Avowed is great and you should play it. If you want, you can skip the rest of the review now.
… I mean, don’t, but that’s the gist, ya know?
A game after myco heart
Mycopunk, or funguspunk, is a genre still in its Renaissance. The Last of Us brought spore horror to the fore, with TV, books, movies, and of course games deciding that mushrooms weren’t just for Mario anymore. I’m a big fan of this stuff, from big names like Annihilation, niche indie works like The Dawnhounds, all the way to the most criminally underrated film of all time, the 1993 Super Mario Bros movie (it’s peak cinema, I’ll fight you).
So an RPG where a ‘Dreamscourge’ is turning people and animals into feral fungus hybrids? Sign. Me. Up.
Avowed takes place in the Living Lands, a continent in the world of Eora, which veterans of Obsidian’s catalogue will recognise from the Pillars of Eternity games. Imagine Australia when colonisation started, except with substantially more lizard people. You’re an Envoy of Aedyr, the Emperor’s special little buddy sent to investigate why everyone’s coming down with this mushroom sickness. And I mean, yeah, probably the kind of thing you should investigate check out.
Trickily, the Envoy is also a Godlike, chosen by an unknown god in the womb and marked as such by some stylish fungal growths all over their face. This of course leads to the usual shenanigans of half the NPCs being fungus racists, and the rest either being terrified or staunchly pretending not to notice.
We’ve all been there, amirite?
Anyway, mysterious mysteries, questionable quests, and aggressive assassination attempts abound. The story is nothing super groundbreaking, but it’s a romp and unique enough to keep you guessing. Big fan of the classics, me.
Killing for spore-t
The gameplay of Avowed is very much its own thing, with some very satisfying aspects and some… less so. In general terms, chuck The Outer Worlds and TES3 Morrowind into a blender and you’ve got this game. In reality, Obsidian has clearly looked at what works, what doesn’t, and tried their damnedest to craft a perfect system.
You know what they say about best laid plans, don’t you?
You explore, chat, quest, befriend, and do all the usual ‘anything but the main quest’ we all love in open world RPGs. Choice is Avowed’s middle name, especially in dialogue. My favourite early quest had me help a woman who had a gang of lizard people crash her cottage, but it turned out one of them was her literal soulmate. Obviously I made her move back and try to make it work, because love wins, but slaughtering everything was always an option if you’re dead inside or whatever.
Happy Valentine’s Day, by the way.
With two loadouts to hot swap between, my playstyle edged towards sword and pistol for close combat, or wand and tome when I wanted to keep my distance. I tried out bows, guns, spears, etc, but I landed on pseudo-Bloodborne as my main style. Nothing seems critically overpowered anyway, so personal preference will be king. Not thrilled about stamina mechanics on combat, but that’s how the industry is going these days I guess. At least there’s no weapon durability.
You’ve also got some sweet cooldown abilities, and companion abilities if you remember to use them.
And it’s not that easy; sure I was playing on high difficulty, but I got truly HAMMERED multiple times simply by not paying attention for a split second. I love that. I deserved it.
I mycelium what you did there
Avowed also does one of my favourite things and has magic affect the world in cool eats. You can hit water with ice magic to freeze it and create platforms, or burn through annoying brambles with fire spells. I’m so glad this is a thing, because it makes magic more than just another weapon, but also a useful tool.
You can also parkour all over the place in some suspiciously FarCry-esque ways. Which is great until you accidentally do it backwards and plunge to your death. Didn’t happen to me, of course. And definitely didn’t happen several times.
There’s minimal weight management too, with only weapons and armour having mass. This means you can have fashion for any occasion, like extra damage or carry weight when needed, without risking the dreaded slowdown. Transmogrification is also standard, and hell yeah. My favourite armour had great buffs, but looked like I was wearing fantasy Mardis Gras; not for me chief, but at least I can make it look like I’m not dressed in a technicolour atrocity.
Not to mention the companions, who add so much to every dialogue you’ll want multiple playthroughs to hear them all. You could have a cool former pirate fish guy, a dwarf eco-terrorist who might be calling people slurs in his own language, or a flirty mage with cool ears voiced by Overwatch’s Symmetra. There’s no wrong answer.
Not all fungus and games
Heavy on the praise so far, and with good cause, Avowed is great. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up some gripes.
The menu is a big one, feeling bloated, clunky, and unintuitive. For example, on Xbox the shoulder buttons swap screens, while the triggers unequip your weapons. No points for guessing what I was still pressing tens of hours into the game. But hey, I’m an idiot, so this probably won’t be an issue for many others.
The minimap is weird, showing enemies and forageables but not chests. I assumed this was an upgrade I’d get later, but it never materialised. Admittedly, I’ve yet to fully finish the game, but if I haven’t got it by now I don’t think it’s happening. Chests sing at you, sure, but still.
Load times on the Series S are a bit of a drag. But hey, I survived playing OG Skyrim on PS3, so this is small change by comparison.
Alright, I’ve stretched far enough to find anything I didn’t like. Enough of that.
Not mushroom for improvement
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time with Avowed, and I’ll be going back to it as soon as this review is published. It’s more classic RPG than the likes of Skyrim, but less so than Baldur’s Gate 3. While the children clearly yearn for an updated Morrowind, Obsidian’s got your fantasy fungus fix in the meantime.
Avowed is a throwback to the classics, with just enough modern flair, coming damn near enough to perfection. The core is fun gameplay, wacky characters, and right side of history environmental and political themes, but at the same time you’ve got mushrooms growing out of your eyebrows.
As I said a thousand words ago, Avowed is great and you should play it. So, yeah… do that.
A game after myco-heart
