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Avowed

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  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Marius gets hit with this, contributing to his Base-Breaking Character reputation. Some players see him as a cynical, untrustworthy pessimist who picks fights and undermines party harmony; others respect him as a layered anti-hero whose pragmatism reveals the moral gray zones the game otherwise glosses over.
    • Falscen Hylgard, the Aedyran ambassador sent to the Living Lands, stirs plenty of debates about his motives and ultimate alignment. On one hand, he is a diplomatic figure attempting to establish peace and cooperation; someone you can trust and whose motives are legitimate. Some players view him as genuinely benevolent, working within the empire’s rigid system but trying to do good. Other players view him more cynically, as a representative of an empire, someone complicit in imperialism, and/or who has underlying motives beyond his diplomatic facade. It isn't uncommon to see players debating whether he’s "Lawful Neutral", loyal to the empire but not cruel, or someone to be wary of.
  • Angst? What Angst?: The citizens of Fior don't seem to be nearly as shaken up about the Steel Garrote burning their city to the ground as they should be. The aftermath and character reactions feel surprisingly muted. Many citizens and even your companions (such as Giatta and Yatzli) proceed with the campaign as though the trauma of massive destruction is a plot checkpoint rather than a human tragedy. The fire and devastation should logically lead to deep grief, displacement, anger, or lasting psychological scars. Instead they vanish into the background as you move to the next objective.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Marius is easily the most divisive companion in the game. Detractors find him an insufferable, arrogant cynic whose moral flexibility often crosses the line into hypocrisy. They argue he drags down party chemistry by constantly picking fights with idealistic companions and undercutting emotional moments with sarcasm. Supporters hail him as one of the best-written characters in the game, praising his layered backstory, sharp dialogue, and the way his Anti-Hero pragmatism highlights the moral compromises inherent to the Living Lands. To his fans, Marius is a breath of fresh air in a cast otherwise full of Nice Guy do-gooders; to his critics, he’s a walking buzzkill. Very few players sit in the middle.
    • Kai is primarily seen as the affable, loyal, easy to trust, "someone you want to have at your side" member of the party. Many players highlight his humor, his backstory of regret and redemption, and treat him as the moral anchor. However, there is a contingent of players who view him negatively as an archetypal "friendly tank", making him somewhat less interesting in comparison to more morally ambiguous companions.
  • Broken Aesop:
    • The game pushes the idea that "there are no easy choices" with plenty of Grey-and-Gray Morality. No matter how you handle the major plot decisions, there are going to be consequences, unintended or otherwise. Free an imprisoned god? Back the imperialist expansion? Unite the communities of the Living Lands? All will have repercussions according to the story and dialogue... but most fans view freeing Sapadal as the unambiguous Golden Ending. The ending Modular Epilogue slideshow rewards this route with the most uniformly positive resolution for nearly all characters and factions. The intended lesson is that there are only hard trade-offs, yet the game quietly rewards one merciful choice with the most positive resolution, the aesop undercutting itself.
    • "Imperialism and Colonialism are bad" is an aesop that isn't exactly hard to pick up on throughout the game. The independent peoples of the Living Lands are presented as happy with their situation, despite the challenges of living in a Death World, and it's only when the Dreamscourge begins to ravage them that the situation starts to falter. They (especially in Paradis) are wary of the Aedyrans (at best)... but the actual representatives of the Aedyran Empire (the Ambassador, the Envoy in all non-Steel Garrote choices, Captain Wymgar...) are remarkably competent, fair-minded, and presented sympathetically. Most of the non-Dreamscourge conflict in the game is caused by Inquisitor Lödwyn and the Steel Garrote, which as both the Ambassador and Envoy can point out repeatedly, are Aedyran but not official representatives of Aedyr, portrayed as aberrations rather than systemic. The Envoy can even actively work against the Garrote throughout the game and ultimately destroy them. Because the empire itself is never shown as deeply problematic, the alleged aesop of "imperialism is harmful" is softened and undercut rather than delivered.
  • Captain Obvious Reveal:
    • The game heavily telegraphs Sapadal's connection to the Dreamscourge. The game drops multiple clues early on (dream-vision sequences, the link between land and deity, both the Envoy and those affected by the Dreamscourge having very fungal appearances) to the extent that many players claim they figured it out well before the official “twist” moment. While the narrative still allows for emotional weight and choice, the mystery element loses most of its surprise.
    • Late in the game, if certain choices are made, the player can seemingly kill Inquisitor Lödwyn during the confrontation in Galawain’s Tusks. However, given how many times her resilience and “divine favor” are foreshadowed, not to mention explicit mentions that she’s cheated death before, most players immediately suspect she’s not truly gone. Sure enough, she turns up alive as the Final Boss, prompting an oddly shocked reaction from the Envoy that few players share. For most, the twist lands less like a revelation and more like a formality — the story catching up to what everyone already knew. Between the earlier hints about her unnatural survival and the narrative need for a climactic rematch, her return feels less “plot twist” and more “checked box".
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome: While Avowed offers a range of weapon types, skill trees, and hybrid playstyles, most players quickly discover that some options are vastly more efficient than others and keep going back to them. The dual pistol “gunslinger” build in particular dominates discussion threads and guide videos, praised for blowing away enemies before they can react while requiring little variation once optimized. Other styles, like pure mage, defensive shield builds, or two-handed melee, feel noticeably slower or more resource-hungry, encouraging players to stick with what works rather than experiment. Many players admit they spent the entire campaign “pew-pewing everything with two pistols” simply because it was the fastest, safest path through combat.
  • Critical Dissonance: On the surface, Avowed launched to generally good critical reviews, rating it around an 80/100, calling it a competent, well-written fantasy action-RPG with solid combat and beautiful environments. However, many players diverged in their take, with player ratings more in the 60-70 range most places. On forums and subreddits you’ll find a steady undercurrent of “it's solid, but it doesn’t feel special” or “we expected more from Obsidian”. The world-reaction systems, loot/upgrades, and pacing draw consistent critique from the community, even while reviewers give it the benefit of the doubt. The result is a game that sits in the critics' “good” zone but the player’s “meh” zone.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Maegfolc. Found in the game's final areas, the Maegfolc hit absurdly hard, soak up huge amounts of damage, and inflict multiple elemental effects at once. Many can teleport, spam ranged magic, or summon minions, making every encounter feel like a mini-boss fight. For most players, they’re the point where “normal fight” quietly shifts into “oh no, not these guys again”. As a bonus, there are several late-game areas where you need to fight two at once. Even worse, if you make the choices that set Inquisitor Lödwyn up as the Final Boss, she'll (twice) summon a pair of them to back her up during the final battle. Good freaking luck.
    • Steel Garrote Inquisitors are notorious for their combination of heavy armor, crowd control, and powerful attacks that can wipe away half your health bar in a single hit. They resist many common status effects, punish magic users especially hard, and are often accompanied by numerous lower-tier zealots that make targeting priorities messy. They’re not classified as bosses, but they might as well be. In higher difficulties, two of them in the same fight can feel tougher than any scripted boss encounter.
  • Diagnosed by the Audience: Many fans believe that Marius suffers from PTSD from his time as a warden in Galawain's Tusks. The interpretation hinges on his constant vigilance, his closed-off personality, his sarcasm masking worry for the party, and his repeated reference to surviving harsh wilderness rather than civilization. If you complete his companion quest, you'll learn that he survived, and repressed the memory of, something even worse as a child. While the game never explicitly diagnoses him, many players read his behavior through this lens.
  • Difficulty Spike: The moment the Envoy leaves the relatively forgiving Dawnshore region and sets foot in the Emerald Stair marks one of the game’s biggest spikes in challenge. Dawnshore functions as the game's Green Hill Zone, a low-stakes introduction full of slow-moving enemies, forgiving encounters, and abundant healing. Then the Emerald Stair immediately slaps players with two-skull difficulty markers in the Journal (each skull represents how many "tiers" the enemies present are above you), tougher enemy variants, and ambush-heavy terrain. Even if you've completed every sidequest in Dawnshore and upgraded your equipment as much as you're able before heading out, you'll likely find yourself outmatched until you circle back to complete smaller tasks in and around Fior first. It's not an unfair jump, but it's abrupt enough that many players hit this wall and realized the game had just stopped holding their hand.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Unsurprisingly, Inquisitor Lödwyn gets this treatment from a portion of the fandom. Although she serves as the Envoy's major rival/foil and a potential antagonist (leader of the Steel Garrote, orders the burning of Fior, is the Final Boss in most story branches...) the fandom often highlights her cool design, Revenant Zombie via willpower nature, commanding presence, and complex role in the story. Some players express admiration or even attraction toward her (further helped by a player choice noting that she and Envoy have/have had a relationship), softening or overlooking her harsher acts.
  • Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: For many players and critics alike, Avowed offers a rich, engaging narrative with well-written characters, interesting lore in the world of Eora, and story arcs that hold promise. On the flip side, the gameplay is often described in less glowing terms, including grindy upgrades, formulaic zones, awkward scaling, and dated mechanics that don’t quite match the narrative ambition. The result is a game that many enjoy for its story and setting, but feel the gameplay itself doesn’t elevate to match
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Garryck and Ilora, the tutorial companions, are well-liked by fans who wish they could have been permanent party members. They have lively banter and good rapport with both one another and the Envoy. However, they quickly go their separate ways once the tutorial is complete. Ilora can assist in one Dawnshore sidequest, while Garryck hangs out in the Aedyran Embassy and gets murdered in retaliation if the Envoy doesn't choose the peaceful solution with the Paradisan Rebels under Ygwulf.
    • Quilicci, Yatzli's long-time partner and Giatta's surrogate father, won fans over precisely because he’s such an anomaly in an Obsidian RPG — a well-adjusted, supportive, loving spouse. While his appearances are brief, his calm confidence and obvious affection for Yatzli provide a rare glimpse of stable domesticity amid the chaos of the Living Lands. Players and reviewers alike note that his maturity and sincerity make him one of the most “human” characters in the game. He doesn’t fight, scheme, or brood; he just genuinely cares and does what he can to help the Envoy.
    • Grakohr, the surprisingly affable ogre who can become an ally if the player takes a diplomatic approach to his sidequest, became an instant cult favorite character. In particular, the novelty of seeing an “enemy” creature turn into a friend makes him even more memorable. Fans particularly love that if you help him, he actually shows up during the final battle to fight by your side, and can single-handedly dispatch the entire enemy contingent at the gate. He's last seen vowing to hold the gate while the Envoy enters the besieged city. Quite a few fans argue that he should have been able to become a full-blown party member.
    • Ambassador Falscen Hylgard. The Aedyran ambassador’s blend of diplomacy, moral ambiguity, and subtle humor has earned him a small but dedicated following. Some fans appreciate that he embodies the “reasonable adult in the room” archetype, being pragmatic without being cynical, authoritative without being overbearing. He’s the rare political figure in a fantasy RPG who isn’t secretly evil or incompetent, which made him a pleasant surprise for players expecting betrayal around every corner.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
    • There is plenty of overlap in the fandoms of Avowed and its Obsidian sister series The Outer Worlds. The stylistic overlap (open-but-segmented game worlds, small party oriented, strong narratives, choice-driven) is obvious, to the point that Avowed can be considered "fantasy Outer Worlds. There are no shortage of Outer Worlds fans who picked up Avowed to fill the gap until The Outer Worlds 2 released later the same year.
    • Fans of the Dragon Age franchise are right at home in Avowed, to the point where Avowed strongly feels like a Spiritual Successor to DA. Both are narrative-rich fantasy RPGs based around small player parties with branching choices that have consequences.
  • Game-Breaker:
    • Dual pistol builds are absurdly powerful, being able to kill most enemies in one or two shots, and potentially achieving an astonishingly high rate of fire (the drawback of firearms is supposed to be their slow reload speed). Two unique pistols are available almost immediately at the start of the game, and from there it only gets better. They boast near-instant reloads with the right skill investments, pinpoint Hitscan accuracy despite being based on 17th-century smoothbores, and a stagger rate that turns most melee enemies into helpless statues. Stack perks that slow time while aiming, and you’re effectively playing Max Payne: Eora Edition while dancing through firefights in perpetual bullet-time while everything else politely waits to die. Late-game variants even build stun so fast that critical hits chain infinitely, letting the Envoy erase entire encounters without taking a scratch. The only real challenge left is not falling asleep from all the power-fantasy repetition. A few later patches Nerf fire rate, reload speed, and stun buildup, but they still make for some of the best weapons in the game.
    • Poison-Crit Ranger builds are proof that Obsidian learned exactly nothing from how broken status-stacking was in Pillars II. With heavy investment in the Ranger skill tree’s Critical Hit boosters and a few choice trinkets (the Vindictive Band, Skaen's Totem, The Long Touch bow, etc.) an archer Envoy can turn into a Critical Hit Class of poisonous blows. Nearly every arrow lands as a critical hit, which not only chunks health but also inflicts severe Poison accumulation that few enemies in Avowed can resist. (Unlike most games where poison is a Useless Useful Spell that most enemies are immune to, the only things truly immune are undead and the various “blight” creatures.) Even the potential Final Bosses and the late-game Maegfolc aren’t safe. Open a fight by tagging the enemy crowd and watch them melt while you leisurely keep the crit train rolling to refresh the poison status. Even after a balance patch nerfed the Vindictive Band’s Poison buildup rate, the combo still laughs in the face of game balance. For a further bonus, both Skaen's Totem and The Long Touch allow you to deal about 30% extra critical damage to foes at full health.
    • The "Frost Knight" build uses the unique, freezing, two-handed axe "Drawn in Winter" with heavy investment into the Warrior skill tree's various stunning skills to freeze and then smash foes with shocking ease.
    • The "Spellblade" build combines a fast one-handed weapon like an axe or sword with ice magic to freeze, then exploit the freeze with high-damage follow-ups. The synergy of "freeze and shatter" plus gear/upgrades means many fights become far easier than intended.
  • Genius Bonus: Near the forge of Paradis blacksmith Gweneth, you can find a letter she has started to write complaining about the quality of forging materials she's been receiving from her supplier. It reads like the Complaint Tablet to Ea-Nasir, the oldest known customer complaint in history.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • Blights, floating elemental-rock/spirit hybrid enemies, are not especially threatening but are quite annoying to deal with in combat. They're naturally immune to their own elemental type (Lava Blights being immune to fire, etc.), all are immune to poison, have strong physical defenses that make chipping away their health a slow process, tend to spam weak but area-of-effect attacks that flush ranged fighters out of cover, and finally, the "Greater" Blights split into multiple smaller blights when killed. Add it all up and players will dread seeing groups of Blight enemies, not because they're especially dangerous, but because defeating them will be an annoying slog.
    • Enemy healer units (like priests) aren't a direct threat, but can rapidly heal other enemies around them in a shockingly fast fashion, prolonging battles and keeping actually threatening enemies in the battle. You'll want to seek them out and Shoot the Medic First whenever encountered. Worse, they can show up as "reinforcements" from offscreen during certain battles and you'll only know it when other enemies start getting healed out of nowhere.
  • Good Bad Bugs: There is an item duplication glitch during the "Nature vs. Nurture" sidequest in Emerald Stair. By manipulating quest steps (talking to Amadio at the Xaurip camp, altering the quest flow), one can duplicate the boots and sell them, resulting in effectively unlimited gold.
  • It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Even at higher difficulty settings, Avowed rarely pushes back hard enough to feel tense or punishing. Enemies are slow to react, their attacks easy to dodge, and the generous healing items and cooldowns make even higher difficulty settings feel closer to the "normal" of other contemporary games. Many players describe the experience as "too safe", especially when compared to other modern fantasy action RPGs like Elden Ring and others from the Souls-like RPG genre. The problem isn’t just the numbers, it’s the lack of AI aggression or enemy coordination, which leaves most fights feeling like power fantasies rather than challenges. Once players discover how potent dual pistols, stun-chains, or poison crits are, the difficulty curve collapses entirely. The result is a game that’s visually grand and narratively rich, but mechanically toothless.
  • Rooting for the Empire: Despite the Steel Garrote’s brutal Knight Templar methods (executing as they please, burning Fior, destroying centuries old ruins, etc.) and zealous adherence to Woedica’s doctrine of subjugation, a portion of the fandom finds the faction’s uncompromising order appealing (or at least understandable), especially amid the chaos of the Living Lands. Players who side with them often justify it as choosing discipline over decay, echoing the Garrote’s rhetoric that only firm control can prevent the world’s collapse. Inquisitor Lödwyn herself, an armor-clad zealot and one of the game’s primary antagonists, has inspired admiration for her conviction and charisma, further fueling sympathy for the Garrote cause. Even knowing full well that they’re the "bad guys", some players enjoy embracing their iron-fisted logic
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • At launch, the purple “illusion” barriers could only be dispelled by companion Yatzli, making her a mandatory party slot for completionists and frustrating anyone who preferred other lineups. Every other obstacle could be handled with throwables if you didn't have the appropriate party member to deal with them, but not these, forcing tedious back-and-forth trips to swap her in just to reveal a chest or shortcut. Players quickly dubbed it an “obvious oversight” while Obsidian eventually caved in Patch 1.4 by letting throwable Soul Pods break illusions directly—though one late-game area still demands Yatzli’s touch for story reasons.
    • Many/most of the godlike facial features tend to be fairly unpopular. While the universe's lore paints these divine mutations as exotic and awe-inspiring, in practice they’re huge, asymmetrical, and often brightly colored in ways that make “attractive” characters nearly impossible to design. Many players compared the fungal variants to the Infected in The Last of Us, especially since it’s possible to make an Envoy with no visible eyes, nose, or mouth at all. Obsidian anticipated the backlash just enough to include a toggle that hides the growths, though NPCs still react as if you’re sporting a full mushroom colony. The studio later promised to further expand customization and mid-game appearance editing in a roadmap update.
    • On paper, the game's crafting/upgrade system seems perfectly sensible — upgrade your favorite weapons so they stay viable all game. In practice, however, they quickly turned into a grindfest. Key materials are finite (or functionally so, thanks to limited gold), meaning keeping gear at the current act’s tier can take ages unless you’ve been obsessively thorough in exploration. Worse, the system punishes experimentation: once you’ve sunk rare resources into an early-game weapon, swapping to something new feels like flushing hours of progress down the drain. Since scrapping high-tier items is one of the few reliable ways to get those same materials back, players end up locked into the same loadout out of pure sunk-cost anxiety. Obsidian’s early patches increased resource availability, and a summer 2025 major patch brought a full rework of the system to make it less penalizing overall.
    • The game's gear Tier System tries to encourage smooth progression but ends up feeling more like a punishment mechanic. Enemies scale their damage based on your current equipment tier, meaning that wandering into the wrong zone too early turns fights into sloggy stat checks while upgrading even one tier too high leads to easy slaughters. The result is a game that looks open on paper but quietly punishes curiosity until you’ve done your homework at the crafting station. Reviewers called it a “multiplicative tier penalty system that needs to be removed yesterday” and for good reason. It breaks immersion and pacing alike, leaving the world feeling more gated than guided — a well-intentioned balance system that mostly reminds you how much fun you’re not having when your sword’s a level behind.
    • Technically, Avowed has an encumbrance mechanic. Realistically, it might as well not exist. Items have weight and there’s even a carry limit, but fast-travel and universal stash access make it completely meaningless. You can haul half the Living Lands in your pockets, dump it all into your stash from anywhere, and never suffer a single consequence. Reviewers jokingly dubbed it a “fake encumbrance” system, one that pretends to add realism but only clutters the interface. It’s the sort of half-hearted design flourish that feels like a relic from a more punishing RPG, serving no purpose except to remind you that someone, somewhere, once thought an Inventory Management Puzzle based purely on weight was still a good idea.
    • The Lockpicking Minigame has drawn criticism for how easy of a mechanic it is. There is no lockpicking skill or any sort of stat checks when doing it. Just buy lockpicks at a merchant and press a button to unlock chests wherever you find them. It's totally pointless and may as well not even exist.
    • Avowed proudly markets itself on player agency, but many find the actual choices to be more cosmetic than consequential. Dialogue wheels often circle back to the same outcome, moral decisions rarely ripple beyond a single quest, and even major faction alignments feel interchangeable once the dust settles. Most NPCs don’t seem to acknowledge much of what you’ve done, and your reputation hardly affects interactions outside a few scripted nods. Reddit threads are full of players realizing that “different” dialogue options mostly boil down to flavor text, with no branching fallout, no radically changed paths, no sense that your Envoy is actually shaping the Living Lands in a meaningful way. For a studio known for reactive storytelling, it’s a letdown: a Scrappy Mechanic where “choice” becomes a polite illusion of control, more smoke and mirrors than role-playing freedom.
  • Scrappy Weapon: The Arquebus. In a game where dual pistols dominate, the arquebus stands out... in a very bad way. While it boasts high raw damage and respectable range, its crippling reload time, heavy handling, and clunky utility make it a frequent afterthought for most players. As a result, the arquebus becomes one of those weapons you only equip for flavor or a “challenge run” rather than serious play. It’s mechanically sound on paper, but in practice, it lags well behind multiple flashy, efficient alternatives.
  • So Okay, It's Average: On paper, Avowed hits all of the right notes — a storied developer, a rich fantasy setting (the world of Eora), and a competent mix of action-RPG mechanics. Critic aggregator sites put it firmly in the "generally favorable", "80/100", "4/5" range as well. Obsidian stated that they were happy with the early sales numbers, managing solid-if-unspectacular concurrent player numbers at its peak. However, the consensus among most players is that Avowed is “good but not great”. Reviews often praise its world-building and writing while noting that it lacks bold innovation, suffers from mechanics that feel dated, and doesn’t leave a lasting impression. In other words, it lands squarely in the “pleasant”, “solid”, or “decent” range rather than “memorable” or “ground-breaking”. While it’s a fine game by most metrics and one plenty of people will enjoy, it doesn’t seem to stick in the mind long after you’ve put it down.
  • Spiritual Successor: While Avowed exists firmly within Obsidian’s own Pillars of Eternity universe, many players and reviewers have noted that it strongly feels like a spiritual successor to BioWare’s Dragon Age series. The High Fantasy setting, the tone, the game structure, the plot being centered around a politically important Player Character building up a morally complex party of companions, the dialogue heavy choices... More than a few fans have dubbed it "Obsidian's Dragon Age" as a result.
  • That One Achievement:
    • "Everyone Disliked That", which requires you to have every companion leave your party as a result of siding with the Steel Garrote. It’s a tough-to-hit end-game decision tied to major story forks and companion relationships. It's easily missable and locked behind the "evil option" of finishing the main quest. Further, if you don’t plan for it from early in the game, it can be impossible to earn.
    • "Tyranny", which requires you to be knighted as a member of the Steel Garrote. Since this requires choosing the “evil” alignment path at key decision points, it means your regular playthrough might block it unless you deliberately build toward it. Many players note they missed this because they didn’t pick the exact evil-side choices or didn’t anticipate the requirement.
    • "Pantheon Purist" requires collecting all of the pieces of each god totem. Each involves a lengthy Collection Sidequest with the only in-game clues about the location of each piece being in the form of cryptic riddles, getting into Guide Dang It! territory.
    • "The Unbroken Path" and "Echoes of the Past" are a pair of "hidden" achievements (criteria for earning them not given). The former requires beating the game without lowering the difficulty... however, even opening the menu to check the difficulty triggers the flag and invalidates the run with no warning. The latter is awarded for discovering all Dreamscourge vision sequences, some of which are triggered only by walking through specific, unmarked patches of terrain or talking to companions at precise moments. Miss one, and you’ll need a full replay to get the achievement.
  • That One Component: Adra (and its variants Awakened Adra, Corrupted Adra, Adra Ban) is required to upgrade "unique" weapons/armor to the next quality tier (e.g., from 'Exceptional" to "Superb") and unlock "Legendary" quality gear. It is the rarest upgrade material of all, as well as the most expensive (in the limited quantities it can be purchased in). As upgrading gear is essential for progressing, Adra quickly becomes essential as well and there simply isn't enough of it to fully upgrade more than a few unique items per playthrough. This also feeds into the Sunk Cost Fallacy of players, discouraging experimentation with other unique items because you've already sunk so many limited resources into the ones you're already using.
  • That One Level: The Delemgan Grove in the Emerald Stair easily qualifies. Tasked with retrieving an Adragon Heart, the Envoy must either battle through waves of Delemgan and their Sporeling minions or attempt an equally perilous stealth route. The combat path is a war of attrition with durable enemies, heavy elemental damage, and a cramped final arena boss battle against the Delemgan Queen, who constantly summons reinforcements. Even well-geared players find the fight exhausting, with limited space to maneuver and little time to heal. The supposed “peaceful” alternative isn’t much easier: sneaking through the grove without killing any of her kin is a nerve-wracking test of patience and precision, with detection radii so tight that most players resort to heavy Save Scumming to pull it off. However you approach it, the Grove marks one of the game’s toughest, most frustrating sequences.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Longtime fans of Pillars of Eternity weren’t all that thrilled to see Avowed abandon the isometric CRPG style that defined its predecessors in favor of a first-person Action RPG. Many had been hoping for a proper Pillars III and felt Avowed’s shift toward real-time combat and simplified systems was a betrayal of that legacy. Forums are full of posts lamenting the “dumbing down” of mechanics, streamlined stat progression, and reduced party management, all of which are seen as casualties of Obsidian chasing broader appeal. Even though critics praised the game’s accessibility, part of the old fanbase saw the change as trading tactical depth for spectacle. For them, Avowed isn’t the evolution of Pillars they wanted, rather, it’s what happened when a beloved series "sold out".
  • Underused Game Mechanic: Enchanting "unique" weapons is a neat concept and a staple of many fantasy RPGs, but here it feels oddly limited. Only unique weapons can be enchanted, and each offers just one upgrade tier with a binary choice between two options. Combined with the rarity of Adra required for upgrades and the resulting hesitation to invest in more than a few weapons, most players end up enchanting their preferred gear once and never touching the system again. Meanwhile, enemies keep dropping enchanting materials throughout the game, leaving the mechanic feeling underdeveloped. It might have been more engaging if players could create their own “unique” weapons from basic ones or if multiple enchantment tiers existed to make use of the surplus components.

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