Avowed review – Annihilation meets Oblivion in a vast, intricate fantasy

Xbox, PC; Obsidian Entertainment/Microsoft
Obsidian's huge, heavily detailed fantasy world has a lot of variety and texture, and interesting people to meet - but the combat and exploration wear thin

Every time I have to switch between fantasy realms I feel a little like the workers in Severance. Who am I again? What am I here to do? Who are all these people? It's been a golden time for fantasy lately and having inhaled Dragon's Dogma 2, Metaphor: ReFantazio, both seasons of House of the Dragon and all of Rebecca Yarros's Fourth Wing novels in less than a year, I'm starting to blur the finer details of one kingdom with another.

Avowed's fantasy universe comes ready-made, from developer Obsidian's other Pillars of Eternity games. The lore is dense, the in-game text plentiful and characters verbose, but thankfully The Living Lands is fascinating to look at and the realm of Eora full of political tension and cool monsters. I remember precious few names or historical details, but I will remember several of my experiences in this game - the view from the rickety path hugging the walls of an underground cavern big enough for a mad priest to have built a gigantic automaton inside, and the skin-crawling secret I discovered in the basement of a companion's family home. The look is Annihilation-meets-Oblivion, with fungal and floral detail embroidering the structures and peoples you encounter, and and ever-present tension between the organic and the corruptive.

Avowed is released on 18 February; 59.99