eYou need to switch between fantasy realms. Who am I again? What do I do here? Who are all these people? It’s been a golden age for fantasy recently, and inhaling Dragon’s Dogma 2, Metaphor: Rifantagiothe seasons of Dragon House and all seasons of Rebecca Jaros are beginning to blur the details of one kingdom with another, less than a year later.

Avowed’s Fantasy Universe is ready-made from other Eternity Games pillars of developer Obsidian. The lore is dense, the in-game text is rich and the characters are redundant, but thankfully the land between them is fascinating to see the territory of Eora, full of political tensions and cool monsters. I remember valuable names and historical details, but I remember some of my experiences with this game – big enough for a crazy priest to build as a huge automaton inside The view from the rattle road hugging the walls of an underground cave and the secrets of the skin crawling I discovered in the basement of my fellow family homes. The appearance is annihilation and obliv with fungal and floral details that embroidery the structures and people you encounter, embroidering the ever-present tension between organic and rot.

The land in between is destroyed by a disturbing plague that angers people before it is consumed by mushroom-like growth. You, an envoy from the distant centre of the Empire, have been sent to investigate. You are like God, touched immortal, through this strange place, by the sacred voice in your head and the various native companions I felt truly enlightened. You will be guided. Avowed has many choices and self-direction, and it is a game that always respects your intelligence. The characters are interestingly written (densely) and there are many ways to respond to them. That’s far less than the Whedon-esque man/bad guy/joker reaction, as the cries echoes other games force you out of you.

I was hoping for a lively adventure of Obsidian sci-fi comedy The Outer Worlds for 20 hours, but readers, this is it’s not. This game is immeasurable. We spent some time in the opening area of Dawnshore and spent some old time familiarizing ourselves with spider-equipped caves (there are a lot of these, but this is not an Arachnophovictic game). Booty. (This is because I’m stagnant in the main quest, and I forgot about the important information that was displayed once in the text tutorial for about 5 seconds.) Only after 15 hours on this comfortable coastal land, I’d say I met one of my central antagonists. A memorable and terrifying warrior dressed in intricate armor and a mask with smoldering eyes. Then I found myself in a densely rotten jungle swamp filled with amazingly cheerful necromancers, and it big From Dawn Shore. When I arrived at my third new location about 30 hours later, I realized that there was no measure of this world at all.

Unfortunately, AVOWED is better It was 20 hours long. I’ve always been lost on strike from town and have come across something interesting like Skyrim and Fallout. However, there are two stickiness issues that suck fun over time. The first is common to many open world games. Once you arrive at a new location, all the quests and battles are a little difficult. After hours of quests, exploring weapons and armor, and upgrading, it hits a short sweet spot that all feels challenging but conquering. Then you start to feel like everything is too easy and empowering yourself, and it’s like a box-chic movement. This pattern repeatedly eroded my patience in the game.

The second problem is that the combat in Avowed is not as fun as it thinks. A lot of it. There are an impressive number of weapons and techniques, including Grimoire and Staff for spells, giant two-handed axes, bows and pistols, maces, shields, and more. But no matter what you choose, it feels inaccurate and boring, and the likelihood of success is determined by invisible numbers rather than skills. Make sure to take on enemies above your level, and how well you dodge the Great Sword path, or how cleverly you combine your magical effects to freeze undead skeletons. It hardly matters whether to grind it. The key is the quality of the gear. This should be continuously and painstakingly upgraded with random materials from warehouses that are found in every chest or lockbox. I was extremely tired of destroying R2 and firing magic projectiles, hacking tree monsters with my sword, and being so determined that I was missing from hit points. My companions either didn’t feel particularly useful in the fight.

All the diversity and textures in the fiction here are lacking in combat and loot. The end of the most interesting quests is home to unique swords and trinkets, but the fun of exploration is rarely found outside the scenery or characters. If you come across a powerful enemy, you may be losing your strength for the fight. If you find an appetizing, glowing breast in a cave, it can be filled with pennies, chunks of iron, and some fur.

Avowed began as Obsidian’s answer to Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series, reminding me of many oblivion and Skyrim in an exciting moment when I tripped over something unexpected in the wild. But it also shares a tendency to repeat those games and a sense of weightlessness in their fight. My first 15 or so hours on the land felt potentially rich, but I was tired of it long before the end.