Avowed is quickly becoming one of the most hotly anticipated games for the Xbox Series X, as speculation about its possible story is plentiful. While the teaser trailer did not reveal much, fans do know that the game will be set in Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity setting, Eora, featured in the two isometric RPGs released in the series so far.
Avowed’s protagonist has some big shoes to fill, especially as more players begin to hope that Obsidian’s next RPG could be the spiritual successor to Skyrim. Plenty remains uncertain, but there’s one safe bet that Obsidian can make if it wants Avowed to live up to the critical success of the previous two games: the Watcher, protagonist of PoE.
The Watchers
In the Pillars of Eternity setting, Watchers are mortals who are able to perceive the souls of others. In the first game, the player character becomes a Watcher by accident when they find themself witnessing an ancient ritual. After this, the Watcher is able to see the souls of others, which plays into the recent discovery in the world of Eora that souls literally exist and are the basis for all magic. This discovery reveals all sorts of chaos, including the birth of children without souls, known as “Hollowborn," and the rise of the Animancers who experiment with souls, including inserting animal souls into hollow human bodies.
There are a few reasons this premise works great for a protagonist. First, the accidental nature of the main character becoming a Watcher doesn’t place particular emphasis on them as a “Chosen One” archetype like in Skyrim, but instead makes them a victim of happenstance who must deal with the new responsibility of being a Watcher. Furthermore, it allows the main character access to the memories of some of their past lives, called being “Awakened." Another Awakened Watcher that the player meets, Maerwald, is driven mad by the memories of his violent previous incarnations.
Why the Watchers Work
The Watchers are a fascinating concept with great story potential and are closely linked to the discovery of souls, one of the main distinguishing features of the Pillars of Eternity setting. If the player is not a Watcher, then Obsidian will have to work hard to make sure players do not lack access to much of what the world has to offer.
Not only that, but the creation of the Hollowborn, and therefore the relevance of the Watchers, is closely tied to one of Pillars of Eternity’s most interesting figures, the god, Eothas. This deity is the god of light and cyclical death in the setting, whose avatar and prophet is killed in a bloody conflict known as the Saint’s War, causing the Hollowborn to begin appearing. Depending on how the canon regarding the second game’s ending is resolved for Avowed, this could have interesting implications for the story.
It is possible, however, that to avoid story conflicts with the first two games, Avowed, like Skyrim, will be set in a different time period than its predecessors. Even if the main character does not end up being a Watcher, there are still key lessons to be learned from the handling of the Watcher in the first two games that would help Avowed live up to the hype.
Avowed’s protagonist should be uniquely tied to the events that spark the game’s plot, just as the Watcher is able to see souls at a time when souls are newly relevant in the setting. Like the Watcher, however, this connection should be incidental rather than the player being a “Chosen One,” allowing the player to explore all that the setting has to offer without the game's narrative feeling prescriptive.
Avowed is in development for PC and Xbox Series X.