You've gotta feel for Avowed, Obsidian's upcoming first-person fantasy RPG. As soon as the studio started talking about it, people (including, ah, me) began to look for pigeonholes to slot it into. A quick shorthand that would let us call the game "Obsidian's take on X".
The easiest reference point, of course, is Skyrim (Starfield without guns), to which Avowed's fantasy setting, first-person combat, and classless character system have all invited comparison. But the studio doesn't think it's the right comparison, telling PCGamesN that you're better off thinking of Avowed as an Outer Worlds-like, or even—be still my heart—something like Fallout: New Vegas.
Calling Avowed a "middle ground between sandbox and something that’s more curated," gameplay director Gabe Paramo explained "there are creatures you might stumble upon in Avowed that you’re maybe not ready for, but perhaps you’ve found an ability that helps you manipulate that creature, and then you get an item," noting that "New Vegas is also full of those moments where we don’t want to handhold the player, but still, if players have the skills, they can still defeat these moments."
It's fairly daring to bring up New Vegas, which has long been regarded as a classic in the RPG pantheon. I feel like the fact that The Outer Worlds wasn't New Vegas goes some way to explaining why people were so lukewarm on it, and I'm surprised to see Obsidian willingly invite the comparison one more time. But honestly? It's the most personally exciting thing I've heard about Avowed so far. I absolutely love how well New Vegas's myriad side quests and DLCs all build up to paint a broad picture of its central conflict over the Hoover Dam—rather than existing in their own, self-contained narrative vacuums as side quests often do—and if Avowed has a coherent enough vision to make that work, consider me intrigued.
