AVOWED

Is Obsidian's next RPG a little too by the numbers?

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Our hands-on demo of Avowed can be seen as a microcosm of the game as a whole, game director Carrie Patel explains. Certainly what we play through covers the bases we'd expect from an Obsidian RPG: exploration, combat and, yes, decisions with consequences.

Ushered through a system of caves, however, we don't get much impression of the wider world (the game is set within Eora, the setting of Pillars of Eternity). Nor is there sufficient time to get to grips with the apparently detailed character-progression systems. And we have to hope these areas are where Avowed will really shine, because what we've seen of the game so far feels a touch underwhelming.