There are lessons that Avowed can learn from all three of these games as a first-person fantasy RPG. There's also enough variation between the games to show that Obsidian doesn't always reliably pull off the best parts of its previous titles in later games. Here's what Avowed can learn from New Vegas , The Outer Worlds , and Pillars of Eterni
In both The Elder Scrolls and Lovecraft , the idea of an immensely powerful being simply dreaming the universe plays on the existential dread that the universe, despite containing consciousness, doesn't have any real direction or agency, and is chaotically amoral. However, Avowed 's world imagines a very different kind of existential dread - discovering that there are no gods at
The gods of Eora , the setting of Avowed, have some surface-level Lovecraftian influence. Wael is the god of mysteries, dreams, and revelations, resembling both the dreaming Godhead and Hermaeus Mora in The Elder Scrolls . Wael is covered in eyes and mouths resembling the malignant globes of Azathoth. However, there's one main difference between the role Lovecraft's influence plays in Tamriel and Eora that changes everyth
Pillars of Eternity also gets wrong what New Vegas gets right. In Pillars of Eternity the player is exposed to a cultists ritual that makes them a Watcher , a person able to read souls and see their past lives. If the player doesn't track down the cultists, they are told, their character will go ins
The trailer for Avowed shows the first-person perspective of a character drawing a magical symbol in the air before summoning a spell into one of their hands. This could hint at some sort of rune drawing system connected to more complex magic mechanics than Skyrim 's. Back in March leaker Tiffany Treadmore suggested that " Elder Scrolls 6 will include new 'Rune Drawing' functionality." While she said this feature was yet to be confirmed, it is likely that both Bethesda and Obsidian are looking for ways to make their first-person magic and combat systems feel like a generational step forward from Skyrim
Unfortunately, not much else has been revealed regarding the zombie survival game. Following its reveal, Undead Labs did confirm that the game was still very early in development indicating release would still be a long ways off. Without much else to go on a year later, its understandable that most fans felt a new trailer or development update would be ready, though if State of Decay 3 is attempting to fix and build off of the franchise's legacy, development could be a lengthy one, especially to fulfill that huge open world sandbox survival fant
Obsidian could just as easily come up with something even more surprising. A recent job listing from Obsidian revealed that it's starting work on an unannounced project supposedly set in an open world, which could mean The Outer Worlds 2 , or it could mean something completely different. In fact, since Obsidian has been establishing quite a few new IPs in the form of Grounded and The Outer Worlds lately, it seems pretty likely that the studio has another big idea that it wants to expl
The Pillars of Eternity titles are party-based RPG games, and this could be one of the biggest characteristics that Obsidian could bring to Avowed . It's not very often that action-RPG games make use of companions, and when they are featured, they can often be somewhat basic. A possibly clever move for Obsidian Entertainment would be to look at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire and how that game handled adventuring part
Skyrim is packed full of references to the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Its last DLC, Dragonborn, saw the inhabitants of the isolated town of Raven Rock fall under a mysterious trance-like state that was leading them to build strange obelisks, with only the faintest memory of doing so. While some The Elder Scrolls quests are full of surface-level Lovecraft allusions like this, the series' metaphysical lore makes the connection explicit. The same can be said for Obsidian's upcoming first-person fantasy RPG, Avow
The fact that the main Elder Scrolls series has been dormant for nearly a decade puts the pressure on both Avowed and The Elder Scrolls 6 to solve some of the main criticisms of games like Skyrim . This doesn't just include the game's simple, repetitive combat and spell systems, but the weaknesses of its main narrative, the formulaic similarities between the faction quests, the lack of follower depth, and more. Avowed will take on both the advantages and risks of going first, and will likely attempt to address some of Skyrim 's main criticisms directly, to avoid the greater potential criticism that Avowed Weapons adds little to the Skyrim formula ten years
Considered a new take on the New Vegas formula was The Outer Worlds . Set in a distant solar system, The Outer Worlds shared many themes and mechanical similarities with Fallout . It even carved out its own little fandom. However, without Bethesda's engine or the Fallout 3 assets to work with, there were some areas where it fell flat that Avowed will need to av