Avowed is the first ConcordLike - Based game review
- Based Nerds staff
- Feb 24
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 28
Following a six-year gestation and multi-million-dollar investment, Obsidian's latest offering, Avowed, entered the gaming community with less heroism and more hype. What was hyped as a potential blockbuster has instead given rise to a polarized response—a response that has varied from snarky amusement to disillusion.
A Promising Premise with Shallow Roots
On paper, Avowed promises all that a modern RPG needs to: deep exploration, a gigantic world, and a narrative that would hold its own alongside the genre's finest. But for most players, it was a matter of seconds to discover that the game's foundation—its RPG mechanics—is as deep as a puddle following a spring rain shower.
The combat, which is intended to be the game's adrenaline, is a laborious exercise of button mashing, with genre stalwarts yearning for strategic depth they've come to expect.
When Insects Steal the Show
And worst of all for the early adopters, the thrill of a game-stopping bug. A handful of players complained that some rogue corrupted save file had the unintended consequence of turning their adventure into frustratingly limited trudge, never giving them an exploration as promised. In a bit of irony richly suited to fate, the bug has proven to be one of Avowed's most contentious aspects, a reminder of the fact that even the most refined games occasionally fail by way of technological malfunctions.
Criticisms, Accolades, and a Pinch of Humor
Belying all of its flaws, Avowed hasn't been equally panned. A number of positive reviews on platforms such as Steam indicate that, if this game had released a decade prior, it would have even been accepted as a game of the year release.
One of them went so far as to make the observation that the promise of the game was suffocated under its current "woke slop" — a humorous reproach for its overly progressive design decisions which, rather than bolstering the game, seem to have diluted the gameplay itself.
