When Avowed’s teaser trailer was released by Obsidian last week, many fans were quick to notice the similarities between the game and Bethesda’s Skyrim. As fans of The Elder Scrolls approach Skyrim’s 10-year anniversary next November with no more news of The Elder Scrolls 6 since 2018, many are hoping that Obsidian's next RPG will give them their first-person fantasy fix.
Despite Skyrim’s commercial and critical success, however, the game was far from perfect. Avowed will need to overcome one of Skyrim’s biggest flaws if it is going to step out from the older game’s shadow, and feel like it’s truly taking the genre to the next generation.
Skyrim’s Reactivity Problem
The game world of Skyrim is immense and, at first, appears to have a level of depth which complements its breadth. However, the more the player plays, the more this illusion is stripped away. While Skyrim has a lot to explore, the game does not react very much to the player or their actions in the game, which leads to a design flaw which hurts immersion – the more the player plays the game, the less immersive it gets.
For example, the player can become the leader of the Thieves Guild, the Companions, the Mage’s college at Winterhold, and the Jarl of every city in the province, but the characters in the world will never act accordingly. Every new quest is presented as it would be to a low-level adventurer, and the player has very few opportunities to inform characters of their actions aside from bribing guards and a few other off-hand comments.
The world’s lack of reactivity can also be seen around player character races. A player who chooses to play as a Khajiit or Argonian will see their fellow countrymen barred from entering various cities on account of their race. When the player approaches the same city, however, gaining entry poses no difficulty at all.
Similarly, if a player enters Windhelm as a Dark Elf, they will witness a Dark Elf being abused by a xenophobic Nord as soon as they enter the city. They will then immediately be asked if they’re “one of those "Skyrim for the Nords" types,” a question which seems ridiculous if the player isn’t a Nord, or even a human. If they approach Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak not only will he not recognize them from the game's introduction, but the player has no opportunity to tell them that they escaped execution together, even though its the only mandatory part of the game.
Avowed and Next-Gen RPGs
In short, Skyrim’s questlines are too self-contained, too designed to be played in any order with no friction whatsoever. If Avowed is going to feel like a next-gen RPG, it needs to create a world which can both be explored and engaged with in any order, but where the decisions made in those various questlines feel like they have an affect on the rest of the world.
In Skyrim, a player who approached the Jarl of Whiterun having already become the leader of the Dark Brotherhood should unlock some very different interactions with the Jarl, even if they ultimately end up completing his same quest. Avowed needs to feel like it acknowledges player decisions and doesn’t place the player on a pedestal where they are treated differently in the world simply for being the player.
For a huge open world RPG, this will be a challenge. However, if Avowed is going to step away from comparisons with Skyrim and make its own mark on the RPG genre, its exactly the sort of ambitious step forward Obsidian will need to take.
Avowed is currently in development for PC and Xbox Series X with no confirmed release date.