Ultimate Avowed Review for 2026

Latest Update: June 26, 2026 – Categories: Avowed

The Avowed Anniversary Update and PlayStation 5 release are here, and this Avowed review asks the only question that matters in 2026: is Obsidian’s first-person fantasy RPG worth playing again, or for the first time? Originally released in 2025 for both PC and Xbox Series X and S to acclaim and criticism alike, Avowed eventually returned at a reduced $50 price with New Game Plus, new difficulty settings, new playable races, and other gameplay changes that push replayability much higher than it was at launch.

If you’re an RPG player weighing the PC, Xbox, or PS5 version, and especially if you’re an Obsidian fan deciding whether to jump in or come back, this review breaks down where Avowed stands now after hundreds of hours with the original release and hands-on testing with the PS5 version and Anniversary Update. Below, I cover its story and lore, companions, combat, exploration, enemies and difficulty, builds, the game’s biggest critiques, and how much the new update improves the overall experience.

Table Of Contents

Avowed 2026 Review At A Glance

Avowed Story and Lore

The writing and story content in Avowed is interesting and unique, thanks in large part to Obsidian’s excellent world-building through the established Pillars of Eternity series. Eora is a rich world with many races of kith (humanoids), all with their own factions and interests, but it is all pretty standard fantasy world-building stuff: humans, elves, dwarves, magic, etc.

Where the World of Eora really comes into its own is in the concept of the “Wheel,” which is a sort of cosmic reincarnation machine. Every creature in Eora has a soul, which is both a source of energy and magic, and a sort of eternal entity that can turn through the Wheel after a person has died in order to reincarnate as another creature. For the most part, this process goes off without a hitch, but sometimes a soul can be split in two and end up in two different bodies at the same time, or a person can even be born without a soul. Other times, a soul can be touched by a god and become a Godlike – a sort of demi-god-like being chosen and empowered by whichever god touched them.

The entire system is interesting and well-explained via tons of excellent in-game resources, including the dialogue history and lore system, which can give you helpful context for specific words and ideas within the world. But in terms of story, we won’t spoil anything here other than the setting, which is already pretty well known through trailers.

In Avowed, you play the Envoy of the Aedyran Empire, which has colonized the Living Lands – a wild continent where everything wants to kill you (aka Fantasy Australia). The Living Lands is a frontier for the Empire, as well as a refuge for outcasts and renegades.

Over the course of the story, as the representative of the Empire and a Godlike with a special connection to the land, you will investigate and discover the source of the Dreamscourge – a mysterious, fungal-like plague infecting the land and its inhabitants – and help decide the fate of the Living Lands, politically and otherwise. Throughout the story, you will face several big decisions with no right answers and huge consequences worth at least a few playthroughs, which is why I’m so glad Obsidian is finally introducing New Game Plus in this latest update; but more on that in a minute.

Companions

On top of the excellent main story quest, the four companions you meet during your journey also have their own individual story arcs to explore, should you want to dive deeper into the game’s lore, races, and factions, and the companion system adds depth because these characters react to player choices when you talk to them. Each companion also has life story as well as their own skill trees, which helps give their quirks and flavor more weight in play – except for Marius, who is just always having a bad time no matter what.

If you want my two cents, Kai and Yatzli are my favorites to have around. They have some great interactions with each other and with other NPCs during dialogue choices and are generally well written. That leads to another point about companions: as the game’s protagonist, you don’t have your own voiced dialogue, only text, so it is really nice to have your companions jump into dialogue at times and even take over, even if some still lack depth or attachment compared to other RPGs. With the new Anniversary Update, some dialogues and particular dialogue camera placements were also redone to make the whole experience more engaging, which is awesome.

The Avowed Combat System

If you’re not a talker, rest assured that Avowed’s combat system delivers a dynamic classless combat experience that is one of the most satisfying first-person fantasy experiences you can have in an RPG. It’s fluid, fast-paced, and dynamic; it is literally my favorite thing about the game.

When it comes to your own player character, you can use up to six different abilities from your quick bar, plus two load-outs with different weapon types and one grenade type, all without entering a menu once you are set up. These abilities range from very satisfying charges and kicks that send enemies flying and help you break tougher targets to flashy spells where you summon a lightning ball that bounces around the room or a literal meteor shower that sends ice shards crashing down on your enemies. Different skill trees also let you tailor how those abilities and spells evolve over time.

With your weapons, you can perform light, medium, and power attacks with every weapon type to build out your own combinations. You can play a gunslinger with pistols or the arquebus (which is a big, beefy musket), a wand-and-book-wielding wizard, a sharpshooting archer, or a melee combatant with many different weapon types, including a two-handed weapon setup. Enemies also have stun gauges, and when one is filled you can trigger a powerful finishing attack with a very satisfying animation. My favorite is probably the bow, but new special attacks were also introduced in the Anniversary Update.

Of course, you can also combine one-handed weapons like swords, maces, daggers, wands, and pistols for fun dual-wield combat styles like a swashbuckling gunslinger or a “whack-and-wand” battlemage.

The dodge, block, and parry systems in the game are also satisfying in their own ways. Dodging is quick and fluid, with ways to extend your movement range through in-game items. Blocking actually blocks so that you take no damage as long as you have the stamina to absorb the blow. And with the right build investment, parrying with a timed block can allow you to quickly build up stun and retaliate against enemies without taking damage. It is a very satisfying defensive gameplay loop.

Overall, the fluidity of combat, the variation of weapons and abilities, and the core defensive mechanics all make for a great first-person experience where Avowed sets a high bar for what a fantasy combat game can achieve.

Exploration of the Living Lands

The moment-to-moment exploration in Avowed is equally impressive, with the Living Lands presented as vibrant, colorful world spaces simply crawling with enemies and loot to discover. You’ll come across many interesting and unique side quests which are completely optional, and even some story beats that come back later – such as rescuing NPCs from one area of the map only for them to return later in the game to reward you. The exploration, including the verticality of jumping, parkouring across gaps, blowing up walls, creating ice bridges, and other unique means of reaching secret areas, is super engaging. It seems like no matter where you are on the map, there’s something for you to loot, and then something secret behind that to discover. That said, revisiting cleared zones can feel emptier because enemies do not respawn, so backtracking through the first zone, second zone, or next zone loses some momentum even when you’re still hunting for unique items. The magical twinkling sound the game plays when a chest or lootable container is nearby is extremely addictive; once you hear it, you won’t want to leave the area until you’ve found everything.

Enemies and Difficulty

Enemies and boss encounters in Avowed present a nice range of challenges as you progress and become stronger. Enemy variants grow over time into more powerful versions, while you also find new types like the dreaded healers – who can keep an entire encounter alive until you take them down – or deadly spellcasters that can stun you with elemental attacks and erase your health bar if you’re not careful. Enemies in Avowed do not scale with player level or current gear.

On the harder difficulties, encounters can become quite difficult, with enemies dealing high damage and fighting aggressively. You have to be on your toes to dodge, block, or control enemies with crowd control, or else you can be quickly overwhelmed by a combination of ranged and melee attacks coming from multiple angles. That also means combat can feel uneven without proper enemy scaling, especially when gear progression starts to outpace encounters.

But there is more. All of what I just said could have applied to 2025 before the Anniversary Update, but with this new update, we are getting some really good customizable difficulty options. There are modifiers for your character’s damage output and resource availability, like essence (used to cast spells and abilities) and health. There are also sliders to adjust enemy damage, health, and aggression.

These sliders can be used to tweak your gameplay to the exact difficulty you want. Do you want a Fallout 4-style Survival mode where you deal increased damage, but so do enemies, so that everyone is squishy and aggressive? Do you want to fight blade and spell sponges? Do you want lazy enemies or rabidly aggressive ones? You can actually choose now, which is awesome.

On top of these customizations, the newly added New Game Plus mode also slowly increases difficulty as you complete successive runs, adding even more replayability. As you progress through a second adventure and beyond, the enemies you fight will gain new bonuses like additional health, damage, or even the same crowd control effects the player has access to. This system promises to make the game more difficult as you continue to play and build your character with even more skill and attribute points.

Builds and Skill Trees

My favorite thing about Avowed – and why I cover it on this channel – is, of course, the build and theorycrafting options. There are fighter, ranger, and mage skill trees that occupy the three major fantasy archetypes, and character progression also includes additional race options for further customization. But here is the kicker: this is a fluid class system. This means you can combine these in any way you like to fulfill your own power fantasy.

For example, you can play a stealthy, wand-wielding wizard that doesn’t use any grimoire spells, but instead focuses on the Ranger skill line for big sneak attacks and fast wand wizardry with the Flurry of Blows ability. Or you can play an “angry librarian” wielding a grimoire in your offhand to cast control spells while you unleash a barbaric shout and punch people with your main hand. Maybe you want to play a tanky battlemage with a huge health pool, an excellent block, and the most powerful spells in the game. What about a gunslinging, swashbuckling pirate with two pistols and a “locked and loaded” Spartan kick at the ready?

We recently updated all our Avowed builds for the Anniversary Update! Check them out!

The possibilities are nearly endless, especially when you start including unique gear options. There are items like a bow that can cast a spell for free every time you use a power attack. There are trinkets that can summon ghosts, beetles, and other creatures to aid you. There are armors that can turn you into a glass cannon and armors that turn you into a walking fortress.

The itemization in Avowed is absolutely great. Every type of weapon and armor weight – from light to medium to heavy – has unique variants that you can discover in the world, obtain from bosses, or buy from vendors, including unique weapons. It also uses a four-tier gear leveling system, and while you can respec skills, gear upgrade limitations can still restrict experimentation. There are so many opportunities to enhance your power fantasy with abilities, passives, and items that if you want to play it, you can probably find a way to make it work.

Critiques

So far I’ve been pretty positive, but Avowed is not without its issues. There are three main critiques I have that haven’t really changed in this latest update, so this applies to PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.

First, even though enemy and encounter variation is good, it is not great. If you don’t build for variety yourself, you can very easily fall into the same ability and attack rotation to beat the entire game, which can get repetitive. Ultimately, there are a limited number of enemy class types and only so many ways to combine them into novel encounters. The combat and build systems do combine to mitigate this, but if you are the type of player to pick one strategy and use it all the time, the combat may become a drag sooner than you would like.

Second, the world is not as interactive as a similar game like a Bethesda RPG or a CRPG like Baldur’s Gate 3. There are many NPCs that you cannot kill and cannot interact with. NPCs generally stay in the same location regardless of the time of day. There is no such thing as stealing; if you can see it, you can take it without consequences, even if it is in the drawers of the town governor. This can definitely make the world feel flat if you pay too much attention to it. However, I think this ultimately just changes the genre of the game. Avowed is not an “immersive sim” RPG, but much more of a story-rich Action RPG or “Arcade” RPG.

Finally, the Pillars of Eternity games have a huge variety of classes, subclasses, and abilities that just aren’t present in Avowed. The build system is robust for what it is, but it lacks Chanters, Ciphers, Druids, Monks, Paladins, and Priests. There are various flavors and themes incorporated from many of the 11 total Pillars classes in small ways – like items or individual passives – but if you are looking for a direct first-person implementation of the Pillars games, Avowed falls short.

Avowed Anniversary Update Overview

The Avowed Anniversary Update is a systems-focused release built around replayability, customization, and combat variety. It does not add new quests or story chapters. Instead, it expands how you replay the game through New Game Plus, adds post-creation character editing through a camp mirror, introduces additional playable races, and provides a detailed set of custom difficulty modifiers that let you tune the player, enemies, companions, and the game economy. It also adds photo mode, new melee finisher animations, and a new weapon type, the quarterstaff, aimed at expanding wizard-friendly weapon options. Check out our video guide overview below.

Conclusion

So, should you play Avowed in 2026? Absolutely. The game has a compelling combination of lore, story, fast combat, and build variety that makes it a treat to play through at least a couple of times. With all of the new systems like customizable difficulty, New Game Plus, and even new racial choices to re-flavor your runs, the game has only gotten better since release. Avowed was great in 2025, and this Anniversary Update has made it even better in 2026.

More Avowed Builds

Looking for the best Avowed Builds? We’ve got you covered! Check out our best Avowed Builds below, with detailed skill explanations, gear loadouts, and leveling guides.

• Avowed Complete Builds List
• Avowed Battle Mage Build
• Avowed Fighter Build
• Avowed Gun Mage Build
• Avowed Gunslinger Build
• Avowed Ranger Build
• Avowed Rogue Build
• Avowed Spellblade Build
• Avowed Two Handed Build
• Avowed Unarmed Build
• Avowed Wand Build
• Avowed Wizard Build