Avowed - Interview @ RPG Site

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RPG Site interviewed Carrie Patel and Game Paramo about Avowed:

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Avowed Interview - Talking Companions, gameplay, and world with Obsidian's Carrie Patel and Gabe Paramo

During the Xbox Games Showcase 2024 event, Obsidian Entertainment showcased a new story trailer for the upcoming Avowed, as well as a gameplay deep dive episode of the official Xbox Podcast. Although we don't yet have a hard release date, Obsidian's newest RPG is slotted to release later this year.

After the new trailer and deep dive, RPG Site had a chance to sit with game director Carrie Patel and gameplay director Game Paramo to learn some insight about Avowed's world, gameplay, and characters.

This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.

RPG Site: I've played several Obsidian games, such as The Outer Worlds, but I've never played Pillars of Eternity. You've said in the past that it's the same world, not a sequel, or anything like that. But for someone like me, is there anything I should know going into Avowed from a premise standpoint? How does it connect, and are you hoping that a game like this gets people interested in Pillars?

Carrie Patel: I assume that many of our players are going to come to Avowed with it being their first game set in the world of Eora. And we have intentionally designed and built it and structured our storytelling to welcome in new players. The thing I would tell players who are really curious about what they're going to find is that in world of Pillars of Eternity, the gods exist, souls are real, and they're reincarnated from one life to the next. In basically every Pillars game we've made, there's this interweaving of a very grounded political story about the fate of nations and the self-interest of different communities and how the world shapes itself. Along with that, there's a more esoteric metaphysical story that's usually about the history of the gods, the secrets they keep, the deeper mysteries of the world, and how those how those impact and are impacted by what happens in the physical world.

The player is always a character who was sort of a conduit for both. In Pillars & Deadfire, you were the Watcher; you could see souls, and you learned truths about the gods that nobody else had access to. In Avowed, you're a separate character. You're the envoy of Aedyr. So you are directly sent by the Emperor of Aedyr himself, but you also have a connection to something else deeper in the world that you'll get to know over the course of the game.

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