Highlights

  • Avowed players can only create human or elf characters, limiting the range of races available in character creation.
  • The decision to limit character races is justified by the game's setting in the Pillars of Eternity universe and the challenges of implementing different-sized characters in a first-person perspective.

It's been revealed that Avowed players will only be able to create humans or elves as their playable characters. First revealed in 2020, Avowed is the newest fantasy RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, the acclaimed studio behind hit RPGs like Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, and The Outer Worlds.

Having shown up at Xbox's recent Developer Direct, Avowed came out with new gameplay footage and details, highlighting some of what players can expect from the RPG's combat and storytelling when it launches this Fall. The trailer showcased several different weapon combinations, such as dual-wielding magic wands, flintlock pistols, and the traditional sword and shield. It even debuted one of Avowed's main regions, Shatterscarp, as well as some of the side quest characters players can encounter there. Several days later, an extended segment of Avowed went live on the Xbox Podcast where the project leads spilled even more details about the game, including two of the companions, Kai and Giatta, as well as some of the magic combos players can make creative use of in combat.

Two characters from Avowed ready for combat
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One system that was omitted from the big Avowed blowout were details of the game's character creator. Unfortunately, players will be limited to two races when creating their characters: humans and elves. Since Avowed is set in the Pillars of Eternity universe, this may be puzzling to many fans of the franchise, as Pillars offers many more unique and interesting races to play as. In an interview with IGN, Avowed's game director Carrie Patel has offered fans some insight into the team's decision to feature only humans and elves in the character creator. Patel cited the fact that in Avowed's story, the player hails from Pillars of Eternity's Aedyr Empire, which mainly consists of humans and elves.

Carrie Patel brought up another valid reason for this character creator decision, this time having to do with Avowed's combat. Mentioning how the Pillars of Eternity games are isometric, Patel pointed out how the birds-eye camera perspective made it much easier for the developers to implement different sized player characters and races. Seeing that Avowed is a first person game, Patel expressed that the team would've had to adjust the combat specifically for each of the different races, as the camera placement and combat hit registration would have to be different for each one. Patel added that humans and elves are the same size in the Pillars universe, thus making it easier on the dev team to make the combat feel right. Paired with the previously mentioned narrative explanation, Patel and the Avowed team seem to be making the right call.

You have aumaua and then you have humans and elves who are at roughly the same scale, and then you have orlans and dwarves who are quite a bit smaller...in first person, you're adjusting the height of the player character's capsule and sort of where their weapons are relative to enemies and how their hits land...not that any of these things are impossible to solve, but you're always making choices and choosing your priorities.

When Can Fans Expect To Learn More About Avowed?

Fans still have yet to see Avowed's character creator in action. With a Fall 2024 release window, it seems more than likely that Obsidian's fantasy RPG will show face at Xbox's expected summer showcase; perhaps that's when Avowed could finally reveal a solid release date as well.

AVOWED
Avowed
Released
2024-00-00
Publisher(s)
Xbox Game Studios
Genre(s)
Action RPG
See at Xbox Games Store