A year after it first landed on Xbox and PC, Obsidian’s first-person fantasy RPG finally arrives on PlayStation 5. PS5 players are getting the most complete version of Avowed, bundled with the Anniversary Update that adds New Game Plus, new playable races, a quarterstaff weapon, expanded character customization, custom difficulty settings, a photo mode, and a slew of quality-of-life fixes.
I won’t touch too much on the narrative and gameplay, as that is all covered in our initial review of Avowed from David Flynn.
Avowed drops you into the Living Lands, which is set in the same universe as Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity series. You play as a Godlike, a being touched by a deity at birth, sent by the Aedyr Empire to investigate a mysterious plague called the Dream Scourge. Note that there is no new story content, quests, or narrative chapters added to the game in the Anniversary Update/PlayStation version of the game.
The main plot plays it relatively safe as it never takes the kind of bold swings you'd expect from Obsidian at its best. Combat is fluid, responsive, and honestly one of the best implementations of first-person melee I've played in an RPG. You can dual-wield swords, pair a pistol with a shield, combine a wand with a melee weapon, or go full mage with spells in both hands.
The Anniversary Update expands the stun finisher system with new animations for most weapon types, which adds a nice punch to fights that the original launch version was missing. You can play in first-person or toggle to third-person at any time, which is a welcome option even if the game clearly plays better from a first-person perspective. I found this to be the same case in Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds 2 as well.
The companion AI in combat is serviceable but unremarkable. Your partner follows you into battle and uses their abilities, but don't expect any tactical depth here. Where the gameplay stumbles is in enemy variety. The monster list recycles the same handful of creature types across all four zones, and by midgame, encounters start blurring together. Boss fights occasionally shake things up, but the average combat loop gets boring fast.
Avowed takes an unconventional approach to RPG progression. This game leans hard into gear based progression. Your level matters, but your weapon and armor quality matter far more. Gear follows a tiered system (Common, Fine, Exceptional, Superb, Legendary) with three upgrade levels within each tier. Resources are scarce enough that experimenting with different weapon types mid-playthrough can be punishing.
Combat encounters become sponge fests when your gear falls behind the curve. The update does ease this somewhat by placing workbenches across the world so you're no longer walking back to camp every time you want to upgrade, and certain enemy encounters now respawn, giving you a renewable source of materials and experience. It doesn't fully solve the underlying economy problem, but it improves it somewhat.
The Anniversary Update introduces New Game Plus, which lets you restart the game with all your unique items and abilities carried over, though godlike powers reset, and enemies are tougher. It's a good reason to revisit the Living Lands, especially with three new playable races (Dwarves, Orlans, and Aumaua) that alter your physical perspective and how NPCs react to you. The quarterstaff rounds out the weapon roster and gives mage-focused builds a proper melee option that channels spellcasting in a more hands-on way.
Beyond the main headline features, there's a good amount of smaller additions. A Magic Mirror at Party Camp lets you overhaul your character's appearance mid-playthrough. Preset characters offer ready-made envoy builds spanning every race for players who want to skip the creation screen. Expanded godlike customization adds new sub-types and visual variants, giving returning players enough reason to roll something fresh.
Custom difficulty sliders let you fine-tune combat independently from exploration, which should have been there from day one if you’re asking me. The photo mode is a nice cherry on top given how photogenic the Living Lands can be. The Sapadal dream sequences that were tedious on a first run can also now be skipped entirely.
The PlayStation version launches in a very strong technical state, benefiting from a full year of post-launch patches and optimizations. It’s a pretty darn solid port, which is to be expected. Load times on the PS5's SSD are brief and fast travel between camps snaps you to your destination in seconds. I’ve run into no bugs or glitches on the PlayStation port of the game, so the overall technical performance is solid.
This is a good-looking game, though it's not a technical masterpiece. The anniversary patch refines world lighting, and conversations have been touched up visually, both of which contribute to a more polished presentation. The weak link still is the character animation, specifically facial animations during dialogue. Characters often look stiff or awkward, leading to an almost uncanny-like experience.
For PS5 players, the Anniversary Update and a year of patches make this the best way to experience Avowed on a console. The $49.99 price is also more reasonable than the original $69.99 launch price. This is definitely the definitive version to play if you haven’t tried it already.
