Avowed is a Love Letter to One Underused Fantasy RPG Character Archetype

Avowed is a Love Letter to One Underused Fantasy RPG Character Archetype

• Avowed offers players a customizable combat experience, allowing them to mix and match their loadout and wield magic and guns simultaneously.
• The combination of magic and guns in RPGs is often underused due to the differences between the two combat styles, but Avowed aims to change that by providing a diverse array of combat options.
• While Avowed is not the first game to feature the magic and guns archetype, the list of games that do is short, highlighting the underutilization of this character archetype in the RPG genre.

Obsidian Entertainment showcased a considerably deep dive into its upcoming fantasy RPG Avowed for the recent Xbox Developer Direct, and while the footage has led to some fans becoming skeptical of the game, others have been pleased to get a more in-depth look at its world, its colorful visuals, and its combat in action. In the combat footage shown, Obsidian revealed that Avowed players would be allowed to “mix and match” their loadout to suit their playstyle, and this feature simultaneously lends itself to the ability to wield magic and guns simultaneously — a character archetype that is arguably more underused than it should be.

The “magic and guns” fantasy RPG character archetype has been around for decades, but it is nevertheless often discarded due to the stark differences between the two combat styles. Implementing the ability to use both magic and guns in a game’s combat requires a specific type of fantasy world that follows a particular set of rules, which ultimately leads to it being underused in the RPG genre. Thankfully, Avowed includes the character archetype by offering players a diverse array of combat options, which will likely be useful in a variety of situations.

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The Ability to Wield Both Magic and Guns Is an Underused Fantasy RPG Archetype

Avowed Will Let Players Wield Magic and Guns Simultaneously

Obsidian has made one very important thing clear about Avowed’s combat: it is designed to be a thoroughly customizable experience with a “flexible combat system” that allows players to swap between various combat styles on a whim. In addition to being able to swap between a variety of combat options, Avowed will also allow players to dual-wield weapons, even if the two items offer drastically different combat styles than one another.

According to what has already been revealed, players can arm themselves with wands and tomes for spellcasting in Avowed, whereas sharpshooting allows them to wield pistols. Although it has yet to be explicitly shown in the gameplay footage released thus far, it’s likely players will be able to wield spellcasting items in one hand and a gun in the other, and this is based on footage of a player dual-wielding a wand and a sword. Additionally, it’s currently unclear whether there will be other gun types in the game, as only pistols have been revealed at this point.

Past Games That Allowed the Simultaneous Use of Magic and Guns

Although it is one of the more recent games to allow its players to wield magic and guns simultaneously, Avowed isn’t the first, nor is it guaranteed to go down in history as the one that did it best. Many popular RPG titles that came prior, including the Pillars of Eternity series Avowed shares a universe with, managed to blend the combat practicality of guns with the fantasy of magic and spellcasting, to the delight of fans.

• Fable 2 (2008, Lionhead Studios)
• Fable 3 (2010, Lionhead Studios)
• Bloodborne (2015, FromSoftware)
• Pillars of Eternity (2015, Obsidian Entertainment)
• Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire (2018, Obsidian Entertainment)
• Outward (2019, Nine Dots)
• Greedfall (2019, Spiders)
• Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands (2022, Gearbox Software)

Avowed may not be the only RPG to couple guns and magic, but the list it shares that feature with is quite short — not to mention the fact that two of those games take place in the same universe as Avowed and were both developed by the same company. This is proof of just how underused the “magic and guns” fantasy RPG character archetype is, which is a shame considering the layers it so often adds to combat mechanics and diversity. The hope is that Avowed proves to be a successful addition to the library of games in the RPG genre and the gaming industry sees this archetype added to more and more titles for years to come.

Avowed

FranchisePillars of EternityPlatform(s)Windows, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series XReleased2024-00-00Developer(s)Obsidian EntertainmentPublisher(s)Xbox Game StudiosGenre(s)Action RPG