Avowed Is Not Skyrim, and That Is Why I Love It

I keep seeing people call Avowed 'Obsidian's Skyrim,' and honestly, I get the shortcut. Both are first-person high-fantasy RPGs where you can toggle to third person and spend a lot of time battering or shooting creatures into submission. But that comparison is reductive. It misses what Bethesda and Obsidian actually care about. Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 3 were built on the same engine with largely the same assets, yet they feel completely different. That is design philosophy, not technology. Bethesda keeps pushing action; Obsidian keeps putting roleplaying first. That distinction is why I am so excited about Avowed.

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is one of my favorite games ever. I even successfully lobbied to include it in our best RPGs list. Eora is endlessly interesting to me: factions, deities, characters, history, locations. It is a world that makes me want to explore. Avowed returns to Eora, and that alone is a big deal. It keeps the roleplaying-first gameplay Obsidian has cultivated, but it also leverages what the studio learned from a more action-oriented game like The Outer Worlds. The dialogue system has been transplanted straight from Pillars of Eternity, and I would not be shocked if a fair few skills and spells are being reused too.

I was extremely excited when Obsidian released the story trailer and gameplay deep dive after Summer Game Fest. We finally got real information on Avowed's setting, narrative, and key characters. Game director Carrie Patel confirmed the player-character is definitely a Godlike. Our character has been sent to the Living Lands by the Aedyr Empire to eradicate a malady known as the Dreamscourge, a degenerative plague of sorts. We hear from two characters in the story trailer. First, Inquisitor Lodwyn, a Woedican zealot who appeared in Deadfire, wants the player to tame the chaos of the Living Lands. Then, one of your companions, Giatta, is more in favor of allowing the Living Lands to remain in a state of natural chaos.

This is classic Obsidian. We are getting a factional power struggle combined with a main character fantasy. It is reminiscent of Tyranny, where you are tasked as an envoy of an all-powerful being with sorting out a rebellious region. There is going to be a high level of player agency in Avowed, and I imagine that will bring impactful, world-changing choices. That is the stuff I want from an Obsidian RPG. I do not need another sandbox where the main story is a suggestion. I want consequences that make me stare at a dialogue wheel and reconsider my whole worldview.

Here is how I break down the difference in priorities:

Bethesda-style priority	Obsidian-style priority
Action spectacle	Roleplaying systems
Broad sandbox exploration	Factional consequences
Freedom to ignore the story	Narrative agency
Physical power fantasy	Moral and political tension

Avowed is another Pillars of Eternity, but in a more popular RPG subgenre and with a name that reflects this difference. It is going to have all of that rich world-building and narrative goodness, just seen from a different perspective. As a fan of the genre as a whole, this suits me fine. Also, seeing an Orlan like Yatzli rendered in this engine is hilarious and necessary. I love Eora, and I love that more people are going to meet it through a first-person RPG.

I understand why Avowed is not Pillars of Eternity 3. I am confident it is going to hit those same narrative highs. Now that we are in 2026 and the game has had time to breathe, the smarter conversation is not 'is it Skyrim?' but 'what kind of choices does it ask me to live with?' That is the Obsidian question I care about. ⚔️🧙📜