Obsidian Entertainment has a long and storied history as a developer of RPGs that put choice and consequence mechanics front and center, and the upcoming Avowed is going to be another game in that very lineage. The game is, of course, going to feature multiple endings, but what exactly can we expect from the breadth and scale of its choice and consequence mechanics as a whole?
Speaking in a recent interview with Game Informer, when asked the same question, game director Carrie Patel revealed that, much as you would expect from an Obsidian game, Avowed’s choice and consequence mechanics will take different forms throughout the game, which means players will be making different choices constantly, which will have varying consequences showing up after varying lengths of time.
“Choice and consequence is something that unfolds for the player over the course of the game,” Patel said. “There are choices that you’re going to make that are going to have immediate effects, choices that you’ll make that will have effects that you’ll see maybe hours later, and some that you’ll make that you’ll come to see at the very end of the game, kind of how those play out further on into the future. But along with that, you’ve got choices that are very intimate and impactful for specific characters, and some that really affect the state of entire settlements of the Living Lands and the Living Lands at large.”
Patel went on to elaborate, explaining how the cumulative weight of the choices that players will make will also impact how their bonds may or may not develop with their companies and potential allies.
“When it comes to choice, we really try to provide breadth and a tapestry for the player,” she said. “It’s not like you just reach the ending and kind of you’re choosing your ending. It’s really the ending is the result of choices you’ve made along the way. Some of those are very intimate and character-focused, some of those are very broad and sweeping. But yeah, you’ll definitely have moments where the way you made certain choices, or perhaps the way you treated certain characters early in the game will come back to reward or haunt you, or likely a bit of both a few hours later, when you meet those characters – allies and adversaries. And you’ll have a number of choices that it’s kind of… characters will be willing to trust you or will be not willing to trust you based on kind of the cumulative combination of choices that you’ve made up until that moment. So if you’re trying to ally with someone, and you say, like, ‘Hey, you can trust me. I want to do this thing, let’s work together,’ they might call out a handful of things you’ve done up to that point and say, ‘I don’t think I can trust you,’ or, ‘what? I think you’re right, so I’ll give you this chance.'”
Beyond that, Avowed will, of course, also see players making “a couple of very, very big choices” in its endgame that will impact what ending you get. The ending will, however, also be impacted by several other choices made throughout the course of the story.
“There are a couple of very, very big choices that players will make at the end,” she said. “And those are very clearly telegraphed. The ending that they get is the result of what very big choices do they make, but also the numerous and subtle choices that they make along the way.”
And exactly how long will Avowed be? According to Patel, the game will be about as long as Obsidian’s 2020 sci-fi RPG, The Outer Worlds. Read more on that through here.
Avowed launches this Fall for Xbox Series X/S and PC. A specific release date isn’t yet announced, though leaks claim the game will release in November. Microsoft is set to bring the action RPG to Gamescom in August, so perhaps more will be revealed there.
