After years of speculation about whether Avowed takes place before or after Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian casually revealed it's a sequel through a preview quest poking fun at the events of Pillars 2
In a 31-minute Gamescom preview of Avowed by GameSpot, Obsidian has finally revealed when in the Pillars of Eternity timeline its upcoming action RPG, Avowed, takes place. The first-person Pillars spinoff begins at some point after the end of Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire.
Avowed was never billed as a direct follow-up to Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity games, but rather another story in the same setting of Eora. Still, the events of Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire in particular were so big, so transformative, and with so many ending permutations, fans like me had to wonder if Avowed took place after the original games, or at some point in Eora's distant past.
And my assumption—which seemed to be the community consensus—was that Avowed would go the prequel route. Its first trailer looked a bit more medieval than the gunpowder-infused age of sail in Pillars proper. And if you want to get really into the lore weeds, the prominence of the Aedyr Empire—Avowed's protagonist is the emperor's envoy—lent further credence to the prequel theory. Aedyr's entered its "terminal imperial decline" era by the time of the Pillars games.
But nope, not only is Avowed set after Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, the quest at the center of its Gamescom preview cheekily references the events of Deadfire before directly confirming the timeline. The quest sees you helping out a priest of Eothas—the godly antagonist of Deadfire, who possesses a magic crystal colossus to wreak existentially-motivated havoc—in digging up a relic of Pillars' most "problematic fav" deity. In the background, you can see that the disturbingly serene priest is building some kind of giant crystal effigy to Eothas.
In deliciously classic Obsidian fashion, the friendly priest is actually a bit of a freak, just like his god, and the crystal statue is a little magic Gundam he's prepared for the Eothasian artifact, a sort of mini me to Eothas' continent-killer form in Deadfire that's similarly powered by damned souls. Lest you think it's just a meta reference for players to get, dialogue in the quest directly references Eothas' Deadfire rampage as a past event.
So Avowed is moving the world of Eora forward, which is particularly exciting given how much Deadfire's ending upended things: No matter your choices, Eothas manages to undo the setting's cycle of death and rebirth, leaving the people of the world to wrestle with the implications. The Living Lands' remoteness from Deadfire and the Dyrwood, meanwhile, frees the team from having to address the nitty gritty of how players left the world, though I'm excited at the prospect of seeing a familiar face or two. We'll know everything for sure once Avowed finally releases on February 18.