Avowed Gives Us a Little Anti-Imperialism, As a Treat
Avowed | Obsidian Entertainment
Obsidian (and, honestly, Xbox)'s biggest release thus far in 2025 hit Game Pass on February 18, and I hadn't heard anything about it. The key art had been staring at me from the Xbox app's dashboard, but a fancy-looking skeleton didn't exactly tell me what to expect.
In fact, I was kind of bewildered by my apathy towards the title. I adored The Outer Worlds and Fallout: New Vegas and Grounded and KOTOR II and... all right, look, I love Obsidian titles, ok? But then I realized that Patrick Klepek at Remap had panned the game's early hours back in November, effectively nipping any interest I had in the bud.
As an American-based writer, it's just that some other stuff has been happening recently that has been capital-B Bhorrifying. Since the nation's coup has taken up most of my emotional and mental energy, a slow-rolling open-world game didn't seem like a smart thing to chew on.
Then, Klepek did the hard work for me and put the time in, unearthing and discovering an experience that's actually worth the time and effort. Since there did seem to be a lot of fun (eventually), I dove into Avowed to see what I could get out of it.
47.2 hours later, I found an unexpected... uh, experience with imperialism. The premise of Avowed is that you are an envoy of the unseen emperor, shipped off to The Living Lands, an island that the Aedyr empire is desperate to conquer. Unfortunately for them, a mysterious illness known as the Dreamscourge is wreaking havoc on those who actually live there. Your mission is to determine the cause of this epidemic. Oh, also, you have growths on your face because you're a member of a group of beings connected to specific gods, but you've never been in contact with yours.
Avowed | Obsidian Entertainment
From the outset, it's a mishmash of fantasy tropes: a diverse world split by ingrained racism and needs the One True Hero to save the day. But throughout the story, you're given multiple moments to either enforce your emperor's will and literally work with a fanatical death guard, or stand with the citizens of The Living Lands and try to organize them against the Aedyrans.
It's refreshing, especially now, to band together with your sad husband, traumatized best friend, a refugee scientist, and a drunk college advisor to tell the empire to go fuck itself. I couldn't even entertain the notion of tearing it all down and annexing the island; it was a fantastic, if not therapeutic, experience.
For the most part, Avowed fell into the usual morality system of obvious good thing vs obvious bad thing. "You have to decide! Should we skin them alive in the town square? Or let them sell potions and swords at the same time?"
But, of course, there were a handful of tough calls. Should we let a farmer animate corpses of the recently deceased to use for free farm labor? Surely, the souls of the living have moved on; it'll be fine (until murder starts).
One particular quest line stuck with me, though: a refugee couple on the run from the Aedyrans, after killing two in self-defense. Their property deeds are questioned and stolen, and they cannot leave the city, forcing them into hiding. You take the time to recover the deeds (while also providing some medicine), and discover the smugglers they were working with have doubled the cost to get the couple to safety. The hits don't stop coming. You're given a choice: you can talk to/pay the smugglers, or you can make the wrong choice and turn the couple over to the cops.
The game wasn't filled with wall-to-wall bangers, but there was enough here to feel like I was truly feasting. Even when I had to decide to level a historical library or reckon with a burning city (because I chose to follow a treasure map instead). By the end of the game, I was little more than a flying gun with psychic spears, shouting back at the invading army.
And it was glorious.