Avowed’s Character Creation May Already Be Losing The Battle to Skyrim

Highlights

• Avowed’s character creator is more limited compared to Skyrim, with only human and elf options, which may impact replayability and player immersion.
• The limited race selection in Avowed is a deliberate choice to avoid complications in combat and balance, but it does limit player options and perspectives.
• Despite potentially having a more advanced character creator, Avowed may still be overshadowed by Skyrim due to the perception of having fewer options and less immersion in the game.

It has been a long road for Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed to finally get to have a release window of fall 2024, with the game gradually becoming one of the most highly anticipated of the last few years, seeing the multitude of Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls fans looking forward to it. However, Obsidian has responded to Avowed and Skyrim comparisons, and it’s now more evident that the upcoming fantasy RPG is quite different from what Bethesda achieved all those years ago. Still, it’s going to be hard for Avowed not to be haunted by Skyrim‘s legacy, and one of the starting points for this is the way their character creation processes will differ – with Avowed‘s feeling like a downgrade based on recent news.

Skyrim didn’t have the most advanced character creator, although it allowed players to change a lot of details about their Dragonborn, but that level of freedom eventually became a staple for the industry and RPGs that followed. While Avowed and Skyrim do share some surface-level similarities, one of the more interesting comparisons between the two is how they are not new IPs, but rather part of a larger franchise. In the case of Avowed, that is Pillars of Eternity, but unfortunately, there is one big area tied to character creation and immersion that won’t carry over from it.

Why Avowed’s Character Creator is Already Limited

How Skyrim and Avowed’s Available Races Compare to One Another

Unlike Skyrim, where every The Elder Scrolls playable race does make a comeback from the get-go, and then some are added via mods, Avowed‘s character creator is confirmed to only have human and elf options rather than the full cast of creatures from Eora. Normally, in Pillars of Eternity, there are six playable races among an even wider selection of fantasy creatures – some with anthropomorphic features that could warrant them becoming playable in the end. Still, Pillars of Eternity allows players to play as:

• Humans
• Aumaua
• Dwarves
• Elves
• Orlans
• Godlike

There are also several subraces available to all playable races in Pillars of Eternity, and while it’s unclear if Avowed will feature them too, the main drawback of the upcoming RPG’s character creator is how it limits players’ options. The sheer size difference across the various races in Eora is what drove Obsidian to choose between multiple options and an overall easier and more consistent approach to combat. Having size differences between the races would make Avowed‘s combat system much more complex and hard to balance, so it makes sense to cut playable races to avoid that.

Why Avowed’s Limited Race Selection is Rough to Compare to Skyrim

How Fewer Playable Races Can Impact Replayability and Perceived Options

However, having only two races available when making a new character can heavily disincentivize replayability due to the limited options when making a new character, even if the character creation process ends up being deep and detailed. Likewise, Skyrim‘s multiple races (as well as The Elder Scrolls 6‘s, presumably) do put a dent into a choice that’s only between two out of six available in past Pillars of Eternity games set in Eora. This doesn’t mean players won’t see the various races of Obsidian’s universe, but rather it limits the point of view to only two.

What follows is that even a more technically complex and advanced character creator in Avowed may end up being overshadowed by Skyrim‘s, as the perception of options available can dramatically change. And thus while Obsidian may have a more polished product with a limited selection, it comes at the cost of immersion, both in terms of player agency and series lore, and that may not be a battle worth losing. It remains to be seen what the comparisons between Avowed and Skyrim will look like in the end, but regardless of how fair they can be, they seem more like an inevitability at this point.