Obsidian Reveals Big New Avowed Update for Anniversary

Obsidian Entertainment released Avowed in February 2025. Avowed is a first-person action RPG with visceral combat that players can play on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. A year after its release, Avowed is now celebrating its first anniversary. To mark that anniversary occasion, Obsidian has announced and rolled out a big Avowed update that adds a variety of notable new features for the game.

Obsidian Entertainment announced the Avowed update with a YouTube trailer and on its website. A passage on the Obsidian site announced the update as follows: “It has been one year since the launch of Avowed, and the team is ending its post-launch roadmap with a substantial anniversary update built with both returning and new players in mind. This release delivers long-requested community features and a broad slate of quality-of-life improvements, including a fan-driven feature to bring Avowed even closer to its Pillars of Eternity franchise roots.”

The update video primarily shows footage of the new playable species introduced by the Avowed update. There, we can see the new Dwarves, Orlans, and Aumaua species that the update has added to the games. There are now five species available at character selection, but the Party Camp also allows players to change species in-game with a new Magic Mirror feature. The Avowed update has introduced the following stat bonuses for the new species:

• Humans: +1 might and +1 resolve
• Dwarves: +1 might and +1 constitution
• Orlans: +1 perception and +1 resolve
• Aumaua: +2 might
• Elves: + 1 perception and +1 dexterity

Many players have been requesting that Obsidian add a New Game Plus option to Avowed. Obsidian has seemingly listened and duly introduced a New Game Plus option with the Avowed update. That new game mode enables players to play through Avowed again with all unlocked abilities, spell attributes, unique weapons, unlocked enchantments, unique gloves, and boots obtained from their previous completed games. However, players do not retain companions, resources, consumables, quest items, and unequipped armor from previous games in the New Game Plus mode.

The February Avowed update has introduced a new quarterstaff weapon, which we see in the trailer. That two-handed weapon supports the archmage playstyle for blending magical utility with strikes. There are also new melee and stun combat finishers for one and two-handed weapon categories.

Photo Mode is another notable new feature added to the game with the Avowed update. That mode allows you to capture customized screenshots of your character and the Avowed game. Players can select to apply visual enhancements and camera controls to capture more unique in-game screenshots with the Photo Mode. To activate that mode, pause the game and select Photo Mode in the options list.

So, the anniversary update for Avowed has added quite a few exciting new gameplay features to the game. Players who’ve already completed Avowed will certainly appreciate the New Game Plus mode. All players can have fun with the new classes of species, combat enhancements, and Photo Mode.