Obsidian Entertainment's role-playing game, Avowed, has recently unveiled a substantial anniversary update, bringing a host of new features to players. This comprehensive patch introduces New Game+ mode, customizable difficulty settings, a photo mode, and a new staff weapon type. Most notably, three additional playable races—Dwarves, Orlans, and Aumaua—have been added to the character creation roster, expanding player choice beyond the initial human and elf options. While these new races offer distinct mechanical and aesthetic variations, a key point of discussion revolves around their lack of unique dialogue options, a departure from the rich narrative experiences typically associated with Obsidian's titles.
Before this anniversary patch, players were limited to selecting either humans or elves for their characters in Avowed. This restriction was particularly surprising given Obsidian's history with the Pillars universe, where a broader selection of races was always available for character customization. The in-game explanation for the initial limitation was that the protagonist's homeland was predominantly inhabited by humans and elves. However, to cater to players desiring more diverse role-playing experiences, the development team decided to introduce the additional races.
In many role-playing games, the choice of a character's race often influences not only their stats and abilities but also their interactions within the game world, including unique dialogue paths. While Avowed's existing races do offer some specialized dialogue, the newly introduced Dwarves, Orlans, and Aumaua do not share this feature. Their inclusion primarily focuses on mechanical advantages and visual differences, with each new race providing specific gameplay attribute bonuses to differentiate them.
Gabe Paramo, the gameplay director for Avowed, shed light on this decision in an interview with RPG Site. He explained that integrating these new races was a complex technical undertaking, requiring extensive effort from gameplay engineers and character artists to ensure seamless implementation of character customization options and in-world interactions, regardless of character height or proportions. However, the post-launch development team was primarily focused on the PlayStation 5 port and gameplay enhancements, and regrettably, there were no dedicated narrative personnel available to craft unique dialogue trees for the new racial additions.
Despite the absence of specialized dialogue, the anniversary update is a significant boon for Avowed players, offering new ways to experience the game and enhancing replayability. The development team's commitment to providing free content a year after launch is commendable. Nevertheless, for fans who deeply appreciate the intricate narrative depth characteristic of Obsidian's previous works, the lack of story-driven choices for the new races might be a minor disappointment. This update exemplifies a trade-off between expanding gameplay mechanics and maintaining narrative consistency, reflecting the challenges of post-launch content development.
