Avowed review: A slow burn that might leave you cold

In this case, we had two weeks to play the game. And, in fairness, this is a little bit longer than the industry average. But still, the nature of a time-constrained review process does not feel like the best way to experience Avowed.

And now that we’ve reached the end of the process, there are definitely negatives and positives that we’ll now try to mush together into a coherent review.

Avowed is a fantasy RPG with action combat, and it is set in a beautiful world called The Living Lands. It is set in the same universe as developer Obsidian's old Pillars of Eternity games, but Avowed has all-new characters and a unique story, so don't worry if you haven't got prior knowledge.

Rather than being one big open world (like, say, Elden Ring), The Living Lands is a series of open areas that are separated by journeys with loading screens in between.

The Living Lands have lots of colourful flora and fauna — the flora you can often eat for health or throw like a grenade, while the fauna is normally out to kill you. It also has a lot of gorgeous vistas, some proper 'stop and take a screenshot' moments.

The trouble is, the overarching story did little to grab me. You’re playing as an 'Envoy' for an unseen emperor, and you’ve been sent to The Living Lands to investigate a 'soul plague' known as the Dreamscourge, which has been spreading across the world and turning people into mindless zombie-like creatures babbling nonsense.

It’s a fairly generic fantasy plot. It does get a bit deeper later on, and there are some tough choices to make along the way, but it doesn’t help that there aren’t really very many fun characters to liven up your adventure.

You will eventually collect four companions. The first two are fairly generic, your usual placeholder-feeling characters that you could label as 'stoically grumpy yet sarcastically quippy'.

The third companion is pretty downbeat, but at least has a more intriguing backstory. The fourth one comes in like a much-need bolt of energy, full of barmy humour and cheeky innuendos, but you have to wait until quite late in the game to recruit them.

The combat in Avowed is one of its greatest strengths — the game has all the swords, shields and bow-and-arrows that you’d expect of the fantasy genre, but it also has a generous arsenal of guns, magical spells and bigger two-handed weapons.

Handily, you can equip two loadouts at once and switch between them at the press of a button. I ended up with one magic-centric loadout where I could spit fire, electricity or ice at my enemies, and then a double-handed sword loadout for when I wanted to go all out with the slashy-slashy.

Coming back to the fact that Avowed is a tricky game to review — I really felt that the game’s combat and armour system doesn’t want you to rush through the main story beats.

It wants you to take your time with exploration and side missions, to constantly try to find better gear and the materials needed to craft your own upgrades.

If you’re more of a 'main quest first, side missions later' kind of player, you’ll find yourself being absolutely destroyed by enemies pretty much every half an hour.

Your teammates will offer rallying cries of, 'You need better armour! Time to upgrade that weapon!' Thanks for rubbing it in, guys.

Thankfully, the game does allow you to lower the difficulty level at any time — if you get stuck in a fight, I’d really recommend opting for this rather than banging your head against a wall that you clearly weren’t ready for.

Even 'Easy' mode will get quite difficult if you chain a few main missions, so don’t be shy with selecting 'Story Time' mode if you get really frustrated.

Eventually, I did cave to the game’s not-so-subtle hints and started spending more time on side quests, as well as keeping an eye on which items I needed to collect for upgrades.

There are also some interesting little stories waiting for you in the side missions, and there are a few companion quests that bulk out your friends' backstories in much deeper detail.

There seems to be no romance, though, which is a shame — especially when compared to the recent offering in that regard from Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.

The game also lacks a clear villain. It goes to admirable lengths to keep a number of characters’ true intentions ambiguous, as well as offering different sides on a number of debates.

You can often talk your way into a truce rather than a big bad boss battle, as well, but this does mean that the game lacks a little urgency.

The main threat is a plague, not an arch rival, which makes it feel a bit one-sided and like you can kind of do what you want with no time pressure.

Clearly, this is a game that wants you to take your time with it, to explore, to get to know the characters and the world as well as you can, and to only move on when you feel properly ready for the next level of combat challenge.

That is all admirable stuff, but Avowed doesn’t quite have the story or the characters or the villainous threat to make me want to spend all that time with it.

Even if I wasn’t trying to rush through the key beats for review, I would still feel that Avowed doesn’t quite click for me.

It has a beautiful world, and some great combat, but is that enough to hang a whole game on?

Thankfully, you don’t just have to take my word as gospel here. Avowed is launching on Xbox Game Pass next week, so, if you subscribe to that service, you can try the game for 'free' and decide for yourself.

If you fancy a slow burn of exploration, and you’re willing to wait quite a few hours for a fun companion, give it a go and make your own mind up! It might be more of a hit for you than it was for me, and that’s OK.

Avowed launches in early access at 3pm GMT today (13th February) for people that buy the Premium Edition. For everyone else, it comes to Xbox Game Pass on Tuesday 18th February.

Avowed is available on Xbox Series X/S and PC. We reviewed on Xbox Series X.

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