I’ve been waiting a long time for a game like Avowed. In fact, you might have to go back to 2002’s The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind to find another first-person fantasy role-playing game that so utterly captivated me with its world. I’ve seen some people grouse that it’s not as full-featured as the likes of Skyrim, but I actually like that about it! Developer Obsidian knew what it wanted to achieve with this game and focused its resources where they mattered most: on creating a world that’s fun and rewarding to explore; on developing combat that’s hard-hitting and offers all kinds of player agency; and on a narrative that has deeply developed themes, expressive choices, and the potential to experience significant consequences. I didn’t realize just how significant until I failed to prevent a catastrophe in the game’s second area, and you know what? I’m glad I made this huge mistake. Let me explain. (Spoilers concerning the second area of Avowed follow.)
Avowed’s setting of the Living Lands is divided into five regions, or so I’ve been told. I’m still only in the third, as I’m really savoring my time with the game and trying to explore each area as thoroughly as possible before I move on to the next. In the second region, the captivating fungal forest known as the Emerald Stair, you visit the town of Fior mes Ivèrno. It’s no bustling metropolis or industrial capital but it’s a lovely settlement, one that clearly means a great deal to its residents who, in some cases, have roots there that go back generations. Your adventures in the region bring you into contact with many of them, including its mayor and a headstrong animancer who joins forces with you as you seek a way to cure the strange ailment plaguing the Living Lands and its people.
It’s also in this realm that a force known as the Steel Garrote comes into sharper focus. A military force which you might—I suppose—initially find guilty of nothing more than being coldly pragmatic in its approach to crisis management, here reveals itself to be genuinely ruthless. You can find this out in a few ways. I learned it in the most devastating way possible.
See, as I resolved a side quest in the Emerald Stair, a character told me that the Steel Garrote had an encampment nearby. She said something about them being in a cave behind a waterfall. My companion Kai even turned to me at this moment and said something like, “We should look into that.” I enthusiastically agreed, suspecting that the Steel Garrote were up to no good. The only problem is that I was only half paying attention to this NPC’s comments, and didn’t catch exactly where she said this cave behind a waterfall was. Oh well, I thought. I’ll just file that away in the back of my mind and look for caves behind each and every waterfall I come across in this region. I’m sure I’ll stumble upon it eventually.
Of course, I could have simply looked up the cave’s location. But I typically don’t look up things about games unless I’m completely stuck. I prefer to keep my experiences with games as organic as possible, and would much rather miss big things and fumble my way through a game than find everything and absolutely wipe the floor with enemies because I looked up a walkthrough or some game-breaking combat tips. That’s not to say I think people who do rely on walkthroughs are “doing it wrong,”—far from it. I think everyone should play games in the way that’s most enjoyable for them. For me, that’s just doing my best with little to no help or guidance and letting the chips fall where they may. Often, I’ll look up secrets after I’ve finished a game to find out about all the cool stuff I missed, but especially with a game like Avowed, in which so much of the joy for me comes from exploration and discovery, I try to hold off until then.
So I kept exploring the Emerald Stair, taking care of bounties and side quests, but never finding this cave in which the Steel Garrote were apparently hiding out. Finally, I tackled a main story mission that had my party delve into an ancient structure in the region, and just as we seemed to be wrapping things up there, the voice in my character’s head (whose identity I won’t reveal but who is connected to the land in some profound way) began to shriek in anguish and despair; it was clear that something was terribly wrong. Emerging from the depths and into the night, I could immediately see what had happened: there, on a distant hillside, Fior mes Ivèrno was burning!
As we ran to look for survivors, we encountered bands of Steel Garrote members trying to keep us from the vicinity, and I immediately knew those bastards were responsible. Worse, it was only then, by some cruel twist of fate, that I stumbled upon the cave where the Steel Garrote had been hiding, though now they were gone, and the only occupants of the cave were a group of xaurips that had moved in. As I explored, it became clear that if I’d only found the cave sooner and dealt with the Steel Garrote then, I could have saved Fior mes Ivèrno. It doesn’t have to burn. Maybe, for you, it didn’t, or it won’t. But for me, it did. And while of course I’m not “glad” that the town’s residents lost their home, I’m glad that as a player, I didn’t know what was coming, and that I failed to prevent it. It adds some delicious texture to my sense of my own character, and to my hatred of the Steel Garrote.
You see, your character in Avowed is an envoy, sent to the Living Lands as a representative of the Aedyran empire which clearly wants to protect its own interests and to further cement its power in the region. However, it doesn’t take long for you to start meeting people who, with good reason, don’t take too kindly to the idea of the Living Lands effectively becoming a colony of Aedyr. I wanted to role-play my own envoy as someone who came to the Living Lands with an open mind, but who eventually finds herself swayed to help the local people in whatever way she can, even if it means betraying her emperor and her orders.
The Steel Garrote are not officially representatives of the Aedyran empire, but they do seem to be broadly aligned with Aedyr in their goals of conquering or taming the Lands. And because they burned Fior mes Ivèrno, I’ve now gone from being suspicious of the Steel Garrote, to outright hating them, and it’s awesome. I love to hate these fuckers. It feels so good to see them in the world and take them out without hesitation or remorse. I haven’t relished fighting a particular enemy faction this much since the terrific writing in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order drove home that the Empire are irredeemable space-fascists who you should force-push off a cliff at every opportunity. I’m sure I’d still enjoy fighting the Steel Garrote if they hadn’t burned Fior mes Ivèrno, but the fact that they committed such an atrocity makes fighting them all the sweeter.
The other reason I’m glad I didn’t prevent the city from burning is that I think heroes with baggage are more interesting. I don’t know where my character’s journey will end, but now she’s got one haunting tragedy in her past, one colossal failure to keep her up at night. For me, that’s a fascinating part of her story, one that drives her all the more to prevent any more innocents in the Living Lands from suffering needlessly at the hands of colonizers and tyrants. Did I mention I love this game?
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