Avowed is officially a top seller on Steam.
Last week, we reported on the news that Obsidian’s latest title hit the # 1 top sellers list on Steam, citing Microsoft’s Vice President of Games Marketing, Aaron Greenberg. At the time, the game launched on Early Access. Gamers had the opportunity to pre-order the game far earlier, but this news indicated that some gamers started buying the game when Early Access was available.
Today, Greenberg confirmed that Avowed has hit # 1 on Steam’s top sellers worldwide after its official launch. Prior to that, it also hit Steam’s top seller charts for the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Finland.
If there was any doubts that Avowed was a success, they should no longer exist. Microsoft, as we know, deliberately hides their financial information from the public now. That has led to most gamers assuming that their gaming business is in a bad spot, even when they claim otherwise. While Microsoft’s position on this can be harmful to their public reputation, it doesn’t seem that they are inclined to budge.
Subsequently, Greenberg talking up this publicly available data on Steam suggests that they are content to tout this data that they don’t have direct control over. Of course, we can expect Microsoft to also promote sales of their upcoming 2025 titles if they also do well on Steam.
As for Avowed itself, it certainly occupies an interesting position critically. Its MetaCritic of 80 on Xbox Series X|S and 79 on PC suggests that the game is average at best, but the metascores don’t paint the full picture on their own. Obsidian’s action RPG is divisive with critics either really enjoying it, or extremely disliking it. Interestingly, 79 % of the scores MetaCritic ranks are positive, largely reducing the potential effect negative reviews would have on the metascore.
And if you compare it to other recent Microsoft releases, such as Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, or Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, Avowed didn’t particularly take any bold risks. Obsidian’s vision of a fantasy world largely has novelty because Obsidian hasn’t made a 3D title like it before. Subsequently, Avowed stands strong on the merits of its game design, such that more gamers liked than disliked their vision.
Avowed is definitely considerably less ambitious than Starfield, but perhaps discretion is the better half of valor in this situation. It’s certainly too early to determine if Avowed will go on to be a GOTY contender, but it’s a strong start to Microsoft’s 2025, as the biggest video game publisher in the industry today.
