A developer atObsidianhas confirmed thatAvowedisn’t even in its alpha state yet and that the game’s art will be “refined” in various ways before its launch.
Last week at Xbox’s Summer Showcase,we finally got to get another look at Obsidian’s Avowed, three years after itsinitial reveal trailer. Although our first look at the game painted it as Obsidian’s take on Skyrim, the gameplay trailer andsubsequent interviews confirmed that its scale had been reduced and the focus was moved to RPG elements instead of a big open world. It also has a different art style than what we saw in the reveal trailer, looking more in line with The Outer Worlds than the photorealistic look that was originally teased.
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As you can imagine, this new look and revised direction disappointed a few players,with some complaining about the game’s new visuals and suggesting that they’d been downgraded from the original reveal, even though that seemed like more of a proof-of-concept trailer than anything else.
If you are worried about Avowed’s looks, it might be worth holding off until the game is closer to being released, however.As pointed out by Twitter user Klobrille, anObsidian developer going by the user name Briar Diem recently shared some details about the game’s development over on the RPG Codex forums, confirming that the game isn’t even in its alpha state yet, and that its visuals are going to be “refined” in various different ways.
Briar Diem said, “All I can say is the game has not entered Alpha yet, art will get refined in various ways. Lighting will change. Though designs will not change of course. They are what they are”, confirming that Avowed’s graphics aren’t final and that they’ll be improved as the game’s development continues.
Elsewhere in the forums, Briar Diem also responded to a comment claiming that we’d be seeing the return of “Bugsidian”, saying, “On previous projects Alpha periods were sometimes just a few months long. This is actually the longest we’ll have for Alpha/Beta period for any game at Obsidian by a longshot, and is good news.”
It’s a surprisingly positive comment considering all of the negativity surrounding the game in the forum, but Briar Diem also noted that the community is so “toxic” that “no one could touch it with a 10-foot pole on official terms”. Diem notes that he personally doesn’t care about the negativity and sees the value in working with the community, but it’s a reminder that these games are coming from actual people with feelings, and that it might be best to hold off on criticism and harsh words until the game is actually out.
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