Avowed’s first zone of Dawnshore is the anti-Hinterlands: A fantastic first impression that I didn’t mind sinking 16 hours into

Ten years ago, PC Gamer editor-in-chief Phil Savage advised Dragon Age: Inquisition players to leave the Hinterlands, the massive RPG’s gorgeous quagmire of an opening zone. Playing Avowed, I was struck by how much it presents the opposite experience in its first area, Dawnshore. I luxuriated in Dawnshore for 16 hours before finally moving on to Avowed’s second zone, and I don’t regret it one bit.

Dawnshore’s definitely big, but I don’t know how its footprint compares to the Hinterlands⁠—in addition to the two games operating on different engines and perspectives, it’s been a long time since I played Inquisition, and my memory of the Hinterlands looms large in my mind. But Dawnshore is dense in a way I found truly impressive. The map is big enough not to feel cramped, but there’s also not an iota of wasted space.

And this gets at something special about all of Avowed, not just Dawnshore: This game has incredibly varied, surprising, and vertically-oriented level design that both invites and rewards exploration. It’s like Obsidian had a north star of applying “every waterfall needs a treasure chest behind it” logic to every possible situation and environment, a Breath of the Wild Koroks approach to secrets and rewards. One that really sticks with me in Dawnshore is a small sewer and crypt tucked away underneath the docks at the start of the area: There’s a unique item and a gaggle of ghosts under there, but no quest, story content, or clues to point you there. I simply stumbled upon it because I was swimming under the docks like a weirdo.

Another real winner in Dawnshore is the shantytown outside the zone’s central settlement of Paradis, a roughshod amalgamation of wooden huts and bridges stacked high and held up by tall stilts. Rather than rising proud over the landscape, they reach down into a depression abutting Paradis’ city walls and its outflow of sewage. I spent a solid hour or two exploring every inch of this relatively small corner of the map, climbing on rooftops and indulging in a bit of light parkour to hoover up crafting supplies, find a sailor’s lost trinkets (stolen by birds, of course), and return a wedding ring to a hapless patrician blown in from the nice part of town.

Town and Country

Paradis proper is gorgeous, and like with the shantytown, what Avowed lacks in simulationist depth, it makes up for with purposeful storytelling and inspired, bespoke level design. Paradis is a town undergoing demographic shifts, practically medieval gentrification, thanks to an influx of wealthy imperial settlers⁠—your people. All the Adeyran citizens you’re supposed to be keeping safe are apparently the reason there’s a slum outside the walls in the first place. Anyway, time to win the populace to your side.

Fantasy worldbuilding aside, there’s so much joy to be had just wandering around Paradis and breaking into people’s houses, with ample lore entries, journals, and genuinely useful treasure to be found stashed on rooftops and balconies or socked away in strange corners of town. It’s a kind of tactile, substantial level design that I’ve always cherished in the Elder Scrolls and Deus Ex games, as well as in Baldur’s Gate 3, while it’s something I always found lacking in Cyberpunk 2077, a game I otherwise love, but which never incentivizes you to go off the beaten path outside its formal missions.

And Paradis blows the Hinterlands’ main settlement, an underwhelming portrayal of Dragon Age Origins’ Redcliffe that lacked both red and cliffe, out of the water. Redcliffe felt like this perfunctory, vestigial thing at the top of the Hinterlands, while Dawnshore and Avowed writ large manage this balance of urban spaces to rural breadbasket that reminds me of The Elder Scrolls. Like Skyrim and Oblivion’s weird little towns, Avowed’s small city zones punch above their weight when it comes to making this world feel settled and inhabited.

The final piece to the Dawnshore puzzle, and one of Inquisition’s great failings, is side quests. Instead of clearing camps or other MMO-adjacent tasks, Dawnshore is all quirky little side stories, each with some kind of Obsidian twist to make them stick in your memory after. Clearing a woman’s home of little kobold guys, only to discover one of them is not only friendly, he may be the homeowner’s literal soul mate, was a real favorite. Avowed’s treasure maps, which play closer to Elden Ring’s painting puzzles than anything else, are all fun brain ticklers. But you never forget your first: Captain Henqua’s Spoils, A map stashed away at the top of Dawnshore’s lighthouse, one that led me on a merry chase and that I’m still way too proud to have figured out without a guide⁠—you shouldn’t let that stop you from using ours, though.

Dawnshore makes for an incredible first impression of Avowed, the antithesis of all the low-level doldrums and starting village blahs I’ve experienced across years of playing RPGs. It was also an accurate impression: My enjoyment hasn’t abated since those exciting early hours, and I’m closing in on the endgame at the time of writing.