Avowed Works Best When You Stop Expecting a Sandbox RPG

Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed is a game I liked from the start, even when the wider conversation around it didn’t always reflect that. A lot of the criticism surrounding it seemed to come down to comparing it to what it isn’t: a fully systemic, sandbox-driven RPG in the vein of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. However, that framing misses the point. Avowed works best once expectations of a sandbox experience are set aside and it is approached as a dialogue-driven, roleplay-focused experience.

When it launched in 2025, the conversation around it felt split. Some players were drawn in by its connection to the Pillars of Eternity universe, while others bounced off what felt like a lack of traditional RPG systems. Once the game’s focus on dialogue-driven roleplaying clicks, the entire experience starts to make a lot more sense. More than anything, what pulled me in wasn’t the combat or even the exploration. It was the world itself.

Avowed doesn’t ease players into its setting. It throws terminology, factions, and history at players almost immediately, expecting them to either keep up or take the time to learn. Characters speak like these things are common knowledge, because to them, they are. At first, that can feel overwhelming. But over time, it makes the world feel more believable. Instead of constantly stopping to explain itself, the game trusts players to meet it halfway. The glossary helps fill in the gaps, but the dialogue itself stays natural, never slipping into exposition-heavy explanations. It’s a small thing, but it goes a long way in making the world feel lived in.

Kai serves as a strong anchor into Avowed’s world through dialogue and character interaction.

Much of the criticism around Avowed focuses on what it doesn’t do. There’s no real sandbox chaos here. NPCs don’t follow complex routines, players can’t attack random characters, and the world doesn’t react in the same systemic way as something like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. For a lot of players, that’s been a sticking point. However, Avowed is deliberately built without those systems, and when approached on its own terms, they aren’t actually missed. That’s because most of the sense of immersion comes through dialogue and roleplaying choices rather than systems. The game gives plenty of opportunities for players to shape their character through conversations, deciding how they respond, what they believe, and who they align with. After finishing the game twice with very different characters, those choices did a lot more to define the experience than any missing sandbox system would have.

That said, this approach does make some of the game’s weaker elements stand out more against the stronger parts, especially the companions. Kai, in particular, works well as an anchor into the world. His background and perspective help ground the setting in something personal, giving players a clearer way into its broader conflicts. His connection to places like the Deadfire makes the world feel lived in rather than explained.

Not every companion reaches that same level, though. Characters like Giatta and Yatzli often feel more like vehicles for delivering lore than fully realized people, with personal arcs that don’t leave much of a lasting impression. Marius stands out for a different reason. Where other companions at least serve as a lens into the world, Marius rarely feels like he adds much at all. His personality leans heavily on sarcasm and friction, but without the depth or payoff that usually makes those traits work.

Not every companion reaches that same level, but Avowed works because it focuses so heavily on a specific kind of immersion.

A good comparison is Sera from Dragon Age: Inquisition, another companion who can be abrasive and divisive. The difference is that Sera is given space to evolve, and the player can choose to engage with or reject her. Marius never quite gets that same level of development or agency, and as a result, he feels less like a difficult character and more like an incomplete one.

While the immediate responses to choices usually strike true, the long-term reactivity is also a bit lacking. Characters can strongly disagree with major decisions in the moment, only to fall back into familiar patterns shortly after, with little sense that those moments carry forward. It undercuts the immersion the game works hard to build and makes some choices feel less meaningful than they should. But even with those issues, Avowed stayed with me, largely because of the strength of its world and writing. Not because it does everything expected from a modern RPG, but because it focuses so heavily on a specific kind of immersion: one built through its world, its writing, and the way it lets players exist within that space.

It’s not Obsidian’s most ambitious game, and it won’t click with everyone. But for players willing to meet it on its own terms, there’s something genuinely rewarding here. After a year of updates and improvements, it finally feels like the version of Avowed that was always meant to be played.