Veteran developer admits the combat didn’t “look great” but has worked hard to improve it
Obsidian Entertainment, the developer behind the upcoming role-playing game Avowed, is working to improve the combat in the upcoming role-playing game based on player feedback from January’s Xbox Developer Direct. At the time of that presentation, the game’s combat was criticized for coming across as a bit lethargic during combat.
In an interview with Ny Breaking Gaming: Granted senior gameplay engineer Gabriel Paramo explained that the Developer Direct show was “really great” for the team, as it allowed them to learn exactly what needed to be improved about the game.
“When the player feedback says, ‘Oh, this doesn’t look great,’ you think, OK, we need to prioritize that polish right away. So we jumped on that,” he explains of how fans reacted to the fight.
“We really focused heavily on the hit reactions on the creatures and really started focusing frame-by-frame. For example, what is the delay time between the player swinging their weapon and the moment they hit, to really make that feel a lot smoother.
“And (we) really focused on the extreme poses of the start frame of the hit reaction animations, and then also really improved the blood impact and looked at where that location comes from? Does that make sense, and maybe we should take it a step further? a little more so that the player actually notices impact effects coming out of these things.”
Paramo also explains that while players haven’t seen the bulk of the changes yet, Obsidian is also working on improving “all aspects of animation,” including visual effects and auditory feedback.
Granted There is currently no release date attached, but Obsidian is targeting a release window of ‘2024’, so players can expect the game to launch on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC before the end of the year. The game will also come to Xbox Game Pass on day one.