Obsidian Entertainment has been quietly beavering away on its well-received fantasy action-RPG Avowed, and the latest of the studio’s toils are now available in its newly released 1.5 update, introducing Steam Deck verification, new class abilities, and more.
Starting with that Steam Deck verification, it’s exactly what it sounds like – providing enough under-the-hood tweaks to tick off all of Valve’s boxes. And there’s also a new 40fps frame rate limit option that’s presumably been added as a part of Obsidian’s handheld finessing.
Arguably the most significant addition in 1.5, though, comes in the form of a Ranger and Fighter refresh, with both classes getting new abilities and passives on their skill trees. This, Obsidian says, should “round out the classes compared to the Wizard tree”. The full list is pretty extensive, but Fighter upgrades include the powerful block-breaking Driving Kick and pulverising Barbaric Smash, while Rangers can deploy the sneaky Shadow Step, as well as Deadly Poison. The latter, as you might imagine, makes poison more deadly.
Elsewhere, 1.5 adds more unique gear across a number of regions, meaning you’ll now find (among other things) a new unique two-handed hammer and wand in Dawnshore, and a new unique one-handed axe in Shatterscarp. “We found that players were not able to play specific builds that they wanted to early on in the game,” explained Obsidian, and this is the solution.
Beyond all that, there are tweaks to enemies that introduce two new types of barriers they can use – one blocking melee attacks and the other blocking magic attacks. They can also now access a number of player abilities, including Clear Out, Blizzard, and Tanglefoot. If you’re looking for more granular detail, however, you’ll find full patch notes over on Steam.
Avowed’s 1.5 update – which is available now on all platforms – arrives as the second planned update in Obsidian’s previously announced post-launch roadmap. A third update, scheduled for this autumn, is set to include New Game Plus, a photo mode, a new weapon type, new character presets, and more.
“What Avowed lacks in gloss it makes up for with charm, depth and a playful heart,” Eurogamer’s Robert Purchese wrote in his four star Avowed review earlier this year.