Avowed Could Be Following in Baldur’s Gate 3’s Footsteps with 1 Feature

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home November 27, 2024 14 Views 7 Min Read
Avowed Could Be Following in Baldur’s Gate 3’s Footsteps with 1 Feature

Even though it’s a spin-off of the Pillars of Eternity series, Avowed‘s initial showing at the Xbox Games Showcase 2020 drew a lot of comparisons to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. The dark fantasy tone, dull color palette, first-person perspective, and spell-casting combat displayed in the game’s reveal trailer were starkly reminiscent of the seminal Bethesda RPG. Because of this, many assumed that Avowed would be similar to The Elder Scrolls in terms of gameplay and scope. It was, after all, being developed by Obsidian Entertainment, a company that already had experience creating Bethesda-style games like Fallout: New Vegas.




While Obsidian did initially conceive Avowed as a Skyrim successor, it eventually evolved into something else throughout the course of its development. The game still has all the bells and whistles one would expect from a AAA RPG, but it’s more restrained in scope compared to something like Skyrim or Fallout: New Vegas. Contrary to what some fans expected, Avowed is not open-world, nor does it have dozens of companions to romance or an endless amount of side quests to complete. Instead, it’s more of a hub-based RPG, akin to one of Obsidian’s previous titles, The Outer Worlds. Avowed‘s modest scope may lead some to think that it doesn’t have a lot of optional content, unlike recent games such as Baldur’s Gate 3, but according to some statements from a developer at Obsidian, that isn’t the case.

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Avowed Approaches Missable Content a Lot Like Baldur’s Gate 3 Does


Both Avowed and Baldur’s Gate 3 Have a Sizable Amount of Content that Players Can Miss

In a recent interview with GamesRadar+, senior area designer Bergo Ritger revealed that Obsidian placed a major emphasis on creating missable content when developing Avowed. The company did this in order to make playthroughs of the game feel more personalized. With this approach, Obsidian aimed to draw players’ attention to different locations and activities and, as such, incite discussions among them about what they skipped. Having missable content in Avowed was necessary because, according to Ritger, it’s “the core of RPGs that makes them special.”

Avowed‘s design philosophy seems to share a lot in common with that of Baldur’s Gate 3, the wildly successful Dungeons & Dragons RPG that came out in 2023. For those who don’t know, BG3 is filled to the brim with optional content, the majority of which is missable. In fact, even though its main story only lasts for around 70 hours, it takes more than double that time to complete everything in the RPG. Since Baldur’s Gate 3‘s gameplay and plot are driven by choice and consequence, gamers will need to play through it multiple times in order to experience everything it has to offer.


Missable Content in Video Games Has Some Pros and Cons

If Avowed is anything like Baldur’s Gate 3 in this regard, then that means it’ll be highly replayable and will feature a large amount of missable content for gamers to enjoy. For some, this is great news. When games make activities inaccessible to those who haven’t completed certain side quests or story paths, it makes players’ choices feel more meaningful. If everything is accessible to all players from the get-go, no matter what they do, then going through a game multiple times is kind of pointless.

That being said, some players may prefer RPGs that have fewer branching paths. A lot of gamers don’t have the time to commit hundreds upon hundreds of hours to a single video game, especially considering all the high-quality titles being released these days. As such, having the ability to experience most or all of an RPG’s content in one playthrough may be ideal from their perspective. Players like these are probably not going to be fans of Obsidian’s approach to optional content in Avowed, but those that do enjoy choice-and-consequence in RPGs may end up loving the game.


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