Avowed PS5: Tips for Getting Started

Avowed is the next former Xbox-exclusive title crossing the border over to PlayStation 5 today. Obsidian’s fantasy RPG is set in the Pillars of Eternity universe, taking place in the Living Lands where you assume the role of an imperial envoy sent to investigate a blight consuming the land known as the Dreamscourge. You don’t have to know anything about Pillars of Eternity to enjoy Avowed, but from my time spent with the game on PlayStation 5, I’ve gathered several tips for you PS5 folks stepping foot in Eora for the very first time.

Turn on adaptive trigger support

For some strange reason, support for the DualSense controller’s adaptive trigger functionality is turned off by default, so the first thing you should do is turn this on in the settings menu. Oddly enough, I have played many PS5 games that have this set to off out of the box, so in general, it is good practice to always peek at the settings. In Avowed, the adaptive triggers increase the immersion of combat exponentially. Every swing of a sword, charge of a magic spell, or shot from a pistol provides weighted feedback, and not experiencing the game this way feels somewhat toothless with the triggers turned off.

Tweak the graphical settings

Along those same lines, I also recommend playing with the graphical settings while you are perusing the settings menu. On PS5, Avowed features three modes: Quality, Balanced, and Performance. You can read more about each mode in my PS5 Pro Performance Review, but the game defaults to Quality mode, and that might not necessarily be the one for you. If your display supports Variable Refresh Rate, I also highly recommend that you unlock the framerate in the options as well.

Experiment with magic

Under no circumstances should you blow off the use of magic in Avowed, as it’s some of the coolest video game magic around. Holding a grimoire in one hand, and wand in the other, firing blasts of magic and then conjuring up an ice storm is so satisfying. But with Avowed’s dual-wielding system, you could just as easily carry a pistol in one hand and a grimoire in the other, which is why I suggest that you experiment. It’s not just the way magic feels in the hands, but also the variety of spells and how satisfying their effects are: firebombs, ice storms, life-sucking spells, jumping lightning bolts, ethereal quarterstaffs, and more. And even if you’re someone who typically rocks the tried-and-true sword-and-shield combo, Avowed gives you two weapon loadouts that you can quickly swap between, simply by pressing Triangle. So, I had a melee sword and shield on one, and then a ranged wand and grimoire on the other to cover all situations.

Check for skull markers in the quest log

Quests in Avowed do not scale with character progression (or lack thereof), meaning that it’s possible to take on quests you aren’t ready for. It isn’t very upfront about explaining this to you, but when I noticed a little sword and skull icon next to a few quests in my log, I knew something was up. The number of skulls represents how much more difficult you should expect a quest to be, compared to your character’s level and gear. I generally had no issue taking on one-skull quests, but two or more usually proved too much, though not always. If you’re feeling brave, just be sure you’re prepared—prepared to die.

Choices matter

Avowed is the type of game where your choices matter in that they materially affect the world and characters within it. It’s possible for characters to get killed off and questlines to be dramatically altered. Early on, I saved someone’s life, and they helped get me out of a jam during a later quest that shaved time and a whole lot of dead bodies off my ledger. On a more subtle level, there was a time when I found a random note laying on a stool, referencing the fact that I had let a smuggler pass through a checkpoint some time ago. The kicker is that I could have walked right past the note without reading it, but that’s the kind of game Avowed is.

Character choices don’t matter as much

The character creator in Avowed is rather deep, even letting you choose one of five backstories for your character which provides dialogue choices and determines your starting weapon. There’s also a detailed skill tree with multiple categories that is easy to get hung up on, plotting and planning where you’re going to dump each skill point. But my advice is don’t worry too much. When I first started, I was going for a melee-oriented wrecking ball Dwarf and assigned points accordingly. Once I discovered the splendor of Avowed’s magic (as mentioned above), I course corrected to a Dwarven spell slinger. All it cost me was 250 coins to re-spec a branch of the skill tree, and swapping out weapons. So don’t get bent out of shape if you have a change of heart along the way. But don’t say I didn’t tell you to try the magic first.

So, there you have it: my best sage advice before you head out into the Living Lands of Avowed on PlayStation 5. If you’re looking for a full review of Avowed, take a gander at Eric’s time with the Xbox release here. Happy trails, Envoy.