avowed, the conversations are just not very immersive, in large part because the game doesn’t have many traditional cutscenes or realistic, motion-captured facial animations.
Having the ability to turn off Avowed‘s dialogue camera would be great, just as it is in Starfield. Players who want to experience the game entirely in third-person could benefit substantially from such an option. Being able to talk to NPCs from this perspective could make the game more immersive for some people. Even though not every cutscene or conversation in Avowed would work well from a third-person camera angle, providing more options for players is almost always a good thing.
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