Indy has just been a total mess for me unfortunately. It was fine on the prequel Jungle map dream from Indiana Jones 1 and The Vatican, was running the game on mostly high settings with a solid 50+ fps (which is enough for my VRR monitor), but once I got to Giza the performance went totally to crap. I started getting huge framerate hitches where my framerate would drop to 2 or 3 fps for like 4 or 5 seconds at a time while just traveling around the map (but especially when exiting caves and buildings), and I tried lowering every setting in the graphics menu and it was still happening. I went online looking for ideas on things I could change in Nvidia's external Geforce settings, downloaded some new drivers which hadn't auto-installed for some reason, which helped somewhat, but I was still getting the huge framerate dropson Giza, but they were only lasting like 1-2 seconds instead of 4 or 5. Changing the foliage animation setting seems to crash the game every time I try changing it, even with the newest drivers. Frame gen seems to be completely broken unlike on Avowed where it works great, on Indy just turning on frame gen drops me to like 5 fps from usually 60+. 

Once I got out of Giza finally, the game has run somewhat better on the Himalayas, Shanghai, and Sukhothai maps, but I'm still getting noticeable frametime stuttering. Unfortunately, I will need to go back to the Giza map at some point to wrap up some collectibles and the one side quest on Sukhothai that requires you to revisit each of the earlier maps. Hoping the new patch this week fixes my issues, but I'm doubtful. 

Avowed would've been really cool if it was actually marketed as an action-adventure spin-off set in Eora to compliment the main series, if the main Obsidian team had spent the last 5-6 years making a AAA Pillars of Eternity III instead.

All I can say now is we better pray that Playground have seen what happened to The Veilguard and Avowed and actually heed their warning. Just give fans and gamers what they want, is that asking a lot?

I can somewhat understand that the lack of sales and buzz around Pillars of Eternity II was disappointing. I think the timing of that game and the lack of marketing were probably the biggest factors, since it was incredibly well rated by everyone who actually played it.

If they simply had the foresight to put their enhanced budget behind a sequel in the vein of Baladur's Gate III or a modern Dragon Age: Origins, there's a massive gap and demand in the market right now. Look at all the frustration and disappointment after The Veilguard, how can they not see this? This isn't something new, GreedFall came out almost 6 full years ago now and exposed the demand for this genre.

Gamers are hungry for deeper RPGs with more immersive and innovative mechanics, not shallow experiences with mediocre writing and meaningless choices. Everyone in the industry can see the contrast between Kingdom Come and Avowed right now, they set themselves up for this.

Avowed is a spin-off set in Eora. Pillars of Eternity 2 bombed and was critically acclaimed. What makes you think Pillars of Eternity III with an AAA budget would fair better? Avowed now is likely the main series for the Eora universe. Although I'd not be surprised if Pillars of Eternity carries on alongside Avowed but they both tackle different stories.

What do you even mean, what happened to Avowed? It sits at an 82 OpenCritic. Why you acting like it was a failure? C'mon man, Lmao. What is it that gamers wanted from Avowed? To most gamers it would be considered essentially a new IP. Better off asking Pillars of Eternity fans what they wanted and from what I've seen Pillars of Eternity fans are happy.

Lots of people are praising Avowed's dialogue, choices and RPG mechanics. You don't speak for everyone, I don't think it has mediocre writing or meaningless choices at all. I don't know where you're browsing but the ResetEra Avowed OT was full with praise, it has a lot of high scores from critics and it sits at 80% on Steam even despite the angry bigots.

Kingdom Come focuses more on the simulation elements, that's fine, likewise I could say that Kingdom Come gameplay looks like dogshit compared to Avowed, but I didn't, until now, Lol. FWIW I think Avowed is even better than The Outer Worlds and that is also the general reception I am seeing. It's like dooming over Fallout New Vegas 84 OpenCritic.

It is a strong start for a new franchise which can only go up from here with a smoother development.

Personally I would have had zero interest in Pillars of Eternity III AAA Remix.

And for the love of God can people stop pretending like Baldur's Gate 3 was developed by a tiny team? Larian has over 500 employees with 7 locations, Avowed's development team was 120ish by comparison. Obsidian does NOT want to work on massive AAA productions, they've made that clear multiple times, let them make what they want to make. Pillars of Eternity 2 almost crashed Josh Sawyer out the industry.

If you remove the Xbox Tax, it's closer to 86.

I am a BIG fan of Pillars of Eternity and yes it would be nice to get a new entry in the isometric RPG style but Avowed is definitely a beast of its own.

I think you are mixing 2 things here. While Avowed is set in the same universe; it is simply a different game and (I hope) a start of a new series; I am more than happy with what I see so far (I am 30 hours in) and it is definitely what I was looking for.

And while Kingdom Come 2 is okayish (at best); this is definitely not what I am hungry for... Avowed is definitely delivering on that RPG/Story telling front I think and the combat are simply phenomenal in first person. KC2 is quite boring on that front if you ask me...

I agree with one thing, Microsoft's marketing... Is just so bad; I never and will never understand why they are not doing more to advertize their games better...

Half the complaints were "It doesn't do anything new" which can be applied to dozens of games, even ones which hit the 90s and would have also been able to have been applied to "Pillars of Eternity III but AAA" Lol. It's a criticism I find baffling but oh well. There were A LOT of people who loved Avowed but it was just those who really didn't like it dragging the overall average down.

It's better than The Outer Worlds Imo and the RPG Aspects/Dialogue feels better too but The Outer Worlds is rated higher.

Think it's also funny to use Kingdom Come II to try to drag Avowed when Kingdom Come I sits at 72 Opencritic and only 3% higher on Steam. It's like, yeah, Kingdom Come II learnt how to improve from Kingdom Come I and Baldur's Gate 3 (based on Dungeons & Dragons), learnt to improve on the past two entries. But fuck Avowed for not hitting 90%+ in the first entry in its franchise amirite?

It boggles my mind. Game is great, a solid start for a new franchise, it has received a strong reception from critics and players, now the only way is up for future entries which aren't bogged down by mid-development reboots, the gameplay is nailed and they've introduced people to the world of Eora, now is time to expand the lore even further.

This is why I use words like 'foreseight'. Larian started with 50 employees but their team size grew multitudes during the development of Baldur's Gate III. Why? Because they were actually inspired to make something innovative and ambitious. Where is the innovation and ambition with Avowed?

The only people I've heard glowing about Avowed are here in this thread. If everyone you see is also glowing about it too you must have an extremely curated list of sites and places you're willing to visit, because everywhere else I've seen talking about it is apatheitc at best. And that's the ones who were even willing to give it a chance, since there was barely anyone even interested to begin with.

Now consider how long this took to develop and how little return they're likely to see, you really want to convince me this is somehow a success? Pillars of Eternity II at least did well over time thanks to it's inherent quality and greet feedback. Avowed is only going to get much worse now that the game is actually out proper and reviews will likely dip more if anyone else is even willing to review it.

It's not like I'm here to specifically doom the game, since like I said, there are at least some parts that I still enjoy. But this is the reality whether you like it or not. This game is not well received overall, and the lack of general interest could be a blessing or curse, if you want to simply give it credit for not being a Veilguard level high profile disaster.

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/462982/kingdom-come-deliverance-sales-top-8-million-units/

You must have forgotten this is a sales website.

Now remember that Kingdom Come was a first time project from a small team in Czech on a kickstarter budget. It got review bombed by some biased critics, yet the positive receptions from actual gamers helped it surge to a huge success.

Avowed is not a first time project from some new studio from nowhere. They had more than enough resources to do better. It's critic score and steam rating will all innevitably go down, as most feedback is already trending negatively.

My thoughts on this whole debate:

-Yes, Avowed has some issues, but they certainly aren't that the game isn't a fully functional Eora life simulator with an incredibly deep player choice system, they are more so QoL issues

-No, Avowed is not a flop, it's showing signs of fairly strong sales (top 15 on Xbox player charts from the $90 edition alone and a #1 on Steam where it is beating out Monster Hunter preorders about a week before it's release) in addition to strong Gamepass download numbers

-Yes, Avowed was under reviewed, it was quite obvious that it got hit with Xbox tax, it's more of a mid 80's game than a low 80's game

-Avowed is not AAA and Obsidian didn't want it to be AAA, the dev team size was said to be around 100 people which makes it more of a AA project. Many at Obsidian have said that they have no interest in making AAA games due to the employee burnout that AAA causes. The AAA industry as things currently stand seems headed for collapse and Avowed is probably more likely to make a profit as a AA release than it would have as a AAA release due to budget reasons (game devs in the US are now making on average over $100k per year, a 300 person dev team AAA studio working on a game for 5 years is looking at a budget of $160m from internal developer salaries alone, in addition to external costs [such as mo-cap and voice acting, localization team costs, external QA studio costs, publishing costs] and marketing, putting the total budget of an average AAA game in 2025 well over $200m. At $200m, the break even point for a game is 4m copies sold at full price after storefront cut, and the number of copies you need to sell only goes up from there the higher the budget obviously)

Larian growing doesn't change what I said though, every single development team grows during development, they all start in the double digits, but Larian at their height were triple the development team of Avowed's team with 6 more studios at their disposal. That is not something Obsidian wants to do and it is how they've been successful all these years, even Larian themselves said that isn't sustainable.

Not to mention Baldur's Gate 3 isn't a new IP either and has two previous successful entries to draw from. What the hell is innovative and ambitious about Pillars of Eternity but in AAA? Lol. You sure didn't make it sound anything special in your post, only simply "Take Pillars of Eternity...And make it AAA!" I'd say Avowed is plenty "innovative" in the gameplay department, it is best feeling first-person melee combat I've experienced in an RPG. Everything else sure, it isn't "innovative" but I don't really care because it's still great?

What's innovative about Forza Horizon 2? 3? 4? 5? Versus 1? What is innovative about the From Software titles? What is innovative about half the Yakuza titles? What is innovative about dozens of brilliant games? I'll tell you, nothing, Lol. That doesn't stop them from being great-amazing experiences though. If every single title had to change the wheel to be considered a success then 99% of this industry would be dead.

You definitely haven't explored much outside of your circle then, who are you listening to? Asmongold? I've literally posted dozens of highly respected critics and reviewers in this thread glowing about Avowed, I've given you another example of ResetEra (where the Xbox fanbase is very much in the minority). Are you just listening to rage-bait YouTubers?

You ask me a question which I couldn't possibly know (the development budget). You make an assumption that Avowed is going to get much worse based on nothing. There are over 120 reviews listed and it actually went up in average by one, Lol. It's unlikely to receive anymore reviews. It sure seems to me like you're hear to doom the game and make useless comparisons to other games.

• "The game is not well received overall" - Based on what?
• "Lack of general interest" - Based on what?