Lessons from Obsidian Leisure’s Journey in Crafting Avowed: A First-Person RPG Experience

Image courtesy of Obsidian Entertainment/Microsoft.

This week, Obsidian Entertainment, a subsidiary of Microsoft, is unveiling Avowed, a first-person narrative role-playing game set in the same realm as the Pillars of Eternity series. While the studio is no stranger to developing first-person RPGs like Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds, adapting the Pillars series to a first-person perspective presents a significant challenge. The target audience is accustomed to skill-based combat and top-down exploration. When it comes to first-person narratives—every game in this area tends to be evaluated against Bethesda Softworks’ The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the reigning heavyweight of the genre.

It’s a monumental task to get it right. Game Developer previously interviewed game director Carrie Patel about the challenge of translating the rich world of the Pillars series into first-person narrative. However, we had additional inquiries regarding the technical intricacies of this transition. When you play Avowed, you quickly notice it feels remarkably different from the narrative experience crafted by Obsidian’s relatives at Bethesda. There is a tangible responsiveness to the player animations, and the use of “hit stops” enhances the impact of every swing of a sword, axe, mace, or other melee weapon.

The essential components are complex—however fortunately, gameplay director Gabe Paramo, lead VFX artist Ash Kumar, and senior animator Seth McCaughey had answers for us and fellow developers. In a discussion earlier this month, the trio detailed how those hit stops—alongside carefully designed motion trails, a smooth 60 FPS animation delivery, and the player response to the 2023 Xbox Showcase—played a crucial role in making the game’s combat feel so impactful and memorable.

Related:Avowed director Carrie Patel explains how Obsidian pushes the limits of the narrative genre

Initial multiplayer design had lasting benefits

You may remember that when Obsidian first hinted at Avowed, it announced that the game would feature optional co-op multiplayer. That feature was ultimately removed during development (in a 2023 documentary, the team noted that designing for multiplayer was disrupting the single-player workflow), but elements of its design were “foundational” for the first-person combat in Avowed.

Paramo elaborated in a somewhat technical explanation, beginning with how the team was creating animations in Unreal 4 (and later in Unreal 5). He laid out much of the initial combat design. The objective, he noted, was to ensure that a player’s console or PC could replicate the third-person view on another player’s machine during multiplayer gameplay.

“We wanted to fully utilize Unreal’s slot system in their [animation] montages, so that you could essentially have two tracks happening simultaneously. Then, depending on whether you’re in first or third-person view, they’re in that perspective, executing that animation tree, and functioning that slot,” he explained.

Translation: To create Avowed‘s first-person perspective, Obsidian needed a functional third-person camera to capture the animations of another player and allow a first-person player to see what the other player was doing in third-person. This made the third-person camera included with Avowed (useful for players who might experience motion sickness in a first-person viewpoint) a “foundational” part of the game.

Developers familiar with multiplayer animation understand there are inherent challenges in animating objects and characters in a way that can be accurately tracked by two machines across considerable distances. Even with the multiplayer features removed from Avowed, the work invested in the Unreal slot systems was also “foundational” for the final game. “The constraints of animation timing and ensuring those elements stay in sync—if you don’t achieve that, the gameplay feels off-sync on another person’s machine,” Paramo continued. “I believe that’s where it all began.”

During that process, the team began grappling with the demands of a first-person combat design that would be dominated by melee attacks. Players can utilize firearms, bows, and magic to engage enemies from a distance, but in the narrative landscape of Pillars of Eternity, opponents are consistently rushing toward the player with a ferocious intent to deliver a swift blow. McCaughey explained that melee animation becomes “significantly more challenging in first-person to render it understandable and comfortable.”

He highlighted the significant amount of time the animation team dedicated to “motion trails”—enhanced animations that closely follow the movement of the players’ weapons during attacks. While they may not be readily visible to the human eye, their inclusion helps the brain develop a clearer understanding of how objects behave within the game. It’s similar to adding “whoosh” sounds to swords in action films. While swords may not make those sounds in real life, it helps the viewer grasp the weight behind a swing.

“We increased the source animations of these to up to 60 frames per second to achieve smooth, clear motion trails and high visibility,” he stated, adding that Avowed‘s motion trail rendering is computed in real-time. “You need plenty of samples to ensure they don’t take an erratic path through the frame as they move.”

If the motion trail animations don’t function correctly, they could appear to travel in a completely different direction from where the player swings. Picture swinging your sword from left to right, but an animation shows it from right to left. “Or in a loop,” McCaughey explained with a hint of frustration.

Creating visual effects that engage intimately

A variety of weapons and magical spells in Avowed produce an array of vibrant, dazzling visual effects. You’ll see fireballs, chained lightning, sparks of energy shooting from a wand, and more. In a purely third-person game, these effects would appear in the midground of the environment. However, in first-person perspective, these grand effects are front and center.

According to Kumar, this meant the fidelity of the animations needed to be “significantly higher” while being mindful of how much impact they had on the display. What assisted, in part, was the introduction of “hit stops” for all the weapons that play during the animation as the player connects with the enemy.

“Hit stops” for the uninitiated (like I was before this conversation) are brief pauses in an animation where an object momentarily freezes, then speeds up to imitate the sensation of impact. Kumar noted that combat designer Max Matzenbacher was responsible for integrating these into Avowed, and explained that these brief pauses were a significant addition for the VFX team to enhance combat visuals.

“On the visual side, we aim to emphasize it with additional bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing effects,” he clarified—mainly referring to blood splatter. He mentioned that these splatters also needed to function differently between first-person and third-person perspectives, as different camera angles would naturally affect how the effects appear at various distances.

McCaughey stated that Avowed‘s hit stops possess another intriguing feature. “They’re not merely pauses in the animation,” he explained. “It actually transitions to [another] unique animation where the weapon strikes and drags through—the blade strikes, is deflected, and pulls through the cut so you can feel the distinction between swinging at empty air and successfully hitting the target.”

The system also accommodates attacks on enemies whose defenses are too strong for the player’s current skill level. Different animations play for these attacks to show the player’s weapon bouncing off the target rather than forcefully swinging through.

This is a new approach for Obsidian—if you’ve observed the animation in The Outer Worlds, you’ll notice it utilized simple swinging animations for melee weapons, without any redirects based on where the impact occurred.

Refining all these animations and effects, as usual, required countless hours of reviewing fast-paced loops to determine whether their creations felt right for players. With so many different moving parts, we were curious how McCaughey, Kumar, and Parano managed to track the numerous variations and identify what worked and what didn’t.

It turns out they had an unusual reference point. Parano explained that after the Avowed gameplay reveal trailer showcased during the January 2023 Xbox Showcase, Obsidian received substantial feedback from potential players concerned about the feel of the first-person combat. The studio already intended to refine what was shown in the trailer, but now they had a concrete reference point for what didn’t truly feel satisfying to learn and compare against.

“That kind of kept me grounded at least,” he admitted. It provided a strong baseline for them to make incremental improvements—a video that could answer the question “does this feel better or worse?”

Of course, Obsidian is in a unique position to benefit from such a preview. Microsoft’s interest in promoting its own video games means they gained a prime opportunity to showcase the game to thousands (or millions?) of viewers and gauge what players thought. Additionally, they had time to act on that feedback. Developers with less marketing muscle and shorter timelines don’t have this luxury, but those working on Early Access games or creating closed beta opportunities can learn from Obsidian’s experience here.

Animation glitches can be more amusing

Because animation and visual effects are such a—well, visible—aspect, it’s where developers can encounter a plethora of common bugs, the type that disrupt your workflow because you simply stop and laugh. So, which bugs are currently occupying the minds of Obsidian’s development team?

Initially, there was the “giant sword” bug. “Sure