Avowed's Rushed Onboarding: A Shallow Dive into Eora's Depths

Avowed arrives as Obsidian Entertainment's ambitious pivot from Pillars of Eternity's isometric roots to first-person fantasy, yet its opening act feels like being handed a treasure map with half the landmarks missing. Set against the breathtaking backdrop of Eora's Living Lands—a realm teeming with untamed magic and political intrigue—players embody an envoy of the Aedyran Emperor investigating the mysterious Dreamscourge plague. While the premise simmers with potential, the introduction unfolds like a hasty tour guide rushing through a museum's greatest exhibits, leaving newcomers stranded on narrative shores as barren as the beach where their journey begins.

🌊 The Hollow Gateway to Eora

Avowed's introduction functions like a clockwork bird—mechanically precise yet emotionally hollow. The opening cinematic tantalizes with eerie visions of the Dreamscourge's corruption, where reality bleeds into nightmare like ink dissolving in water. But this atmospheric promise evaporates faster than morning fog when gameplay commences. Within minutes, players are:

• Shuttled through combat tutorials as abrupt as a sneeze during a symphony

• Introduced to companions who vanish from relevance like ghosts at dawn

• Deposited in Dawnshore with less narrative momentum than a ship becalmed

What stings most isn't the brevity, but the squandered opportunity. Eora's lore—a tapestry woven through two Pillars games—deserves more than this cardboard doorway. When your character wields soul-bound weapons capable of reshaping reality, reducing the first hour to "left-click = slash" feels like serving champagne in a paper cup.

🔮 The Curse of Standalone Ambiguity

Obsidian insists Avowed stands independent from its predecessors—a claim as technically true as it is spiritually misleading. For Pillars veterans, arriving in the Living Lands sparks the cozy familiarity of returning to a childhood home... only to find the furniture rearranged by strangers. Yet for newcomers, the experience mirrors being handed Act III of a Shakespeare play with no context; the weight of imperial politics and Watcher lore lands with the impact of a soap bubble.

Audience Perspective	Emotional Impact	World-Building Clarity
Pillars of Eternity Veterans	😌 Warm recognition	🌟 High (leverages existing knowledge)
New Players	🥱 Disorientation	❓ Low (minimal exposition)
Ideal Balance	🤔 Invested curiosity	🔍 Gradual immersion

The Dreamscourge itself—a plague warping minds and landscapes—could have been the perfect narrative anchor. Instead, it's treated with the urgency of a minor cough, its cosmic horror diluted by rote fetch-quest framing. I recall feeling more connection to Skyrim's opening dragon attack than Avowed's existential pandemic—a troubling comparison for 2025's RPG standards.

🧩 Mechanics Over Meaning

Combat shines with Obsidian's signature crunch—spells crackle like frozen lightning, parries reward pixel-perfect timing, and build diversity offers genuine replay value. Yet these systems debut in a vacuum, divorced from the world's heartbeat. Learning to duel spectral horrors should feel like uncovering forbidden magic, not rehearsing button combos in a void. The introduction's greatest sin? Treating Eora itself as stage dressing rather than the protagonist. When your character washes ashore amnesiac (again!), it reeks of creative bankruptcy—an RPG trope as stale as dungeon bread.

💎 The Bitter Aftertaste of Dawnshore

Arriving in the first major settlement should spark wonder; instead, Dawnshore greets players with the anticlimactic thud of a deflated balloon. NPCs dispense quests like vending machines, their motivations obscured behind lore jargon that newcomers parse like ancient hieroglyphs. That gnawing emptiness? It's the absence of stakes. Why care about the Dreamscourge when its victims resemble mannequins? Why serve the Emperor when his presence lacks the gravitas of a grocery list? This narrative detachment transforms what should be an epic odyssey into a beautifully rendered chore list.

🌌 A Call to Deeper Waters

Avowed's opening isn't broken—it's unfinished. Like a gourmet meal served raw, the ingredients for greatness exist: Obsidian's legendary writing chops, Eora's dense mythology, next-gen visuals that make every mossy ruin glow with forgotten power. But until the studio patches this onboarding abyss, players must choose: dive headfirst into wikis to appreciate the world, or resign themselves to surface-level spectacle. For those willing to persevere, riches await beyond Dawnshore... but why must the golden path start in quicksand?

Don't let your adventure end at the shoreline—share how Avowed's introduction resonated with you using #EoraFirstImpressions. Did the Living Lands embrace you like a long-lost friend, or leave you shipwrecked on narrative shoals? 🗣️✨