Broad Thoughts on Avowed from a Pillars of Eternity enjoyer

Broad spoilers for not only Avowed, but also Pillars of Eternity and Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire

Avowed feels closer to a hypothetical Pillars Gaiden than a Pillars 3, which is fine. I like that world and its lore, so I'm an easy mark. I'm curious to see what people who haven't played Pillars think about Avowed, because I don't know if I would have bothered to play it if it wasn't part of that universe. That's not necessarily a slight on the game itself, but more that my personal preference is isometric over Bethesda-style first person.

In a move that's pretty much necessary for the game to exist, Avowed takes place far from the settings of the first two games. The Living Lands was a place mentioned in lore entries but not really explored, an ocean away from the Eastern Reach (aka PoE1) and the Deadfire Archipelago (PoE2). Convenient, since little from the previous games needs be directly addressed (though we'll get there).

A notable quirk about Eora as a setting is that while various huge nations demonstrably exist (Aedyr, Rauatai, and Old Vailia are collectively referred to as the "Old Empires"), we have never been to them directly. Instead, we're constantly dealing with how they're expanding and the effects of such. Colonialism and its many forms were a huge part of Deadfire, and at minimum informed the backstory of the playable map in 1. With Avowed, it kinda feels like Obsidian is planting its flag and saying "anything that takes place on Eora is about colonialism now". I guess it's more interesting than regular fantasy racism?

PoE1 takes place in the Dyrwood, which was formerly a colony of Aedyr which basically declared independence on the grounds of "plundering the ancient ruins is really pissing off the indigenous population and they are killing us". Since the first game was meant to be a good ol' Infinity Engine romp, it's got your usual forests and meadows and caves and there's not too much terribly original, at least aesthetically. In lore, their cities and culture are meant to be modeled after or spun off from Aedyr. Even as the world is further fleshed out, Aedyr ends up as probably the most "generic European fantasy" nation in the setting. I suppose that's nice to have as a fallback or baseline.

Thus, your PC in Avowed always hails from Aedyr no matter what other options you pick, making it a-okay to ask NPCs whatever questions are necessary and giving you a standard set of cultural guidelines for what you're expected to - if not necessarily believe in - follow in your role as the Envoy. Aedyr is here to colonize and your job is to facilitate that, primarily via dealing with the Dreamscourge Plague.

What this means in practice is that most major dialogue sequences have a similar menu of choices. Roughly:

I didn't choose the option that often so I can't speak to it fully, but I do appreciate that you can keep saying the Steel Garrote is technically not with Aedyr. It's a meaningless distinction to the locals and protesting about it feels appropriately petulant. Boo hoo, the conquering colonialist empire isn't broken, it's just the bad eggs who also serve our patron goddess! You might as well be telling people that you're a good cop who only shoots people if they deserve it.

I suppose for this type of game, that's more nuance than one might expect; it's certainly got a larger range of roleplay options than an actual Bethesda joint. But the format does the writing no real favors. The inability to just drop two paragraphs of text and expect you to read it means most of the dialogue is - and there is no way around this - quippier. They looove the "now let me get this straight... [lists out all of the insane things that have happened over the entire game]" bit, because that's Consequences and Reactivity baby! Sometimes the gags get a chuckle and sometimes a groan. Either way I suppose this is just the way of the world now.

The only real exceptions are the Ancient Memory segments, which feel more traditional Pillars, especially akin to PoE1's Iovara subplot. Once per region, you are pulled into a memory of a past life and can dictate ("remember", technically) the hows and whys of whatever major cultural event you were involved in. They're basically Merecasters from Torment: Tides of Numenera, and I promise I don't intend this as a negative comparison. It's nice to just get a good chunk of roleplaying and worldbuilding after using a greathammer to crush skulls for an hour.

That said, crushing skulls is not to be underestimated as a point of appeal. It's strange and bizarre to play a Bethesda-style first-person RPG that has actually fun combat. I actually wanted to play around with each cool new weapon or spell I found. You can charge up your gunshots! You can obliterate the framerate by conjuring a blizzard and thunderstorm over the same AoE! You can parry a bear and clonk it on the head with your big stick! If anything's going to make this game stand out in the Bethesda-like field, it might be this rather than any of the actual plot stuff.

(DEFINITELY MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, I AM MAKING THIS A RUN ON SENTENCE SO YOUR BRAIN HAS TIME TO PROCESS WHAT IT'S READING BEFORE YOUR EYES JUST IMMEDIATELY FLICK DOWNWARD)

Perhaps I'm underestimating the audience at large, but I feel like the wider implications of Avowed's main plot only really land if you've played both Pillars of Eternity games and internalized the cosmology of the world. The story does a good enough job of establishing that the Steel Garrote are assholes and Woedica is Queen Asshole, but there's just so much more to it with that wider context.

To recap: the main plot of PoE1 is that an agent of Woedica is orchestrating an elaborate scheme that halts the cycle of reincarnation in the Dyrwood. Babies are born without souls and this has been going on for like 15 years, it sucks. All of this soul essence is being collected so it can be funneled into Woedica, making her more powerful than the rest of the gods. The big twist here is that this process is also how the entire pantheon was artificially created by the ancient supercivilization of Engwith. The party in PoE1 might be the only people in the world who know this.

Meanwhile, Eora at large broadly knows that in PoE2 Eothas stomped across the Deadfire Archipelago and punched a big machine at Ukaizo (I suppose how could they not), but people don't seem to understand what that did. Said machine managed the world's flow of soul essence, keeping it regular and skimming a bit off the top to maintain the pantheon. By breaking it, so too is the cycle of reincarnation broken. Allegedly.

Avowed only touches on the consequences of this, letting it bubble in the background. It's noted that pretty much all Godlikes keeled over in the 2-3 years between games, which the gods threatened to do in PoE2 as a drastic measure. Of course they'd do it now if they're completely cut off from their power source. Worth noting the Temple of Ondra in Paradis has a note from Tekehu establishing that he and some other Ondra godlikes weren't raptured, and I think it's reasonable that Pallegina may have survived since she hasn't had her godlike chime for years.

Anyway, all considered the Living Lands might now be the most important place in the world. If its adra is disconnected from the rest of the world, presumably its cycle of reincarnation is also disconnected from the now-broken Wheel and functions on its own. Sapadal came into being naturally without the Engwithan death machine, so (again, presumably) isn't beholden to receiving essence from Ukaizo. No fucking wonder Woedica wanted to wipe out the Ekida.

Speaking of the Ekida, really goofy and really on-brand for this type of game to introduce another non-Engwithan ancient supercivilization. Yatzli has like one off-hand line about how they might have split off from Yezuha, themselves one of the big mysterious plot hooks hanging off to the side of the setting. I suppose it's more than I expected.

There's still plenty of potential angles to be explored in future games. Off the top of my head:

On the whole, it was like, fine. I don't think Avowed really spoke to me in the same way as the Pillars games, but if it's this or nothing? I'll take it. Hopefully it'll fend off the Microsoft hounds at the door; we all saw what happened to Tango and it would be a fucking shame if Avowed is Obsidian's last game.

#games #rpg #crpg

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