“We want you to be able to do that just based on however you naturally progress through the world,” says designer Berto Ritger.

Player agency and choice and consequence mechanics have always been foundational aspects of Obsidian Entertainment’s RPGs, and the studio continues to insist that the same will be the case with the upcoming Avowed as well.

For instance, speaking in a recent interview with GamesRadar, environment region designer Berto Ritger revealed that nearly every quest in Avowed can be kicked off in multiple different ways, depending on the choices that players make and how they choose to approach certain situations.

“I think almost every, if not every, quest in the game has it more than one way to start it,” he said. “You can do things out of order and pick up items and give them to people that want them, or kill a character or whatever, like, you can play things out of order. You can come at a dungeon or vice versa, from a different direction than you normally would. And we want you to be able to do that just based on however you naturally progress through the world.”

How significantly quests will vary based on such choices remains to be seen, of course, though for fans of the genre, it should certainly be encouraging to hear about player agency being emphasized in this manner. Again, that’s always been one of Obsidian’s biggest strengths, so fans of the studio’s works will be glad to see it continuing to hone its strengths with its next title.

Avowed is due out on February 18 for Xbox Series X/S and PC.