Avowed Confirmed by Obsidian to Be Very Short for an RPG

We already knew that Avowed wouldn’t be a Skyrim-like behemoth in size, but Game Director Carrie Patel from Obsidian clarified it’s going to be fairly short in general for an RPG. Speaking to Game Informer, she said players can expect a similar length to the studio’s previous game, the sci-fi The Outer Worlds.

The best comparison for Avowed in terms of scope is The Outer Worlds. Players can expect a roughly similar experience, just like The Outer Worlds, depending on what kind of difficulty they play on, and how thoroughly they explore and invest inside content, versus just sticking to the main crit path missions.

Patel made a similar comment last year, comparing Avowed to The Outer Worlds or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. The latter would have been preferable in terms of length since it required over 30 hours just for the main story and over 40 hours when including side content.

The Outer Worlds, on the other hand, is one of the shortest high-profile RPGs around. The main story can be completed in just over 13 hours, while side content doubles that amount to around 26. For comparison, other non-open world RPGs like The Witcher 2 and Dragon Age II require between 24 and 37 hours to complete. With The Outer Worlds, Obsidian had the excuse of a shoestring budget, having picked Take-Two’s indie label Private Division as the publisher.

That can’t really fly any longer, though, as Obsidian has been acquired by Microsoft – yes, that Microsoft, the biggest public company in the world by capitalization. While that doesn’t necessarily translate into an endless budget, fans were certainly hoping to get meatier games from the studio going forward.

While The Outer Worlds remains Obsidian’s comparison for Avowed when it comes to size, the story’s tone is going be more similar to another of the studio’s titles. Patel said:

Tonally, the best comparison is going to be Deadfire, the second Pillars game where you have a very grounded and serious political story. A very kind of weird and esoteric, metaphysical, and divine story beneath that. A lot of moments of seriousness, but also moments of levity to kind of to kind of break that up, and a lot of those things are very character-based. So yeah, I wouldn’t compare it tonally to The Outer Worlds.

However, unlike Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, Avowed won’t feature any romance options with the four companions. On the topic, Patel explained:

We decided to forego full romance paths in Avowed. It’s something that we thought very hard about, and we talked about it as a narrative team. I think if you’re going to invest in romance, everyone who’s writing them needs to be absolutely, fully bought in. And the other thing you need to do is make sure that if you’re going to provide that path, that you’re balancing that with an equally meaningful and well-developed, non-romantic path because you never want players to feel that, “Well, the only way I really get to know this character or really get to form a meaningful bond with them, is if I commit to romancing them, which maybe isn’t something I want to do.” So, for all of those reasons, we decided to forego romances, specifically in Avowed.

The game doesn’t have a release date, although a recent Obsidian blog post mentioned November 12. It will be released on PC and Xbox Series S|X, being available on Game Pass from day one.