Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed has many RPG fans who have been waiting for a spiritual successor to Skyrim very excited. However, the first-person fantasy RPG has a huge challenge ahead of it if it wants to take The Elder Scrolls’ top spot in the genre.
There are a few ways that Avowed can distinguish itself by learning to avoid some of the problems that have plagued other RPG series. Dragon Age has faced one big problem that has only fully revealed itself as the series approaches its fourth installment. Avowed needs to avoid this problem from Dragon Age well in advance if Obsidian is to turn its next game into a successful RPG franchise.
Every Dragon Age game has a new protagonist. Dragon Age: Origins saw players take on the role of the Warden, who loses it all and is forced to join the Grey Wardens only to suddenly find themselves as one of the last two Wardens standing when their forces are betrayed at the Battle of Ostagar.
In Dragon Age 2, players played as Hawke, a refugee to the city state of Kirkwall. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, they played as the Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste with the power to close the fade rifts springing up across Thedas. Constantly having a new player character, however, caused some big problems in the long-run. This meant necessarily erasing the player characters from previous games. The Warden can end Dragon Age: Origins as the King or Queen of Ferelden, and assuming they survive the game’s climax, should at the very least be an extremely well-known and influential figure.
However, to avoid an NPC version of the Warden in subsequent games that does not align with the player’s version from Origins, the versions of the Warden that survive go missing. It isn’t until Dragon Age: Inquisition that Morrigan reveals that they have gone looking for a cure to The Calling, which causes all Grey Wardens to eventually lose their minds and descend into the Deep Roads.
Hawke makes an appearance in Dragon Age: Inquisition, but it isn’t long until the player character is given the option to heroically sacrifice their old character, likely to avoid conflicts between multiple player protagonists. In short, BioWare has had to try very hard to make previous player characters seem like they continue to exist, while also making as few decisions as possible on behalf of those characters.
Another problem arises from the fact that while the player has formed important relationships with returning characters like Alistair and Varric, with each new game those characters’ relationships with the player character are reset.
This creates a dissonance where, for example, the Inquisitor doesn’t know Varric at all and yet the player wants to treat the character like an old friend due to Dragon Age 2, making it harder for the player to immerse themselves in the role of the Inquisitor. A player whose Warden had a child with Morrigan will meet that child in the game, and yet the moment is robbed of its emotional impact because the Inquisitor has only just met both characters.
Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity series made the right call when the studio decided to have The Watcher – the player character – return for Pillars of Eternity 2. By having the sequel continue the blank-slate player protagonist’s story, the developer avoided the dissonance BioWare found themselves dealing with. If Avowed becomes a series, Obsidian should go down the same path again and allow players the option to return as their character from the previous game, able to continue their own story and have a greater connection between their own relationships with the people they meet in the world and their character’s.
Avowed is in development for PC and Xbox Series X.
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