Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting

[Roguey]

Feargus: We tried to make Skryim but just couldn't do it, so we cancelled that version and rebooted it as a something with a smaller scope.
You: So you're making Skyrim, right?

You: Obsidian tried to do what Bethesda did 14 years ago and failed so miserably that the comparison should never be brought up. BTW, that failure is positioned as a AAA product with a $70 price tag.

Me: This is supposed to be a ... sales' pitch? A defense of Obsidian? What in God's name is your point?

This was a discussion about marketing.

 

[Quillon]

Roguey: Obsidian meets the bare minimum expectations of MS so they are safe. If you criticize anything about Obsidian and their games I'll remind you of this.

butwhy.gif

 

[Elttharion]

Already posted?

 

[Ryzer]

Feargus: We tried to make Skryim but just couldn't do it, so we cancelled that version and rebooted it as a something with a smaller scope.
You: So you're making Skyrim, right?

You: Obsidian tried to do what Bethesda did 14 years ago and failed so miserably that the comparison should never be brought up. BTW, that failure is positioned as a AAA product with a $70 price tag.

Me: This is supposed to be a ... sales' pitch? A defense of Obsidian? What in God's name is your point?

This was a discussion about marketing.

17,490 * 70 = 1,224,300 $ of revenue (and I'm generous, Steam takes 30%)
1,224,300 - 40,000,000(Outer World dev cost) = -38 775 700$


Do you agree?

 

[Morgoth]

Avowed Sales Make Obsidian Happy So Far; Game Director Would Love to Do More in the World​

Avowed, the latest roleplaying game by Obsidian Entertainment and the first they published under Xbox Game Studios, has been officially out for three days. The first real data on player concurrency will come in this weekend, as the game will presumably reach a new peak on Steam, but in the meantime, Bloomberg has shared a tidbit as part of their interview with Game Director Carrie Patel: Obsidian is happy with sales so far.

In the conversation with Bloomberg, Patel went over the reboot that happened in 2021, when she took over from the prior director.

I feel like I've learned so much over the past four years that I wish I'd known at the start of this process. It's definitely been a job where the highs are really high and the lows are really low. Normally, if you're stepping back and reevaluating your creative direction, putting together a new vertical slice and revised production plans, you would do that with a very small team. We did not have a very small team at that point. A lot of lessons we learned as we were building Avowed, ideally we would've learned on a small scale with a true preproduction.

One of the biggest changes brought by the reboot was downsizing from a Skyrim-like open world to something more akin to the studio's previous productions. On this subject, Patel said:

With any game, you think, 'Ok, we can't climb every mountain - which ones are really worth the effort for us? We knew from The Outer Worlds that we could build a really great game with 'open zones', and that also adds some advantages in terms of letting you really theme your areas more distinctly and intentionally, and provide a sense of progression as the player's going from one environment to the next.

Patel also ended with a seemingly hopeful sentence about potential sequels for Avowed:

Now that we've built this wonderful world, and also built this team strength and muscle memory around the content and gameplay in this world, I'd love to see us do more with it.

She previously worked on Pillars of Eternity, so it's likely she was referring not generally to the world of Eora but specifically to this action version rather than those cRPGs. Of course, whether she gets her wish will mostly depend on Microsoft's assessment of the sales and overall reception.

For more about Avowed, including why I think it's a great RPG, check out our review. As a reminder, Obsidian is also working with a separate team on The Outer Worlds 2, which is slated to launch late this year on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X.

 

[Falksi]

Also you could eliminate all of those complains with simply trick of disabling the player from using weapons and magic inside a settlement. This could be done easily and could be done to fit both the lore and narrative. Not doing so shows how lazy they were and that they have no excuse for that laziness.

to refer to this laziness look at this conversation:



big baddy enters the room, looking at you, threateningly - next second, she stands besides the NPC you were talking to, using the same awkward animations, shoulder shrugging, hand movements, any other NPC applies. every single conversation in this game involving more than one conversation partner happens this way. they didn't even figure out how to appropriately switch the camera so you can look at each one individually, so each one must stand in this stupid circle around you.

i don't think there is any excuse for that. and even less for this dialogue.

Christ alive that's some boring shit.

 

[Roguey]

Do you agree?

Having a discussion with someone who thinks that peak concurrent user count on Steam is the same as total sales.

 

[d1r]

Already posted?

Will they patch it out? Let's find out!

 

[Ryzer]

Do you agree?

Having a discussion with someone who thinks that peak concurrent user count on Steam is the same as total sales.

Do you believe they sold a bazillion copies on consoles? lol.

And let's pretend it's 2 or 3 times (or even 10) more sales as peak concurrent user count, it still doesn't cover the spending.

 

[ropetight]

Also you could eliminate all of those complains with simply trick of disabling the player from using weapons and magic inside a settlement. This could be done easily and could be done to fit both the lore and narrative. Not doing so shows how lazy they were and that they have no excuse for that laziness.

to refer to this laziness look at this conversation:



big baddy enters the room, looking at you, threateningly - next second, she stands besides the NPC you were talking to, using the same awkward animations, shoulder shrugging, hand movements, any other NPC applies. every single conversation in this game involving more than one conversation partner happens this way. they didn't even figure out how to appropriately switch the camera so you can look at each one individually, so each one must stand in this stupid circle around you.

i don't think there is any excuse for that. and even less for this dialogue.

Christ alive that's some boring shit.

Voice acting is often the curse; it forces you to listen to whatever drivel writers circlejerked into existence.
This is more annoying than wall of text in Torment numanuma.

Combat looks like someone stiched together couple of systems in hurry and never had iteration of QA.
Weapon swings and reactions of the opponent are painfully out of sync, animations are jumpy and jittering unnaturally.

All this wasn't that jarring in 3rd person; if only camera could be zoomed out enough...

 

[Roguey]

Do you believe the game sold a bazillion copies on consoles? lol

No clue, but it's meeting their sales + gamepass expectations from the sound of things.

Maybe this is Feargus fake-it-till-you-make-it and MS will undercut them later. That would also be pretty funny. But at the moment I'll take them at their word.

 

[Quillon]

Having a discussion with someone who thinks that peak concurrent user count on Steam is the same as total sales.

KCD2 peak is 256k and it sold 2M after 2 weeks so after math Avoid sales should be around 140k in 2 weeks. Let's give gamepass an enormous part and say the effective sales are 300k. That's PoE1 after 1 month

lmao Avoid couldn't even beat Deadfire's 22k

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Voice acting is often the curse; it forces you to listen to whatever drivel writers circlejerked into existence.
This is more annoying than wall of text in Torment numanuma.

No VA > Bad VA. And for lengthy stuff, it's better to just read it at your own pace anyway rather than having to skip midway through the VA. If you absolutely must have VA in a game that doesn't require it (i.e. isometric stuff and what not), then just use it very sparingly as an introduction to characters so that people can register the intended voice for reading purposes, but that's about it.

 

[Roguey]

KCD2 peak is 256k and it sold 2M after 2 weeks so after math Avoid sales should be around 140k in 2 weeks. Let's give gamepass an enormous part and say the effective sales are 300k. That's PoE1 after 1 month

Deathloop had a Steam peak of 20000 but ultimately had over 5 million players. Indiana Jones had a Steam peak of 12,000 and over 4 million players. There are over 30 million gamepass subscribers, if just a few million of those decide to launch Avowed for a few hours, apparently that's considered a win for them as long as they keep subscribing for another month.

 

[PrK]

so is the consensus watch youtube vids for the pillars lore and skip?

Why the fuck would you want to see Pillars lore? Might as well watch paint dry, it's more interesting.

Some of it, like the stuff Ziets wrote was fine tbh.

Attention to detail can result in a worse game:

No, stuff like looping reload animations are in no way responsible for the "worse" game. That would be the bad time/money/priority management. If they didn't implement looping reload animations they could still waste resources on any other actually detrimental shit. Attention to detail is by definition good.

It's clear that Carrie that didn't go around in TOW killing randos, stealing things. She doesn't care about any of that.

Can you explain in which way does the fact that the project lead's garbage taste and total incompetence in directing a game excuse the fact that in the end, putting aside any comparison to other games, Avowed is shit?

"Games like Morrowind and Gothic didn't have physics" neither they had AI routine,

Gothic had AI routines.

Oh hey it's Cope time (the cope is yours, not theirs)

Here’s what I love about Avowed: it doesn’t waste your time. It’s a focused role-playing game that knows exactly what it wants to do. The quests are elaborate and compelling — especially the side quests, which are almost always full of interesting choices — and often have consequences that can ripple throughout the story. The combat is crunchy and flexible, letting you swap between melee, magic and blasting guns or arrows at your leisure. Most impressive is the exploration. Around every corner is a rooftop to climb, a mine to explore or a dwarven ruin to blow up. It’s a joy to play, and I highly recommend it.

Stay mad.

Hang on a sec, did you just unironically use that disgusting rat fuck's "opinion" as a point in the game's defence, on RPG fucking Codex?!

 

[fantadomat]

At this point people shitting on skyrim are just a bunch of cringy old artists.

 

[Morgoth]

At this point people shitting on skyrim are just a bunch of cringy old artists.

Shitting on *any* Bethesda game used to be the bread and butter of the Codex. The fact that it's now defending garbage like Skyrim just shows how much the Codex has declined.

 

[Old Hans]

big baddy enters the room, looking at you, threateningly - next second, she stands besides the NPC you were talking to, using the same awkward animations, shoulder shrugging, hand movements, any other NPC applies. every single conversation in this game involving more than one conversation partner happens this way. they didn't even figure out how to appropriately switch the camera so you can look at each one individually, so each one must stand in this stupid circle around you.

i don't think there is any excuse for that. and even less for this dialogue.

I can cut them some slack on the cutscene crap, BUT the slack I cannot cut is the cutscene showing off yet ANOTHER example of a sword hanging on someone's back without a scabbard. why are developers so allergic to sword scabbards?

 

[Infinitron]

Oh hey it's Cope time (the cope is yours, not theirs) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-02-21/new-xbox-game-avowed-took-six-years-two-reboots?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc0MDE2MDg3MiwiZXhwIjoxNzQwNzY1NjcyLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTUzFPT0xUMVVNMFcwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.FhUrXseBBb83k69Ovuo9PgY3sOuBdW-owuWeanAYc5o&leadSource=uverify wall

But ultimately it was worth the wait. Players have raved about the game, and the company said it is happy with sales so far.

Obsidian isn’t saying what’s next for the team, but Patel said she wants to keep directing games. The idea of something new is appealing, she said, but it seems more likely she’ll be building on Avowed’s foundation for expansions or sequels.

“Now that we’ve built this wonderful world, and also built this team strength and muscle memory around the content and gameplay in this world, I’d love to see us do more with it,” she said.

That's nice, but the phrase "so far" could mean a lot. It's possible that their sales projections are counting on the game being a long tail seller, and there's no guarantee that will happen.

 

[thesecret1]

Voice acting is often the curse; it forces you to listen to whatever drivel writers circlejerked into existence.
This is more annoying than wall of text in Torment numanuma.

No VA > Bad VA. And for lengthy stuff, it's better to just read it at your own pace anyway rather than having to skip midway through the VA. If you absolutely must have VA in a game that doesn't require it (i.e. isometric stuff and what not), then just use it very sparingly as an introduction to characters so that people can register the intended voice for reading purposes, but that's about it.

Morrowind had the right amount of VA stuff. A voiced greeting, and comments and you pass people by. Sometimes overheard coversations, rest is silent. Only important characters get more. Gives everything all the flavor you need and is hard to fuck up even for bad VAs.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Avowed has turned out to be a brilliant marketing campaign for Elder Scrolls games.

 

[Quillon]

Avowed has turned out to be a brilliant marketing campaign for Elder Scrolls games.

good guy Obs paying back for TOW

 

[Orange Clock]

I thought we were over with this whole Avowed has ZERO interactivity stuff already.
It’s interactivity comes from interacting with environment, be it parkouring, using spells/abilities to get to a specific place or breaking objects. Sure it has almost none NPC reactions, and one can argue that $70 game should have them, but that’s the problem with a lot of games then, not only with Avowed. Sure compare the game with Skyrim if you want, but don’t forget to mention all the things and neat details, gameplay mechanics and systems that Avowed have and Skyrim doesn’t.
“Look Avowed doesn’t have arrow physics, Skyrim has it”
Cool, but can you dual wield pistols in Skyrim?
“See, then I hit table with my sword the spoons and plates all fly in different directions”
Great, but can you break some wooden boxes and ceramic pots?
“Notice how I can hit any NPCs in Skyrim?(half of them immortal, but who cares)”
Amazing, but can you climb inside a building through a back wall or a roof?
“Etc”
etc
And even then such comparisons will be retarded.
Does it mean that the Avowed is a great game? Ofc, not. It’s story sucks, companions are obnoxious fags you can’t get rid off, exploration is halted via equipment requirements, you can’t sequence break most of the quest, dialogues are boring. These are all valid criticisms, hell even saying that the game was made by wokesidian lesbofags is more substantial than comparing it with Oblivion

 

[Roguey]

Hang on a sec, did you just unironically use that disgusting rat fuck's "opinion" as a point in the game's defence, on RPG fucking Codex?!

I posted that paragraph because it's funny. Also recall that Schreier said he didn't like Veilguard, he just prematurely gloated about its success to see the "chuds get dunked on." He actually likes Avowed. Obsidoes what Biowouldn't.

 

[ropetight]

I thought we were over with this whole Avowed has ZERO interactivity stuff already.
It’s interactivity comes from interacting with environment, be it parkouring, using spells/abilities to get to a specific place or breaking objects. Sure it has almost none NPC reactions, and one can argue that $70 game should have them, but that’s the problem with a lot of games then, not only with Avowed. Sure compare the game with Skyrim if you want, but don’t forget to mention all the things and neat details, gameplay mechanics and systems that Avowed have and Skyrim doesn’t.
“Look Avowed doesn’t have arrow physics, Skyrim has it”
Cool, but can you dual wield pistols in Skyrim?
“See, then I hit table with my sword the spoons and plates all fly in different directions”
Great, but can you break some wooden boxes and ceramic pots?
“Notice how I can hit any NPCs in Skyrim?(half of them immortal, but who cares)”
Amazing, but can you climb inside a building through a back wall or a roof?
“Etc”
etc
And even then such comparisons will be retarded.
Does it mean that the Avowed is a great game? Ofc, not. It’s story sucks, companions are obnoxious fags you can’t get rid off, exploration is halted via equipment requirements, you can’t sequence break most of the quest, dialogues are boring. These are all valid criticisms, hell even saying that the game was made by wokesidian lesbofags is more substantial than comparing it with Oblivion

Weapons in Avowed just go through stuff in the game that are not enemies like they are not there.
It is not lack of physics, it is just careless, stupid and displays lack of any effort to make world believable.

You and second term incumbent Codex Retard of the Year(tm) are trying to reduce arguments of the lack of polish to Skyrim vs Avowed.
Scale of Skyrim was shit, Avowed is even shittier seems like a big mystery for you two gents.