{"id":1183498,"date":"2026-02-15T17:25:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T17:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=563876"},"modified":"2026-02-15T17:25:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T17:25:27","slug":"matt-mercers-avowed-quest-sold-me-on-the-games-lore-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/matt-mercers-avowed-quest-sold-me-on-the-games-lore-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Mercer\u2019s Avowed quest sold me on the game\u2019s lore system"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I love good world-building in my video games: pouring over fantastical geography, untangling the relationships between the people who live there, learning the intricacies of its arcana. While video games often contain great world-building, the way you learn it through a game’s lore often leaves something to be desired. Clunky info-dumps from NPCs get tiring and, as much as I enjoy YouTube lore deep dives<\/a>, not every game can (or should) weave together a tragic mythos via item descriptions.<\/p>\n

Avowed<\/em>, the latest action RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, not only has excellent world-building and lore, but a near perfect system for engaging with that lore<\/a>. This is especially impressive for a game set in the same world as Obsidian\u2019s Pillars of Eternity games, which players (like me) might not have any experience with. And it was the \u201cDawntreader<\/a>\u201d quest, featuring the exquisite voice talents of Critical Role\u2019s Matthew Mercer<\/a>, that sold me on Obsidian\u2019s multi-pronged approach.<\/p>\n

I went through the early side quest (spoiler warning!) in the video above to demonstrate how elegant this system is and why it even benefits players who don\u2019t particularly care about lore. If you enjoy this video be sure to check out the rest of our deep dives on our YouTube channel<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love good world-building in my video games: pouring over fantastical geography, untangling the relationships between the people who live there, learning the intricacies of its arcana. While video games often contain great world-building, the way you learn it through a game’s lore often leaves something to be desired. Clunky info-dumps from NPCs get tiring and, as much as I enjoy YouTube lore deep dives, not every game can (or should) weave together a tragic mythos via item descriptions. Avowed, the latest action RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, not only has excellent world-building and lore, but a near perfect system for engaging with that lore. This is especially impressive for a game set in the same world as Obsidian\u2019s Pillars of Eternity games, which players (like…<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1183499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1183498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polygon"],"yoast_head":"\nMatt Mercer\u2019s Avowed quest sold me on the game\u2019s lore system | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I love good world-building in my video games: pouring over fantastical geography, untangling the relationships between the people who live there, learning\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/matt-mercers-avowed-quest-sold-me-on-the-games-lore-system\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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