After years of waiting, gamers finally have a substantial gameplay trailer and release window for Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming RPGAvowed. Taking place in the same universe as the studio’s crowdfundedPillars of Eternityprojects, this title will jump genres to a first-person action-RPG similar toThe Elder Scrolls. Obsidian recently got back into first-person RPGs viaThe Outer WorldsandGrounded, so hopes are high forAvowed. The game already looks impressive and should scratch the itch for a new single-player title that manyElder Scrollsfans have been feeling.
With how similarAvowedlooks toThe Elder Scrolls, especiallyOblivionandSkyrim, it’s difficult not to also bringThe Elder Scrolls 6into the conversation. Teased years in advance, Bethesda’s next fantasy RPG isn’t expected to release until 2026 at the earliest, fifteen years afterSkyrimoriginally came out. As Todd Howard’s team has beenfocused onStarfieldin recent yearswith a pandemic occurring in the middle of its development,The Elder Scrolls 6could be quite far off. When standing next toAvowed, however, that may not be a bad thing.
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Avowed Feels Like A True Iteration On The Elder Scrolls
The tools that Bethesda’s main RPG teams used for their most recent offerings are infamously antiquated and have hampered the last several projects.Skyrim,Fallout 4, andFallout 76all run on the Creation Engine, something that has a long history of technical issues. DespiteStarfieldupgrading to the Creation Engine 2, the game will be capped at 30 frames per second on consoles, even on the Xbox Series X.Starfieldwill benefit from the most technical polish Bethesda Game Studios has implemented in over a decade, and it still can’t help but show cracks on the strongest console a Creation Engine has ever run on.
It almost feels unfair to turn towards another Microsoft studio making a similar game seemingly without those issues.Avowedlooks likeSkyrimwith better combat, better animations, more colorful art design, and a fresh, new world. Obsidian has made a concerted effort to fix the mistakes synonymous with Bethesda RPGs,producingThe Outer Worldsas a sci-fiFallout: New Vegasand nowAvowedas a heavily modifiedSkyrim. IfAvowedandThe Elder Scrolls 6come out within a couple of years of each other, comparisons between the two will be inescapable. Even backed by better hardware, software, talent, and funding than ever before, that’s not somethingThe Elder Scrolls 6can afford.
The Elder Scrolls 6 Must Stand Out, And Apart, From Avowed
Skyrimis a living legend in the game industry. It continues releasing skews on new consoles with many of the issues it launched with, and sells in spite of that. The fifthElder Scrollsgame struck a chord with mainstream gamers that has only been replicated by a few open-world fantasy titles since then.Expectations forThe Elder Scrolls 6will be appropriately high, and if the game manages to release within two or three years of a successfulAvowedlaunch, some of its thunder will be stolen.
There’s a chance that, ifAvowedcomes out in late 2024 or is delayed to 2025,The Elder Scrolls 6will also be pushed back. Microsoft wouldn’t want its own projects to cannibalize each other, andTES6will still take years to make even if some of theStarfieldteam has already begun pre-production on it. Chances are,The Elder Scrolls 6will release far enough away fromAvowedthat it won’t matter when Obsidian’s game comes out. Still, it will be a good idea forBethesda to keep an eye on what Obsidianis doing with the formula it once championed, and learn from it while makingThe Elder Scrolls 6.
Avowedwill release in 2024 for PC and Xbox Series X/S.
MORE:Starfield Features That Might Be Testing the Waters for The Elder Scrolls 6
