A giant beetle charged toward me, and as it stepped into a big puddle in the center of the room, I snagged it with a burst of magical vines that appeared beneath its feet. Then I blasted the creature with one of my dual flintlock pistols–this one charged with electricity–which sent arcs down through the water, shocking a few skeletons that were joining the fray behind it. As they looked to overwhelm me, I unloaded with both my pistols, zipped a little sideways with a dodge, and clambered away to unload on them before they could slice me up.
One of the highlights of my hands-on time with Avowed, Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming first-person RPG, is its breezy combat and combination of elements. The game has seen some comparison to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and with a weapon in each hand, it feels on point. Mixing and matching different play styles, like blasting away with elemental pistols, sneaking around with a bow, or dipping into a pocket to pull out explosive jars to chuck into a melee, felt pretty good in my short look at the game. That brief time also highlighted that the options I tried only seem to scratch the surface of what Obsidian is going for.
Obsidian showed off an hour-long look at Avowed at an Xbox event in Los Angeles that mirrors what is available this week during Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. The preview build picks up early on in the proceedings as you search for a missing expedition from the Aedyran Empire that has entered the islands of the Living Lands, the game’s bright and deadly setting. Their path took me–the Aedyran Empire’s envoy–into a huge underground cave system, alongside a companion character named Kai.
