There are video game delays and then there are video games that wander through the desert, searching for any sign of a release date. Avowed looks like the latest game to get hit with a delay—but, for once, it doesn’t seem like that’s a bad thing at all.
In his latest Notepad newsletter for The Verge, Tom Warren reported that Avowed, Obsidian’s new RPG originally scheduled to release this year, is getting pushed to early 2025. Usually, a sudden delay isn’t a great sign—or, even worse, a sign of even more delays to come (cough, Skull and Bones, cough). According to Warren, however, this doesn’t seem to be the case for Avowed. If anything, it’s a delay that gives us hope for the game.
“I understand Avowed is in good shape,” Warren said in his newsletter, quelling fears that the game has a hopeless amount of work ahead of it to get it ready for release. Instead, Warren says the move is more of a decision based on what the release calendar looks like this fall, particularly with Avowed’s release on Xbox Game Pass in mind.
The big elephant wielding a machine gun in the room is Call of Duty Black Ops 6, which will be coming to Game Pass in October 2024. There are also games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl still to come to the service this year, making things a bit crowded for Avowed’s original release window of fall 2024. And on top of that, there’s some direct competition for Obsidian’s action RPG outside of Game Pass in the form of Dragon Age: The Veilguard releasing in the same window.
As a result, Avowed is getting moved to a less-crowded release window. And honestly? We feel great about that.
There have been countless games overshadowed by huge, triple-A releases and too-full release windows. If anything, the fact that Microsoft wants to make Avowed stand out and give it its own place to shine signals the company believes in the game and how good it can be. If it didn’t, there would be nothing stopping it from burying Avowed in the crowded fall window and hoping the Black Ops 6 revenue could carry it through any turbulence from a bad game, as opposed to repeating a Redfall situation.
So yes, we have to wait a little bit longer to get our hands on Avowed. But the reasons for the delay have us hopeful it will all be worth it.
