Last night during the Xbox Developer Direct, Obsidian Entertainment presented an in-depth look at its upcoming fantasy RPG, Avowed, revealing more details about the combat, world, story and more. No concrete release date was announced but it will launch sometime in fall 2024. However, new gameplay features got us pretty excited, especially the ability to dual-wield wands.
The backbone of Avowed‘s combat is giving players multiple ways to approach encounters with different playstyles that can be switched on the fly. Instead of being like most RPGs that rely on specific character builds, Avowed will seemingly assign playstyles as loadouts. This means that players can switch between using a sword and shield to using ranged pistols to spellcasting as assigned skill loadouts with the tap of a button.
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Magic is tackled either with your hands or with a wand, which is like the magical equivalent of a gun in Avowed. More interestingly, players can even dual-wield wands and unleash snappy magical attacks in quick succession. It’s bonkers and something we’ll probably be doing a lot, to be honest.
“It’s not just hacking and slashing,” said Avowed gameplay director Gabriel Paramo. “You’re making real-time decisions about when to use your abilities, powerful melee attacks, blocks, parries and special attacks.”
Speaking a bit more about Avowed‘s loadout system which is its standout feature, Paramo added, “To help with the different encounters you will face, we provide customisable loadouts that can be quickly switched during combat.”
The role-playing aspect of Avowed was also given a lot of attention. You’ll come across various NPCs while out exploring the world, giving you multiple dialogue options to either resolve conflicts or spur them on. Like The Outer Worlds, we imagine this will have a ripple effect and disastrous consequences down the line depending on your choices. It’s nice to know that Obsidian will still let players be complete a-holes if they want.
Avowed is expected to launch in fall 2024 for Xbox Series X/S and PC. It will also launch day one on Xbox Game Pass. Check out the new gameplay below:
Source: Xbox
