When I first played Avowed back in August, it was only through a first-person perspective. The RPG’s third-person camera wasn’t available in that build. While developer Obsidian Entertainment revealed the game through its first-person camera, the developer confirmed that third-person was an accessibility feature planned from day one and wouldn’t be treated as an afterthought.
I remembered those words as I went into my second preview round with Avowed. I wanted to see if Obsidian was able to back those words up — and it has. I spent my entire time in the demo playing from the third-person perspective, and Obsidian was able to translate the weight and heaviness of movement and combat from first to third-person perfectly. Digital Trends spoke with Obsidian’s lead VFX artist Ashwin Kumar and director Ryan Warden to discuss how the studio was able to direct the game’s magic and combat systems for both camera perspectives.
More Dragon’s Dogma than Dragon Age
After recently coming off Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s smooth art direction and lightweight combat, Avowed’s more realistic approach is a refreshing change of pace. Whereas in The Veilguard, where the main protagonist can throw shields effortlessly like frisbees, my character in Avowed has to be more cautious before throwing out attacks due to a stamina meter that I need to manage.
The game’s combat is reminiscent of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s when playing in third-person, where different weapons have their own sense of weight that can deeply impact the pace of battle due to their varying stamina costs. Wielding a giant two-handed weapon does more damage per hit, but they sacrifice speed and require more stamina to execute them. It’s a typical kind of trade-off you’d see in the best RPGs, but what makes Avowed much more appealing is its character-building system, which isn’t locked to classes.
For my own personal build, I decided to wield an ax in one hand and a grimoire book in the other so that I could have both physical and magical prowess. One of my biggest regrets when playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard was that I was stuck playing as a Warrior, a class I picked at the beginning of my journey. Toward the end, my skills and layout became boring, and I wished I picked either the Ranger or Mage instead.
With the flexibility of Avowed’s classless system, I could switch between any weapon I wanted, whether it’d be a bow or a wand. I wasn’t pigeonholed into just going up close with swords. With skill points I earned leveling up, I could invest in a wealth of skills. Charge let me crash into enemies, while Minor Missiles shot magical bolts that hone in on them. It’s incredibly freeing to know that I could tailor my playstyle and not have to be stuck playing a specific archetype or class.
A change in perspective
One big change I notice when going from the first-person camera to the third-person one is that I’m better able to better gauge the distance between myself and the enemy. This was paramount when shooting a stream of fire from my grimoire. In first-person, I kept missing the initial few seconds of my hit because I wanted to keep my distance but I was too far away. In third-person, I was much more accurate and was able to get all of my hits in.
Ryan Warden tells me that perfecting the cameras could be as subtle as moving it a certain direction. “It was just a lot of iteration and adaptation,” he says. “We had to change the camera slightly. What does that do for our sort of sense of hitting, and what does that do for the degree to which the player is going to fill in the gaps with their learned behaviors?”
Kumar chimed in and said that for every interaction Avowed has — whether its combat, locomotion, or abilities — they all have two sets of animations. For example, visual effects in first-person can feel a bit more constrained compared to making them in third-person. “When we’re developing effects for first-person, it needs to be in the view. And if you’re pulled back, you can go full Monty and just have all the effects like surrounding you,” he says.
Locking in
Later in my demo, I decided to experiment with more ranged weapons, such as the pistol and wand. I was surprised at how natural they felt in both camera perspectives. With my pistol, the reticles were perfectly centered, making shooting a smooth experience. Aiming down the sights felt just as natural as it does in Call of Duty.
“One of the biggest things about that specific instance is we wanted to not obscure the screen when you’re aiming at something that should be visible down the side,” Kumar says. “So balancing player readability in third-person with enemy readability and having the reticle on the enemy was the biggest concern.”
Wands take a slightly different approach. Instead of a reticle, there are half crescents centered on the screen, indicating the general direction of where your magic bolts will fire. Each bolt is satisfying to unleash, as their homing capabilities always hit the target. When charging the shot, I can see the magic building up at the tip of my wand, but it’s never so big that it obscures the screen.
“At one point, the effect of charging it up was a bunch of embers that were flying down the barrel towards the player’s sights and that just wasn’t airing on the side of readability,” Kumar says.
Throughout my time with the demo, it became increasingly clear that Obsidian put equal amounts of effort into both camera perspectives to appeal to a wider playerbase. They both have their unique advantages, with the first-person one tending to be more immersive while the third-person one lets me be more aware of my surroundings. I was skeptical before, but like the camera itself, the demo shifted my perspective and I can’t wait to play more of Avowed.
