Welcome to the fantastical world of Avowed, the brand-new license from Obsidian Entertainment, the studio that has delivered many memorable adventures. These include Star Wars KOTOR 2, Fallout New Vegas, and The Outer Worlds, to name but a few.

Type	Action RPG
Publisher	Xbox Games Studios
Developer	Obsidian
Release date	February 18, 2025
Rating	18 years and over

Here, you’ll have to come to grips with a new fantasy universe, fight hordes of enemies, and explore this vast world in search of treasures. The program is generous, delightful, and beautifully rendered graphically. That being said, let’s see if navigating through the world of Avowed is within everyone’s reach.

Avowed is an action RPG game in first-person view. After creating your character, which is customizable both physically and in terms of stats, you embark on a story where you need to lift a curse that’s eating away at an entire part of the Empire. As the Imperial Emissary, it’ll be up to you to lead the investigation.

What if I have a physical disability? 7 / 10

The action takes place in a semi-open world. Avowed alternates exploration phases with combat, reading numerous documents, harvesting resources, and dialogue. I enjoyed the adventure at my own pace, and I was able to complete long sessions without feeling too much hand fatigue.

Then again, it’s impossible to remap keys. There’s only one Right-handed or Left-handed profile, which merely consists of inverting sticks. The controls are nevertheless explained under the Controller Menu. For each key, a short written explanation summarizes the purpose of each press or hold. Finally, you can view key remapping on an on-screen controller, which also displays all of the controls.

You also have the classic settings for dead zones and joystick sensitivity. Two modes are available for crouching and sprinting, either through toggling or continuous hold. Toggling remains the best choice for me because holding keys down quickly tires me out, especially since it’s entirely possible to clear an enemy camp by using stealth. You can crouch down and hide in tall grass, for example.

Aim assist makes it easier to hit enemies with an adjustable magnetism gauge going from 0 to 100%. It defines how strongly your projectiles will be attracted toward opponents, even if your aim wasn’t all that precise.

You can activate your character’s action radial in combat with a single touch, RB. This pauses the game. That’s a good moment to take a break or give yourself time to choose the right spell or skill strategy to eradicate the threat.

So, on the physical side, we can only regret the absence of key remapping. In addition, combat requires using both left and right triggers simultaneously.

What if I’m visually impaired? 4 / 10

Avowed provides us with a fabulously colorful and bright world, but there aren’t any color-blind settings to help color-blind players.

During exploration phases, resources, weapons, and chests are highlighted by a shimmer effect around objects’ edges, visible even from very far away, but they’re so finely highlighted that they’re not often very discernible. Picking them up requires accuracy and precise cursor placement in the vicinity of the object. In addition, the cursor is white, very small, and unobtrusive, making gathering fastidious and tedious.

So, to pick up small piles of change, you’ll need to approach, aim, and press X to pick it up. Plants, on the other hand, are less of a problem, as they’re often so abundant.

Loot from enemy corpses and loot chests glow slightly, making rewards easier to find. Even without any visual concerns, I found loot shimmer useful to ensure I didn’t miss anything throughout the rich, colorful scenery. Then again, you do have to aim to pick it up. Why not provide an auto-loot option?

Enemies can be identified by a white marker above their head when they begin to become suspicious. This marker turns to orange by default when they’re aware of our presence and red once in combat. During the latter, a yellow arrow above enemies signals an imminent attack, however, it’s barely visible in first-person view, but it becomes clearly visible in third-person view.

You can switch between first-person and third-person views by pressing the right stick for just a few moments. Avowed is clearly designed for first-person view, but having a third-person view option came in handy during some platforming phases to take distances into account better.

Sound cues won’t be a big help. For example, footsteps are fairly discreet, and it’s not necessarily noticeable if your character stops running when blocked by a wall or other barrier. Picking up objects is also only signaled by a very slight sound effect. Maybe you could adjust the ‘Effects Volume’ specifically in relation to the rest?

Finally, you can also adjust the size of interface text. This setting won’t have any impact on the health bar or essence meter. However, it does affect all on-screen text, the active quest, as well as the quest objective reticle displaying distance. The game can do much to highlight these elements.

This also applies to menu text.

A score of 4/10 may seem harsh, given the options available for combat and gathering, but the surprising absence of color filters for color-blind players and clear sound cues is a major problem.

What if I have hearing loss? 9 / 10

Music, sound effects, interface, and voice volumes can be set individually.

The interface text setting mentioned in the previous paragraph is used to adjust the size of subtitles. In addition to subtitle background shading, I liked the option of setting the minimum duration of subtitles from between 0.1 to 3 seconds! This is useful when you land in a completely new world.

Finally, you can display or hide NPC chatter, which, therefore, becomes entirely optional.

Regarding the hearing side, the classic tools are on-hand. A special mention must be made for the subtitles’ duration setting.

On the other hand, a lack of French dubbing [sic.] can make it difficult to come to grips with the story and Avowed’s sometimes talkative world, especially at the beginning. [Translator’s note: Both voice and subtitles are also available in English.] Similarly, a lack of assistance with dialogue choices can be an obstacle.

What if I have a cognitive disability? 6.5 / 10

There are five difficulty settings, from Story Time, with its emphasis on storytelling and exploration, to Path of the Damned. A written explanation for each details the particularities of each different mode. For example, Normal Difficulty requires strategy and dexterity in combat while forgiving a few mistakes during the latter.

You can change the difficulty at any time during the game.

To follow the story at your own pace, you can adjust subtitle duration or even require player confirmation after each line of dialogue. To move on to the next, press A. If you want the opposite, you can also skip dialogues until you reach your character’s response, which generally punctuates talkative phases.

I really liked the map’s legibility and the richness of the HUD. You can definitely fine-tune your experience according to your preferences and needs. For example, you can choose whether the compass displays resource locations, nearby loot, and enemies, or not. Likewise, Avowed takes care to highlight the current quest by default, so there isn’t any need to manually select the next one. If you want to follow a particular quest, you can use the Journal to select it.

Tutorial reminders are available in the Journal. Explanations are in the form of illustrated examples, often accompanied by images or even short videos. The latter are particularly relevant and helpful to understand all the subtleties of combat.

You can hide health bars and essence meters by completely hiding the HUD and active quest text. Usually, the screen is packed with information, especially during combat, such as enemies’ weak points, damage done, or a successful critical hit; however, as mentioned above, you can choose which information you want to display, such as the region you’re in, the aiming reticle, etc.

So, for those who find it hard to concentrate, all you have to do is switch on Story Time, hide on-screen information, and just enjoy Avowed as an action game by following the main quest, which is automatically indicated by the on-screen reticule.

Regarding equipment level, red or green arrows indicate whether the item in question increases your power. You’ll quickly be able to identify whether a particular weapon needs to be equipped from the inventory menu, which is packed with information.

However, what’s missing is the ability to equip the best gear you’ve salvaged by default. Secondly, the compass is very practical, but it’s too ‘unobtrusive’ in the top left-hand corner and, therefore, not always very noticeable by player profiles drawn by what’s happening at the center of the screen.

What’s more, Avowed can be tricky to master as an FPS because you need to know how to use the camera and have the habit of looking around to get a feel for what lies ahead.

What we think

In conclusion, Avowed receives an overall score of 6.5, but with wide disparities.

The absence of key remapping and color-blind filters is surprising and detrimental. What’s left are clever subtitle settings and a highly customizable interface.

Unfortunately, there are still obstacles in regards to cognitive disabilities. They’re inherent to first-person views in the action RPG genre, and the Story Time difficulty setting doesn’t manage to compensate for them.