Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming Xbox RPG Avowed is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated upcoming Xbox games shown at the Xbox Games Showcase in June 2023 – but, it’s not one of the six games you’ll be able to actually play this year. That being said, though, it looks like the wait is going to be worth it. With Obsidian’s talent for storytelling behind it, this could actually be one of the best Xbox RPG games available when it comes out. However, you might be interested to learn that Avowed is going to be more Outer Worlds, and less Skyrim, when it comes to scale and scope.
Speaking exclusively to PC Gamer about Avowed, Obsidian Entertainment CEO Feargus Urquhart revealed that “in scope, Avowed is more akin to Obsidian’s past RPGs like The Outer Worlds in size than it is a sprawiling open world a la Skyrim”. However, it turns out that Avowed started out as the developer’s “Skyrim”.
“Originally, we were pitching, in essence, our Skyrim… [However], what we do is we make our awesome RPGs, right?” Urguhart, continuing in his conversation with PC Gamer, shared that Obsidian asked itself about what makes it’s previous games tick?
“We could go off and create an 8km x 8km open world and then deal with all the consequences of that”, Urguhart explained, “because that makes it a different style of game. But, we want to tell more confined stories that the player can experience with their companions… In the end, that’s us”.
So, despite the initial pitch for Avowed being the studio’s own Skyrim, it looks like RPG fans will be met with something a little more dense – and, with any luck, even better than it would have been if it was spread out – when the Avowed release date rolls around. Obsidian want to make sure Avowed is true to what an Obsidian game is, and that bodes well for fans of this developer’s storytelling and world building.
We know that doesn’t tell us a lot about whether you can jump into Avowed multiplayer with your friends, however Avowed on Xbox Game Pass is something you can look forward to – which is never a bad thing. Who knows, this might just be one of the best Xbox Series X games coming out in the next couple of years. It’s certainly a game we want to know more about.