Waiting in Silence
Obsidian Entertainment has said almost nothing about Avowed’s post-launch content since the RPG released in February 2025. No roadmap, no tease, no “stay tuned” social post. For a studio that built its reputation on dense, layered worlds, that silence has a particular weight to it – and players are filling the gap the only way they know how.
They’re going back to Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.
The pattern is showing up across Reddit threads, Discord servers, and Steam review activity: people who picked up Avowed as their first taste of the Eora setting are now hunting down its predecessor, and longtime fans are doing full replays while they wait for any sign that Avowed’s story isn’t finished.
Why Deadfire Is the Natural Landing Spot
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire came out in 2018 and received three substantial DLC expansions – Beast of Winter, Seeker, Slayer, Survivor, and The Forgotten Sanctum – all of which pushed into genuinely strange thematic territory. The game never became a massive commercial hit, but it built a devoted audience that has kept forum conversations going for years. That foundation makes it the obvious destination for anyone feeling starved of new Avowed content.
Avowed shares Eora as its setting, and while the two games don’t demand you play one to understand the other, Deadfire’s lore is thick with context that makes Avowed’s world feel richer in retrospect. The factions, the Watcher mythology, the gods who meddle openly in mortal affairs – none of that gets properly explained in Avowed, because Obsidian clearly assumed players would either already know it or wouldn’t need it. For those who want the full picture, Deadfire is where the answers live.
The timing also matters. Avowed launched at a strong moment for single-player RPGs, and players who finished it in two or three weeks are now sitting in that restless post-completion window where the right game can feel like an extension rather than a distraction. Deadfire, with its massive runtime and three complete DLC arcs already available, is perfectly sized to fill that space.
What Obsidian’s Silence Actually Signals
Obsidian has a mixed history with post-launch support. The Outer Worlds received one DLC expansion, Peril on Gorgon, followed by a second, Murder on Eridanos, but neither felt like essential story extensions so much as side trips. Avowed has a different structural problem: its ending leaves threads deliberately open, and players who noticed those threads are not inclined to let them go quietly.
There’s no confirmation from Obsidian that DLC is coming. There’s also no confirmation that it isn’t. The studio has stayed almost completely quiet about Avowed’s future since launch, and that ambiguity is doing something interesting – it’s keeping the community active rather than dispersing it. When there’s no official word, speculation becomes the content. Threads dissecting Avowed’s final act stay near the top of the subreddit. Deadfire lore posts get recycled and upvoted by new readers who just finished Avowed and want to understand what they’re potentially waiting for.
This kind of community behavior – circling back to older material while waiting for a sequel or expansion – isn’t unusual for beloved RPG franchises. What makes this case worth watching is that Deadfire itself underperformed commercially, and Obsidian’s parent company Xbox has been through significant internal restructuring. Whether Avowed gets meaningful DLC may depend less on fan enthusiasm and more on decisions being made well above the studio level.
The Longer Game
For players spending time in Deadfire right now, the wait for Avowed news has accidentally produced something worthwhile. Deadfire is a genuinely better game in several respects – its writing is sharper, its companion arcs more complex, and its willingness to let the player fail morally without softening the consequences gives it a weight that Avowed occasionally pulls back from. Coming to it after Avowed, rather than before, turns out to be a reasonable entry sequence. Avowed’s more accessible design smooths the transition into the setting, and Deadfire rewards the player who already cares about Eora with significantly more depth.
It’s the same pattern playing out elsewhere in gaming right now – silence around a newer title driving traffic back to catalog entries, with the older game quietly benefiting from a renewed audience it couldn’t capture the first time around. Deadfire’s Steam review count has ticked upward in 2025, and forum activity that had been dormant for stretches is running consistently again.
None of that solves the actual question of what Obsidian plans to do with Avowed. The game sold well enough to matter, the setting has a demonstrated fanbase, and the studio has the creative infrastructure to produce strong expansion content. But Obsidian has been here before – with Deadfire itself, which shipped its DLC to an audience that was already shrinking. The studio knows what it looks like when post-launch momentum slips.
If Avowed DLC does get announced, the community that stayed engaged through the silence – including everyone currently deep in a Deadfire replay – will be there on day one. If it doesn’t, Deadfire will have quietly absorbed a new generation of players who might never have given it a chance otherwise. Either way, Obsidian’s quietest period since launch is doing more for the Pillars franchise than any amount of marketing could have arranged.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Obsidian making DLC for Avowed?
Obsidian has not officially confirmed or denied DLC for Avowed as of 2025. The studio has stayed quiet on post-launch content plans since the game’s February release.
Do you need to play Pillars of Eternity II before Avowed?
No, Avowed is designed to be playable without prior knowledge of the Pillars games, but Deadfire provides significant lore context that deepens the Avowed experience.
