Following many years of development, Avowed is finally set to release on Xbox consoles and the PC platform.

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It hasn't all been plain sailing, though, with the game suffering a delay and even multiplayer being removed.

Considering the team that is behind Avowed (Obsidian Entertainment) is best known for their single-player experiences – think Fallout: New Vegas, The Outer Worlds, etc – it's a surprise this was ever considered.

On the other hand, developer Arkane, which also falls under ZeniMax, was reportedly forced into making the game multiplayer, which arguably led to the game underperforming.

So, what's the deal with Avowed? Is multiplayer planned at all? Well, we've rounded up all the latest developer comments to answer this and more.

Is Avowed multiplayer?

Avowed character standing with a sword on their back overlooking a grassy landscape
Avowed. Obsidian

No, Avowed is not multiplayer. The game is a single-player fantasy RPG that does not feature any way to play with others, be that online or a cooperative component.

There are no plans for Avowed to receive multiplayer at some point in the future, either.

Obsidian has confirmed that all aspects of playing with others were removed at some point during development and the game was then worked on as a solely a single-player experience.

Was Avowed multiplayer cancelled? Developer comments

Avowed developer Obsidian Entertainment has been very open about how the original intention for the game was for it to surround cooperative multiplayer.

Obsidian Entertainment CEO Feargus Urquhart spoke about this during a new documentary celebrating the 20th anniversary of the studio.

"One of the things where I really pushed was that Avowed was going to be multiplayer, and I kept on that for a long time. I think in the end… no, I know in the end it was the wrong decision to keep on pushing on it," he explains.

"Why I had done it was when we were still independent and we were selling it, it was a more interesting game to publishers. And when you're asking for $50, $60, $70, $80 million, you got to have something interesting to talk about.

"Multiplayer made it interesting. It was sort of this idea of it's almost like peanut butter and chocolate, putting it together, like, 'Wow it must be something that's good.'"

Obsidian head of development Justin Britch then adds: "We were too focused on co-op and we were too focused on changing the way our pipelines work, and the way that we write conversations and the way we do quests and everything else.

"After working on it for a little bit, we realised that we weren't focused on the things we're best at. And so we did make a pivot on the game, basically to refocus – and make sure that it was, at the end of the day, an Obsidian game and not something different."

Avowed is set to launch on 18th February across Xbox Series X/S and Microsoft Windows.

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Authors

Black-and-white photo of Matt Poskitt
Matt PoskittFreelance Writer

Matt Poskitt is a freelance journalist who specialises in arts and culture – be that movies, TV, video games, tech or otherwise. Matt headed up the games and entertainment section at T3 (Future Publishing), alongside being found across The Guardian, CNET, PC Gamer Mag, GamesIndustry.biz, Insider, iNews, IGN, TechRadar, PC Gamer Mag, NME and many more.

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