Choice and consequence mechanics can be a tricky thing to nail down in games, as we’ve seen more than a few times over the years, with the list of games that have failed to deliver on grand promises of monumental decisions that will radically change players’ stories being a long one (and growing longer still by the day). That said, there have also been plenty of examples of games that have successfully allowed players to leave indelible stamps on their journeys through actions that have actual, meaningful, tangible consequences- and several of them have been developed by Obsidian Entertainment.
From Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Fallout: New Vegas to Pillars of Eternity and The Outer Worlds, this is a studio that has always prided itself not only on developing some of the best RPGs around, but RPGs that tout best-in-class writing and some of the best, most gripping, most compelling implementation of choice and consequence mechanics you’re going to find in a game. With that legacy and track record in mind, it’s no surprise that expectations in that department are going to be high for the studio’s upcoming fantasy RPG Avowed. Thankfully, based on what the studio has said about and shown of the game so far, it looks like fans of choice-driven storytelling have reason to be optimistic.
Set in the Living Lands – a part of the Pillars of Eternity’s world of Eora that that specific duology hasn’t covered up to this point – Avowed is smartly taking players to a setting where Pillars of Eternity isn’t going to be required reading for any means, but where the studio is going to be able to continue working with previously established lore. And as was the case with the Pillars of Eternity titles, Avowed is going to see players making plenty of large-scale decisions that will impact the game’s setting in several significant ways.
Players will play as an envoy of the Empire who has been sent to the Living Lands, which, as you might imagine, is going to lead to interesting narrative choices, according to Obsidian. Supposedly, that means making plenty of large-scale political decisions affecting the larger setting throughout the course of the story, with players getting to make decisions that will shape the future of entire factions and groups. That is something that you very much expect to see in Obsidian RPGs at any rate, and Avowed looks set to continue that trend.
But of course, that’s not going to be the extent of the choices that Avowed will have players make. Getting involved in and steering large-scale conflicts is a big part of choice-driven RPGs of this ilk, but just as important can be the smaller-scale, more intimate choices. That, after all, is where the role playing aspect of these adventures is usually able to really shine through, and again, this is an area where the developer is making all the promises. In 2024, Dragon Age: The Veilguard disappointed a fair few people with how limited it felt in its role-playing choice mechanics – with the overwhelming majority of dialogue choices being different shades of “nice” and “nice, but also sassy” – so Avowed’s insistence on emphasizing moment-to-moment role-playing with meaningful choices on a smaller scale is something that fans of the genre will definitely appreciate.
There are some areas where Avowed is cutting back on choices in ways that we haven’t seen from Obsidian titles in the past. For instance, the developer has confirmed that the game won’t allow players to kill NPCs who are critical to quests and the main story, which in and of itself limits player actions and decisions in major ways. Then again, it’s easy to understand why the studio has made that decision, given all of the complexity and challenges that the ability to kill any and every NPC would present for any game’s developers, especially for a full-blown AAA production. If Avowed can deliver well-implemented scripted narrative choices the way Obsidian says it will, the absence of more emergent and systemic freedom will be easier to get over.
Of course, just as important as the ability to affect the story in choice-driven titles is how the manner in which the consequences of your actions play out. This, too, is an area where Obsidian has always excelled- but what of Avowed? As per the studio, though there will obviously times where players will be given instant resolution for their choices, the full weight and consequences of other decisions won’t become fully clear until much later in the game, with the goal being to keep players on their toes and ensure that things don’t feel too predictable or telegraphed.
Admittedly, a great deal of what Obsidian has said about Avowed is the kind of stuff that you sort of have to take on faith. Choice and consequence mechanics can be a difficult thing to properly showcase for any game before its release- after all, it’s only after you have played through the whole thing that you understand how impactful your decisions truly were to the story at large. Often, it takes multiple playthroughs, in fact. So yes, all of this does absolutely come with the caveat that Avowed could very well just end up not delivering on all of its promises- but that, of course, is where Obsidian’s track record comes into play.
Time and again this studio has proven that it knows how to handle choice-driven storytelling and player choice mechanics better than the vast majority of RPG developers out there, based on which it has earned enough goodwill for people to be able to safely hope that their next big project will continue along those lines, especially when the studio itself is saying that it will. Does that mean there’s no chance that Avowed doesn’t disappoint with its choice and consequence mechanics? We’d have to be foolish to suggest anything like that- as we’ve seen a disheartening number of times, few games and studios in the industry are safe from turning out to be hot, disappointing messes. But that has rarely ever been the case with Obsidian, so hopefully our optimism in Avowed isn’t going to be misplaced.
Many, of course, would have preferred that the game had stuck to its original vision. Obsidian Entertainment had originally envisioned and pitched the fantasy RPG as its own take on Skyrim, before ultimately deciding that that sort of a mammoth open world adventure wasn’t something it wanted to undertake. But there’s an undeniable appeal to smaller, more condensed, and focused experiences, and that stands doubly true when a game is touting the sort of emphasis on choice and consequence mechanics that Avowed is. Meaningful player choices would obviously have been significantly harder to implement across a large-scale Skyrim sized world, so if a more compact, Outer Worlds sized experience is the tradeoff for way more meaningful choice and consequence mechanics, it’s a tradeoff that many (yours truly included) would make happily. After all, that’s what many come to Obsidian RPGs for first and foremost.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
