Obsidian’s Avowed is going ‘classless’, ditching Pillars of Eternity’s crunchy stat-heavy builds in favour of Skyrim-like ability trees-

I was downright gleeful when I learnt that Avowed—Obsidian’s upcoming first-person fantasy RPG—was set in the Pillars of Eternity world of Eora. If there’s one thing I’m perpetually a bit mad about, it’s that the Pillars games didn’t do much, much better than they did (If there’s a second, it’s that Tyranny somehow managed to do even worse). To my eyes, Avowed is the series’ second shot at mainstream success.

But just because Avowed is returning to the Pillarsverse™ doesn’t mean we’re merely getting those isometric CRPGs in a swanky first-person wrapper. In a recent chat with PC Gamer’s Ted Litchfield, Avowed’s game director Carrie Patel and gameplay director Gabe Paramo mentioned that the new game is going a bit Skyrim with it, leaving behind the Pillars games’ class system in favour of a set of ability trees you can sample from as you level up.

“There’s multiple ability trees,” Paramo told PCG, “it is a classless game. The player will be able to kind of pick and choose their abilities as they level up and progress, and you will be able to respec.” You will choose between different background archetypes at the game’s start, but those “don’t bind the player to particular choices or builds,” said Patel, and instead “provide kind of a starting point for building your character, your headcanon.”

It’s a dramatic but not wholly unexpected shift away from Pillars of Eternity’s crunchy salad of Paladins, Ciphers, Mages, Chanters and so on. I suspect quite a few people will be sad to see them go, but it’s probably the right choice for a first-person RPG that’s aiming to be as accessible as your standard modern Bethesda fare. Then again, I’ve heard that Baldur’s Gate 3 is quite popular even with its classes, stats, and number crunching. Perhaps a Pillars-style class system would get a fairer hearing if it was released today.

Plus, it’s not like all traces of the classes you know and love are being scrubbed from Eora. Somewhere on those ability trees lurks “as many cool abilities [as] made sense to translate from a kind of CRPG top-down perspective into first-person,” said Paramo, “so you’ll just have to wait” to see whether you can run headlong into battle singing songs like Kana Rua did. 

Related Posts

Nirmal Jain assures IIFL taking corrective steps, emphasizes compliance with RBI circular

Nirmal Jain, Managing Director of IIFL Finance, clarified on Tuesday that the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) action on the firm’s gold loan business was attributed to…

RBI-Paytm Saga; All you need to know is here

Paytm shares experienced another significant downturn, triggering a consecutive 10% lower circuit on Monday. This follows a substantial 20% decline the preceding day, compounding the challenges for…

Markets will consolidate before moving upward to 22,600, says HDFC Securities’ Nagaraj Shetti

By Nagaraj Shetti After showing sustainable upmove in the last few sessions, Nifty shifted into a consolidation near the immediate resistance of 22300 levels on Wednesday and…

Why Shein Is Suing Temu—Again

Online fast-fashion giant Shein is suing their rival Temu over copyright infringements— the newest update in the ongoing feud between the two Chinese-linked marketplaces. Shein—which was founded…

The 20 Best Anime Shows And Movies To Watch On Hulu Right Now (May 2021)

While anime has been popular in the US for a long time, the explosion in streaming services has really helped push the genre even further into the…

Elden Ring- Where To Get Carian Slicer

Elden Ring is overflowing with melee weapons and magic spells, but what about those who want to stick mostly to magic without sacrificing that feel of close-range…