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One Small Problem With The Outer Worlds Could Make A Huge Difference In Avowed

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 15:21:36 +0000

Todd Howard recently announced that The Elder Scrolls 6 is still "in the design phase" over three years after its initial reveal, with the studio focusing primarily on Starfield , its first new IP in over 25 years. It's likely that, similar to Bethesda, most of Obsidian's resources are currently focused on Avowed . The Outer Worlds 2 's trailer may have poked fun at games announced long before their development had begun in earnest, but it's also likely a self-confessed culprit of exactly t

Avowed is set in the Living Lands, an ecologically diverse frontier continent in the north of Eora, the world from Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity CRPGs. The studio will need to work hard to distinguish Avowed 's setting from the competition. There are even reasons this task may be trickier than it was with Pillars of Eternity . However, the Living Lands also offer some unique opportunities Obsidian shouldn't let pass it

Although these features mostly add extra opportunities for immersion, sometimes the lack of them directly detracts from player immersion in the game. In Skyrim a player can kill an enemy then drag their corpse out of sight to prevent another enemy from going on the alert. This doesn't come with any special animation like players will find in Dishonored or recent Far Cry games. In fact, the bodies in Skyrim will ragdoll, making them look more than a little silly. Nonetheless, there is an underlying logic, and players are given the ability to engage with their environment in less traditional ways than just combat or dialo

The final likely possibility is Avowed modeling its system after Skyrim 's design. In this case there isn't a class system, but there is a skill and perk system. Aside from differences contingent on race, every Skyrim player starts out the same, and levels up skills depending on what they do more of in the game. Levelling skills unlocks unique perks, such as being able to forward roll while in stealth. Each of these possible systems comes with its own pros and c

Obsidian is currently developing two major first-person RPGs, Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 . When looked at alongside smaller projects like Grounded , it certainly seems like the studio is busier than ever bef

Following the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake last year as well as the Intergrade DLC and the PS5 version only recently, many assumed Square Enix would at least be willing to show off what's next for Cloud, Tifa, and the rest of the crew. Tetsuya Nomura has revealed that the development team has moved on to Part 2, though details continue to be scarce leaving many fans to speculate and theorize how the experience could cha

Avowed Weapons will likely draw a lot of direct comparisons to Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls series at large when it releases. These are likely comparisons Obsidian itself will want to encourage. Avowed is set in the world of Eora , first created for the two Pillars of Eternity games, Pillars of Eternity being an isometric RPG series developed by Obsidian previously. One of the reasons Avowed will see the franchise move to a first-person perspective is that, despite their critical success, the studio's traditional isometric RPGs were struggling financially. By marketing an Elder Scrolls -style game, the studio likely hopes to find more reliable success with its sett

This could require Obsidian to make some updates to its engine during the development of Avowed . That being said, the studio can't hope to take on The Elder Scrolls series without first understanding some of the smaller elements that helped bring its huge success. Avowed may be a continuation of Pillars of Eternity , but many fantasy fans buying the game will be hoping for a spiritual successor to Skyrim . If Obsidian is going to take on a giant, the devil will be in the deta

Avowed 's setting has far more to offer than it first appears to. Its hidden depths are literal. There are huge pillars of adra - a soul-channeling mineral - that extend into mega-dungeons beneath Eora that hide hidden secrets and technology. This might sound like The Elder Scrolls ' Dwemer ruins, but unlike The Elder Scrolls , Obsidian's Eora-set games have not hesitated to make solving the mysteries of its lost civilization a main part of the p

This has led some fans to worry that Obsidian may be biting off more than it can chew. While those fears are not unfounded given the company's history, there is also some evidence to suggest that the studio may be in a stronger position to take on ambitious projects like Avowed and The Outer Worlds seq

Avowed has the potential to both benefit from and fall victim to close comparisons with other fantasy games. When the trailer for Obsidian's upcoming first-person RPG dropped, Bethesda fans were quick to notice surface-level similarities with The Elder Scrolls , with many hoping the game could fill the gap left by the long wait for The Elder Scrolls

Beyond Parthurnaax there were very few developed dragon characters in the game, with most just appearing in the sky to attack the Dragonborn on-site before being killed and used to unlock new shouts. Dragon fights proved relatively easy even on Skyrim 's highest difficulty setting, leading some fans to mod the game to make battling the beasts more challenging. Though dragons are said to be highly intelligent, this was hardly reflected in their tactics or the story. Odahviing, for example, is led into a trap in Whiterun Keep with relative ease, and most dragons across Skyrim seem easily defeated by the Dragonborn rather than being truly intimidating foes to face d

Avowed Can Setup The Elder Scrolls 6 for Success

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 07:44:49 +0000

That might be bad news for fans of The Outer Worlds hoping to see the sequel soon, but it could be good news for Obsidian overall. In fact, it seems like Obsidian might be taking its time with its main projects. Avowed was expected by many to make an appearance at E3 2021, and the fact that it didn't could mean that Obsidian is holding off on revealing too much until it's really ready. If the last year has taught RPG developers anything, it's not to build too much hype too early, something Cyberpunk 2077 infamously fell victim to over its prolonged development and controversial, chaotic rele

For a time this made Obsidian's position particularly precarious. Back in 2010 when Fallout: Https://Reconcavoafrofestival.com/ New Vegas got an 84 on Metacritic , Bethesda denied Obsidian a bonus contingent on the game receiving an 85 on the review aggregator. This led Obsidian CEO Francis Urquhart to announce the cancellation of a planned project codenamed "North Carolina." While bigger studios like Bethesda can weather less successful releases like Fallout 76 , for a time it seemed like Obsidian was just one flop away from falling ap

Many of Eora's inhabitants worship specific gods in the hope of avoiding the lottery and being directed to a certain existence. The god Galawain, for example, uses the souls of his devout followers to create monsters. In Pillars of Eternity , it is revealed that all Pale Elf souls go to the god Rymrgand, who prevents their souls from losing essence to entropy, but also exclusively reincarnates them as Pale Elves. This revelation causes many Pale Elves to "awaken," or remember past lives. One clan even attempts to enter Rymrgand's realm and die for good. This is not the first time the mortals of Eora have attempted to affect The Wh

Announced in July 2020, Avowed is a first-person action-RPG that's coming at an unspecified date, and it looks set to be one of Obsidian's largest projects ever. Avowed was immediately compared to Skyrim , thanks to its fantasy setting and first-person perspective, but Obsidian have a large well to draw from to make it stand out as a more unique title. The game is a spin-off of Obsidian's RPG series Pillars of Eternity, and it's set in the same world. Where Pillars is a classic throwback RPG, Avowed is very much set to take a more action-orientated spin on the world of E

If Avowed takes place during Woedica's reign , the Engwithan machine controlling The Wheel will be in full effect. Pillars of Eternity players will have insight into many of the world's phenomena that may not be discovered at the time of Avowed . If players have the opportunity to play as a Pale Elf, for example, this would be long before they learned that they were always reincarnated as a Pale

"We have always known war. We forged our empire, turned heroes into queens and kings, and decimated our foes. Now our oaths are lost, forsaken, and you must face the monsters our sins have borne. Is an oath worth the weight of a cro

The Engwithans also used Animancy to create the gods of Eora using the souls of thousands of their own citizens. The gods are sustained by the essence souls lose to entropy while moving through The Wheel. Eventually, the Engwithans had changed the cycle of rebirth so much that The Wheel was reliant upon their machine. During the Pillars of Eternity games the god Eothas attempts to destroy the Engwithan machine. However, there are reasons to think Avowed will take place long before that ev

The Avowed trailer points to the protagonist facing down the machinations of an angry, vengeful goddess. Fighting a deity may seem like an insurmountable task, and unfortunately for the hero of Avowed , Woedica isn't just the goddess of justice, but is ironically known for breaking any rule necessary to achieve her ends. The player character does have one spot of hope, however. Pillars of Eternity reveals that Woedica isn't really a god at

One of the strangest aspects of the Pillars of Eternity universe is the way that death works in Eora. Not only is Eora's relationship with death likely to be one of the most interesting parts of Avowed , but just how death will work will depend on when Avowed is set in relation to the events of Pillars of Eterni

Microsoft purchased Obsidian back in 2018, just a few months after the release of Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire , giving the studio some stability. Since then Obsidian has undertaken a surprising number of confirmed projects. This includes Avowed , The Outer Worlds 2 , and continuing work on Grounded , the studio's Honey, I Shrunk The Kid s-inspired survival game. Despite Microsoft's backing, two major first-person RPGs and updates for a survival game seems like a lot to handle considering Obsidian's history. This had led many fans to worry that the studio may have bitten off more than it can c

Death Works Very Strangely in Avowed's Universe

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 22:33:00 +0000

With the support of The Outer Worlds winding down, it's easy to imagine that Grounded will receive some additional development support as it edges closer to moving past early access. Grounded's community has exceeded 5 million players which could help ensure a long and exciting future. While there is certainly a sizeable scale to consider here, Grounded is arguably not the biggest project in the works at Obsidian Entertainment right

The process of life, death, and reincarnation in Eora is a part of a natural phenomena known as The Wheel. The cycle of reincarnation goes on forever, but every time a soul goes through The Wheel it can lose a little bit of its essence to entropy. Once in The Beyond, a soul's next life is chosen through a process known as the soul lottery. Not all souls are subject to the soul lottery, howe

Azathoth is an unimaginably powerful being who exists outside the Lovecraft universe and dreams reality while "lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demoniac flute." While the Dragonborn DLC dived deeper into the broader The Elder Scrolls -Lovecraft connections than most other entries in the series, the Lovecraftian connections to the world of Avowed are far more expli

So many of these huge metaphysical revelations, including the fact that the gods are manmade, come out during the events of Pillars of Eternity . This raises the question of what mysteries Avowed Cheats might explore if it is set before these universe-shattering discoveries. In any case, if Avowed is set before Pillars of Eternity but after the fall of the Engwithan civilization , the machine will still be directing the souls of the dead through The Wh

The dragons in Skyrim exist almost exclusively to be killed by the player, and the dragons only return to Tamriel at the beginning of the game. The dragons in Pillars of Eternity , in contrast, could feel far more like a part of the world the player is exploring, gifting the game with more diverse individual personalities and - hopefully - more dynamic and challenging combat encount

For a game centered on the return of the dragons to Tamriel , Skyrim 's version of the creatures left much to be desired. For a start, Skyrim 's dragons weren't very big. Aside from a few minor differences there wasn't much aesthetic variation between the kinds of dragon players could encounter across Tamriel's most northern province. There was also a big gap between the description of dragons in the game's dialog and in the lore compared to their appearances and behavior in-g

The last Elder Scrolls game was all about dragons, but there are reasons that the dragons in Avowed could stand to be far more impressive and interesting than those that appeared in Skyrim . Here's a breakdown of what makes Pillars of Eternity 's dragons special in the lore, and how this could make for more interesting roleplaying and combat encounters in Avow

Pillars of Eternity was deeply invested in exploring the metaphysical side of Eora. The player character was a Watcher, a person who can see people's past lives. Who exactly Avowed 's protagonist will be and whether they'll be a Watcher remains to be seen, as does Avowed 's investment in concepts like The Wheel which dominated the plots of the isometric R

Obsidian Entertainment has proven to be a productive developer in the past number of years, with an increasing ability to juggle several projects at once. Obsidian has a long history of making RPG games , and its current projects prove there isn't any slowing down the Microsoft Games Studios developer. Most of the company's current projects are public knowledge, with one secret project and another large game that has been shrouded in myst

While the Godhead is rarely relevant in The Elder Scrolls games, the fact that the gods of Eora were created by the Engwithans is absolutely vital to the story of both Pillars of Eternity games. While Avowed 's idea of man-made gods ultimately diverges from Lovecraft's idea of the all-encompassing Blind Idiot God, the existential dread that infuses Lovecraft's work is a far more important theme in the universe of Avowed than it is in The Elder Scrol

Is Obsidian Entertainment Taking on More Than it Can Chew?

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 22:00:44 +0000

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

The studio may not have revealed much solid information about Avowed Tips so far, but that first trailer still gives some huge hints about the upcoming game's villain and setting. Many fans will be hoping to learn more details about Avowed from Obsidian at E3 2021 next mo

A smaller project like Grounded also seems unlikely to take up too many of Obsidian's resources, even if its continually worked on throughout the development of Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 . Ultimately, there's no way to know how well the studio is handling multiple projects until details about either Avowed or The Outer Worlds 2 's release windows are revealed. However, while Obsidian has struggled in the past, the studio may be in a better position for its increasing ambition than ever bef

The Living Lands are a great blank slate for Obsidian to create a setting that is more prone to player influence than other open-world RPGs, with factions fighting over unclaimed land and settlements rising and falling. Avowed 's setting also has the potential to have a main quest that tells a less predictable story than other fantasy RPGs, blending elements of medieval fantasy with science-fiction and a hint of existentialism. It will be up to Obsidian to take full advantage of the elements of Eora that could make the Living Lands stand out, but if it does the game may be able to step out of Skyrim 's shadow, creating a world that is more ambitious both in terms of the player's impact and the complexity of its p

There's been much speculation that Obsidian hopes to use Avowed to target The Elder Scrolls ' top spot in the first-person fantasy RPG market. The studio made a similar move with The Outer Worlds , a satirical sci-fi RPG directed by the original creators of the Fallout franchise. Like Skyrim , Avowed is set in a world with a cosmology deeply influenced by Lovecraftian myt

In Pillars of Eternity it is revealed that the entire pantheon of Eora, including Wael, were inventions of an ancient society known as Engwith. The Engwithans became masters of soul science, and set out to answer the metaphysical questions of the universe. One day, however, they discovered a simple, horrifying truth - there was nothing out there. No gods, not even a Godhead or an Azathoth imagining the universe by pure accident. Faced with that unbearable reality, the Engwithans set out to sacrifice as many souls as necessary to create gods of their own. They succee

It’s possible that if Avowed ’s companions resemble those in other Obsidian games, the upcoming title will have less replay value than Skyrim . Few games, however, can hope to match the longevity of The Elder Scrolls 5 , and a more in-depth focus on character could help Avowed distinguish its style from The Elder Scrolls and step out of Skyrim ’s shadow to make its own mark on the ge

Skyrim has over 40 recruitable followers, while New Vegas has just 8, allowing Obsidian to develop those characters in far greater depth. New Vegas companions like Cass and ED-E don't just have missions that have to be completed before their recruitment but have continuing storylines that reveal more about their characters. Though some characters in Skyrim have pre-recruitment quests, few continue to have storylines once available as follow

If Obsidian is going to create a first-person fantasy RPG that truly brings the genre into the next generation, however, the studio will need to make significant innovations in the way it handles its open-world storytelling. To do so, Avowed will need to solve one problem found back in Skyrim , but also more recently in The Outer Worl

This bodes well for The Outer Worlds 2 , which was announced at E3 2021. The game's trailer parodied the early announcements of other games - particularly RPGs like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Elder Scrolls 6 - suggesting it's in very early development. In that case, The Outer Worlds 2 could be in Obsidian's back pocket, with the announcement trailer designed to keep interest in the studio's upcoming releases as it works on Avowed . In other words, the fact that both Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 are "in development" doesn't actually mean that Obsidian is dividing its resources evenly between the games, or anywhere cl

Avowed, The Outer Worlds DLC, and Everything Obsidian Entertainment is Working On

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:17:32 +0000

While Solstheim is just a small part of Skyrim ’s overall world, the fact that the open-world RPG formula's immersion fits so well into the frontier bodes well for Obsidian’s choice of setting. It’s unlikely that Obsidian would have been able to bring the large cities depicted in Pillars of Eternity to life without significantly shrinking them down, while the Living Lands provide a setting which could avoid the open-world RPG genre’s city scaling prob

The second and final Outer Worlds DLC, Murder on Eridanos , is set to arrive sometime before the end of the current fiscal year. This means that the expansion should be in the hands of players before April 1, 2021. The story of the expansion revolves around a character known as Halcyon Helen, the star of an in-universe show called Terror on Monarch. Helen is looking to go on a final adventure and looks set to be a solid follow-up to the first expansion, Peril on Gor

While Solstheim has a lot of lessons to teach Avowed ’s Living Lands , the unique success of the frontier island as an RPG setting suggests that Obsidian may already be on the right track with its choice of location. What remains to be seen is whether the studio exploits all the unique opportunities its frontier setting presents, or if lets some pass it

While Avowed is undoubtedly a huge undertaking, Obsidian Entertainment somehow has another project in the works that could be equal to the scale of Avowed, if not greater. Josh Sawyer, design director at Obsidian Entertainment, took to Twitter in August 2020 and noted in no uncertain terms that he's directing his own project and that the project isn't Avowed. Josh Sawyer worked on the Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights series early in his career. More recently, he was responsible for pitching Pillars of Eternity which saw the company get out of a tight financial spot, and went on to direct the two games in that series. He's perhaps most well-known for directing Fallout: New Vegas, a fan-favorite entry in the post-apocalyptic RPG ser

Obsidian's status recently underwent a pretty major change. Although it was once an independent studio, Microsoft acquired it in 2018 , right in the middle of the development of The Outer Worlds. Obsidian hasn't lost any momentum thanks to this change of ownership, though; if anything, it seems like Obsidian is ramping up development. Fans of the studio have a lot to look forward to over the next couple years, between Avowed and Grounded. Based on how many projects Obsidian is stacking up, it's also possible that it's planning even more new games with the help of its new parent comp

Raven Rock is one of Skyrim ’s best towns when it comes to environmental storytelling. Each of Skyrim ’s towns has some level of intrigue - there’s the feud between the Stormcloak and Imperial families of Whiterun, the chatter and tension surrounding the recent public execution of High King Torygg in Solitude, and the string of mysterious murders in Windhelm, to name a

One major Obsidian project is actually already accessible. Grounded went into early access in July 2020 , and Obsidian has been supporting it aggressively ever since. Grounded is a new take on a familiar premise: the player characters are children who've mysteriously been shrunken down, and now have to fight insects much larger than them to survive. Although Grounded looked strong from the beginning, Obsidian consistently comes up with good additions to the game, like new buildings for players to create and a koi pond offering a tense and beautiful new way to engage with the microscopic wo

Lovecraft's Azathoth and The Elder Scrolls ' Godhead are both consciousnesses that exist beyond reality. Lovecraft's other powerful beings like Cthulhu are still ultimately subject to the subconsciousness of the Blind Idiot God, while Tamriel's Nine Divines are still just figments of the Godhead's dream

However, outside of cities and Https://reconcavoafrofestival.Com/ other settlements, Skyrim ’s promise of a choice-led roleplaying experience falls away to interactions that almost always devolve into immediate violence. While there are more roleplaying options in quests, Bethesda misses the opportunity for more dynamic storytelling in the wo

This is one of Skyrim ’s best quest hooks - it gets the player personally involved from the moment they first sleep on Solstheim without revealing its cards early on. Few places in the game come with such a well executed sense of mystery. In part, Solstheim relies upon a sense of existential horror which has historically come part and parcel with frontier living. It’s an island of people etching an existence on the very edge of the unknown who live controlled by nightmares of what might exist beyond their civilizat