Obsidian Entertainment is known for its beautiful video game environments and stories, but Avowed is poised to up the ante even more. We already know that the upcoming fantasy RPG is set in Eora, an embattled kingdom in its Pillars of Eternity universe. Despite this, you don't need to have played that game to understand Avowed's story, and in keeping with large segmented world maps as seen in The Outer Worlds, Obsidian is determined to maintain the player's ability to navigate the story however they choose.
That means although the game isn't a fully open roaming experience, we can expect opportunities for nuanced environmental storytelling and companion-specific decisions as we explore Eora. "Open zones allow us to create a strong sense of place in each of our environments," game director Carrie Patel tells us. "All of our regions have distinct aesthetics and atmospheres as well as unique local conflicts and narratives that build towards the larger, grander story that the player is at the center of. Building Avowed through separate regions allows us to balance that sense of distinctness with a feeling that the player is journeying through portions of a much larger world," says Patel, speaking to Avowed's championing of choice and consequence-driven gameplay – and its flexibility doesn't stop at its "classless" combat system.
