Exploring the Expansive Realms of Avowed: An Epic RPG Journey Awaits

From early Experimental Gameplay Projects to Baldur’s Gate and Skyrim, it is fair to say that developers of role-playing games (RPGs) always push their worlds to the limit, and very often go beyond them. So, as gamers eagerly wait for Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming title Avowed to release, the Director of the game, Carrie Patel, recently spoke to TechRadar Gaming and revealed how the game’s wide-open exploration and cyberpunk games will influence the game itself. So, let’s see why there is so much anticipation for Avowed, and what the designer had to say about it. Avowed will feature vibrant open worlds and numerous options – and it’s coming to current-gen Xbox consoles, PC and Xbox Game Pass players late next years.

OPEN YOUR HEART TO OPEN WORLDS

The Size and Scope of Avowed

When that is measured against Avowed’s predecessor, The Outer Worlds, it makes for an intriguing yardstick both for scale and for form, and Patel’s comments offer a sneak peek of a game that hopefully reaches those same heights in both length and depth of exploration. It’s an electrifying promise of an adventure experience that RPG fans with a taste for the open zones of The Outer Worlds have grown to care about.

A Series of OPEN ZONES: A Creative Take on Open World

One of the most striking features in Avowed’s approach to developing the world is its creative rethinking of the nature of world structuring. Rather than a single persistent, sprawling open world, Avowed presents a sequence of open worlds. A different open zone will unlock sequentially with each new section of the storyline, thus creating variety and character as one moves through the Living Lands.

Witnessing the LIVING LANDS

Players have been given a glimpse at just two zones, Shatterscarp and Emerald Stair, that provide an almost-dichotomous view of how the world might look. In Shatterscarp, the desolate desert and rocky highlands coated in salt suggest desolation and enduring desolation while Emerald Stair’s boggy, dark, and super-green forests provide a study in contrast. Besides adding more aesthetically and experientially diverse zones to the game, this strategy also supports the developers’ efforts to create a detailed world due to their willingness to devote so much attention to it.

OPEN DOORS TO NEW ADVENTURES

A Structured Journey Through Open Zones

In fact, the structure of Avowed helps to determine how players will experience the world. By partitioning the map into distinct and open zones, the devs intend to configure each area’s mood and feeling into the larger story, so that the narrative unravels as players roam from zone to zone – developing naturally, logically, and in a way that compels and invites.

The Anticipation Builds

Avowed is due this September (2022) with a full release expected for late 2024 and gamers are raring to go – hoping to embark on a quest in a fresh, utterly novel world devised by Patel and her fellow developers at Obsidian Entertainment. The idea of a richly designed open world that feels like a seamless whole, but without the irritations of segmented zones, is the type of mouth-watering proposition hinted at by Obsidian’s technology. RPG fans can only wait and see.

Conclusion: The Opening of a New RPG Epoch

It is a tantalising prospect for everyone awaiting the upcoming Avowed, but one that makes it clear that Obsidian is on its way to forging the latest word in the RPG lexicon. By blending its unique approach to worldbuilding, application of the narrative structuring tricks it learned from the likes of Fallout and New Vegas, and its hunger for aesthetic diversity, Avowed could well be set to emerge as a true milestone within the ongoing evolution of the role-playing games in general, and the fantasy-based ones in particular.

About OPEN WORLDS

The principle of open worlds in video games means an environment with as few boundaries as possible, where the gamer has all the room to explore, a landscape that offers ample possibility for movement and discovery in one continuous expanse. The player is often not directed along one linear path, such as many games have, but offered a sandbox environment with a variety of free side quests, stashes of hidden treasure, and ecosystems with different rules and challenges. In games like Avowed, there are multiple open-world zones to build a sense of character, offering different challenges, different stories. This kind of structure encourages players to break free of the confines of narrative, and explore an open adventure. There’s a real draw to which the gamer can avow – an open venture through an RPG fantasy world that’s as open as possible.