Obsidian wants Avowed to be a “challenging” RPG that’s more complex than “black-and-white, good-versus-evil morality”
Breaking away from the moral binary
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Obsidian Entertainmentis hammering away at its fantasy-with-firearms roleplaying gameAvowed, due this year, which the developers hope can surpass the “black-and-white” moral binary.
“Our approach to choice and consequences is to eschew a black-and-white, good-versus-evil morality scale, where the moral balance of your decision is very obvious,” director Carrie Patel explains in aninterview with Gamesradar, “but rather something that feels closer to life, where sometimes it’s not obvious or sometimes the right choice feels obvious, but the outcome can be surprising; justified but surprising.”
Patel explains that she enjoys that moral challenge as both a player and a designer because it allows people to “chew on something complicated and kind of make and explore those decisions in the relatively safe environment of a game.” Where else could you accidentally fly your own ship into the sun, if it weren’t for Obsidian games, right?
Patel then points to Mass Effect 2 - despite its pulpy paragon and renegade binary - and the incredible Legion loyalty quest as an example of a dilemma that players were “talking about years later.” She believes that those kinds of headscratchers “bind” players to their in-game counterparts. “And also the characters and companions that they’re sharing this journey with.”
Between KOTOR 2, Pentiment, The Outer World, and Pillars of Eternity (which shares a setting with Avowed), the studio certainly has a knack for tough decisions that leave you with existential questions no matter what. We haven’t seen much of that in Avowed aside from a brief side quest shown off in theXbox Developer Direct 2024, but I’m still excited to see more in the coming months.
Another Avowed lead recently explained that there’s “no one perfect build” in the classless RPG.
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Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.
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