Avowed embraces its fantasy elements and is a stronger Xbox RPG for it

Avowed’s decision to go big with its fantasy setting is an excellent one, in my opinion, and means you’re fully immersed into a vibrant, colorful world with the feel of a classic RPG. Game Pass players can now get cracking with the Avowed achievements, and, as our Avowed review probably makes clear, I absolutely loved it and its big, bright, fantasy world.

• Release date: February 18
• Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Windows
• Xbox Game Pass tier: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

Now, this isn’t even taking into account the rich lore, world-building, and story content of the game with its extensive dialogue, combat combinations, and companion questlines. We covered that (as much as we could, without going into pages more) in our review. Yet gilding the edges of all that, and playing into the bright, vibrant world, is the game’s willingness to fully embrace its fantasy setting for a magical, detailed, classic fantasy experience.

Enemies retain signs of the attacks used against them. I love this kind of detail — spells and certain weapons already have magical visual effects of their own, but the remnants these defeated enemies leave behind (bodies crackling with electricity, or reduced to ash or ice, for instance) give a feeling of weight and consequence to this chaotic magic, and add another layer of magic to the experience.

Then there are all the little details. The combination of falling leaves, butterflies, sunlight, stars, and bright flowers all makes an almost overwhelmingly colorful explosion. Potion bottles glow red and purple, so you can glimpse them secreted in a tantalizingly out-of-the-way place.

The subtle shimmering sound of nearby loot might alert you to the possibility of secret doors, or bloodstains might lead you to hidden areas. Subtle visual and auditory hints like these make The Living Lands feel rich with exploration potential and magical details.

These details are embedded into gameplay, too. A health potion, for instance, will see your character actually pulling the potion flask out and downing it. It’s a great bit of immersion (even if it does leave you open to attacks and to not actually being healed at all) and definitely feels fairer, combat-wise, than hiding in my inventory and downing potions while my opponent fidgets about, waiting for me to come back and fight.

Those details are also included in Avowed’s wonderful environmental storytelling. Drawings in Xaurip camps (an enemy type identified in my review notes as “dino boys”) give an idea of a society and history behind these opponents, while little signs of long-ago lives in abandoned houses — notes or belongings — tell you about the personalities of the people who used to exist there, and even the story of what happened to them. It all adds to the feeling of stories and lives happening even outside your own.

Bright colors are used to great effect in everything in Avowed, particularly exploration. Running through a network of underground tunnels and spotting a glow of purple light in a crack in the floor, for instance, will send you off looking for whatever secret room might be down there. There’s elements of The Outer Worlds in this vividly bright world, and especially in the vibrant, bizarre creatures scattered throughout the land.

This is just as true when night falls and the world comes alive with bioluminescence. There’s light everywhere, from a clump of glowing mushrooms to far-off fires hinting at enemy camps or ruined temples. Even the sky isn’t just blue or black, but purple.

Little glows and touches of color across the night-time scenery make it almost hard to choose which path to explore first. Couple that with the sounds of birdsong, waterfalls, or NPC chat, and the haptic feedback (near fire and waterfalls and so on) and it really puts the “living” in The Living Lands.

I also mentioned in our review how Avowed often feels like a classic fantasy RPG. There are nods to this throughout, right down to the fact that you can often find loot behind waterfalls (where it absolutely should be). I don’t know about you, but it’s almost a knee-jerk reaction to check behind waterfalls in games, and finding any kind of loot there seems to subconsciously scratch the RPG itch.

All of this exploration is complemented by a wonderful soundtrack. When you’re off in the wilds, this soundtrack reaches epic proportions and, like the music we loved in Skyrim, becomes almost sombre. It’s easy to just wander around The Living Lands, forgetting main missions and side quests to drink it all in.

It’s not like fantasy games need to be bright and colorful. Elden Ring is just one of many examples of a dark-fantasy game which strikes an excellent balance between visually dark elements and spots of bright color. But I also love when a game dives fully into the vivid side of fantasy settings, and without feeling like the story needs to be all light-and-bright too.

In this case, Avowed’s decision to embrace these elements makes it a far more vibrant, absorbing game — and one which I think deserves to be counted among the best RPGs on Xbox. What do you think? Are you a fantasy RPG fan? Let us know in the comments!