Avowed's Anniversary Update is a great excuse to return to Eora, but the PS5 version should have been better

Obsidian's Avowed is now available on PS5 alongside its major Anniversary Update. Ahead of its release, I had a chance to check out the PS5 version to see how it feels compared to my time with the Xbox Series X and Steam versions from last year. I've spent about ten hours with the PS5 version of Avowed, which already has the 2.00 Anniversary Update included. While it doesn't dramatically change Avowed or fix every issue I had last year, it enhances what I enjoyed and makes for a much better experience. If you haven't already done so, I recommend reading Bryan's review of Avowed from last year.

If you haven't played Avowed since launch, it has gotten a few notable updates as a part of its roadmap, bringing in new weapons, crafting improvements, cooking improvements, custom map markers, additional language support, Steam Deck Verification, and more. While those updates are great to see, the major additions have all arrived today with the Anniversary Update. This brings in New Game Plus mode, photo mode, new character creation presets, new playable races, added customization options, new difficulty sliders, a new weapon, the ability to change appearance at Party Camp mid-game, and more. I haven't been able to sample all of these since I wasn't able to bring my progress from last year over to the PS5 release, but I started a new save to see how the onboarding is, the new class, and generally how the PS5 version feels to play right now.

For this, I created a new character using the Orlan race and then tried to go wild with the godlike features before starting a new game. Once in-game, the PS5 version with the Anniversary Update still felt just like Avowed did, and that isn't a bad thing per se. I thought Avowed was great, barring the world feeling too static. If you, like me, enjoyed clearing out and exploring a lot, you'd end up with a world that feels empty. The new update is supposed to help with that by causing some enemies to respawn, but don't expect some new living and breathing world. This is still Avowed, but with enhancements and features that build on the core experience.

The new photo mode is a good example of a feature I was hoping to see added much sooner. I adore Avowed's aesthetic, and its use of color is amazing. The photo mode is good, but it really feels like a step back from the detailed and involved modes we see in other games like the recently-released Nioh 3 or even Cyberpunk 2077. The new playable classes are a nice addition to round off the character creation options and bring them more in line with what I expected, given Avowed is set in the Pillars of Eternity universe. The new presets are also good to have if you just want to quickly pick something that looks good without spending too much time on character creation. 

I didn't really play Avowed after launch month, so I missed out on the prior updates. I either missed this, or it was added later, but I appreciate being able to exit Party Camp at night instead of it always being daytime. Avowed looks gorgeous at night, and I feel like I barely saw that last year.

Avowed now features multiple sliders for difficulty settings, letting you tweak things to be harder or easier as per your liking. This gives you control over player damage, max health, max essence, stability, cooldown time, health regeneration outside combat, carry capacity, merchant prices, and much more, in addition to tweaking companion and enemy settings. If you make things harder for yourself, you will be able to earn more XP, with the bottom right of the screen now indicating how much added XP you get from modifiers when in the difficulty slider menu. This is a great change because some people found Avowed a bit too easy.

Avowed on PS5 arrives with the same display modes that the Xbox Series X version had. This means you get a performance 60fps target mode, a quality 30fps target mode, and a balanced 40fps at 120hz mode if your display supports 120hz. You can also unlock the frame rate for each of these modes. This is useful if you play on a VRR display. I don't have VRR, so I left the frame rate capped. Back on Xbox Series X last year, I stuck to the balanced mode since I thought the performance mode was a bit too soft on my 1440p monitor. After spending time with all three modes on PS5, I did the same, though I was hoping to see the balanced mode visuals improve a bit. It isn't bad, but I noticed a lot of noise or shimmering early on. This isn't remotely as much of an issue in the quality mode, but I ended up tolerating it for the 40fps experience.

Note: The three screenshots above showcase the foliage and other differences on base PS5 across performance, balanced, and quality modes.

I noticed all three modes have minor hitching in parts or sometimes freezing for a second during traversal on PS5. This is similar to the Xbox Series X experience, unfortunately, but I have not been able to play the Anniversary Update on Xbox or Steam yet. I only have the 2.00 update with the PS5 build right now. Speaking of the PS5 build, I was happy to see Activity Card support for tracking progress, but the lack of proper DualSense support is disappointing. Not only is there no haptic feedback beyond the default rumble, there are also no motion controls at all. I was hoping the PS5 version would mean Obsidian looks into this, but it is not there right now. It has some lightbar support, though. On Steam, I used Steam Input and enabled gyro manually when playing on PC and Steam Deck.

Speaking of Steam Deck, Avowed has been Steam Deck Verified for a few months now, and it sadly is not a good experience on Valve's handheld even now. Before the Anniversary Update and based on the build a few days ago, even on the lowest possible settings with FSR Ultra Performance, it regularly drops below 30fps. I don't consider that playable. I hope the Anniversary Update will improve this, but I don't have access to it outside of the PS5 build to comment on it. I will update this if anything changes after the update is live on PC, though.

One final thing to touch on is the price point. Avowed is now a $50 game rather than a $70 one. I think the combination of the lower price point and all the updates makes it an easier recommendation for newcomers. If you own it and bounced off Avowed last year, it is a more polished experience with some features that I think should have been there at launch. If you enjoyed your time with it, but did not finish it, the Anniversary Update is a great excuse to return to Eora. I'm curious to see if there are more updates planned beyond this Anniversary Update. If it does get a Switch 2 port in the future, I will definitely get back to it and hopefully try out another race with a different build like I have been doing and enjoying on PS5.