Avowed is set in the world of the studio’s Pillars of Eternity games, though the new title will shift the franchise from an isometric format to an Elder Scrolls-style first-person perspective. Players then explore the Living Lands, an ecologically diverse frontier in the far north of the world. Many RPG fans have high hopes for the game, with Obsidian having developed fan-favorite titles from Fallout: New Vegas to The Outer Worlds.

The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced back in 2018, but since then Bethesda has released little news about the game. Though TES6’s release date remains unannounced, it has been confirmed that the game will not release until after Starfield, the studio’s new IP. Elder Scrolls fans who are hoping that Avowed will tide them over may find one key difference between The Elder Scrolls and Obsidian’s RPG design though.

RELATED: Avowed Can’t Just be Skyrim 2

Skyrim’s followers are relatively barebones, even for a game released in 2011. Compared to 2010’s Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim has far more characters who can be recruited as followers, but with far fewer unique lines, quests, and with next to no engagement with Skyrim’s main story or any other major questlines. Even the recruitable followers with the most story like Aela the Huntress or Cicero have stories which are completely independent of their journeys with the player.

Skyrim has over 40 recruitable followers, while New Vegas has just 8, allowing Obsidian to develop those characters in far greater depth. New Vegas companions like Cass and ED-E don't just have missions that have to be completed before their recruitment but have continuing storylines that reveal more about their characters. Though some characters in Skyrim have pre-recruitment quests, few continue to have storylines once available as followers.

In some ways Skyrim’s lack of follower depth complements the game’s broader design. Skyrim prioritizes freedom above all else, and the range and flexibility of its follower characters allows them to blend in no matter who the player wants to roleplay as, while in New Vegas characters like Boone are incompatible with roleplaying decisions like joining the Legion for story reasons. Without its focus on player freedom it’s unlikely that the game would have achieved the replay-value or longevity Skyrim has enjoyed, even as the game approaches its 10-year anniversary. Based on Obsidian’s past games, however, it’s unlikely that Avowed’s companion characters will follow Skyrim’s freedom-focused design.

Obsidian’s RPGs from Pillars of Eternity to The Outer Worlds have focused on a smaller but more developed cast of secondary characters with unique lines and greater integration into the game’s main plot. Bethesda has also done this more since Skyrim, with Fallout 4’s follower characters like Nick Valentine having their own quests and character development.

In Obsidian RPGs like The Outer Worlds, fans are expected to encounter the majority of their potential companions, with each follower getting their own wrap-up in the main quest’s epilogue. This has not been the case in The Elder Scrolls games so far, and though it’s possible that the next game will follow Fallout 4’s lead, Avowed is slated for release several years before The Elder Scrolls 6 and could impact the direction Bethesda goes in.

RELATED: The Fantasy Game Renaissance is Nearly Upon Us

Companion characters aren’t the only likely difference between Skyrim and Avowed. Based on other Obsidian RPGs, it’s more likely that Avowed will have a greater focus on its main quest than Skyrim does, and despite its open world, Obsidian’s past games suggest that it’s more likely that Avowed will block off its world after the main quest is completed, though this is far from certain.

Having a smaller cast of well-developed companions also makes some other elements likely to appear in Avowed. It’s more likely that players will have a base where they can find all of their companions who aren’t currently following them, for example. In The Outer Worlds, this was the ship the Unreliable; in Pillars of Eternity, it was Caed Nua; in Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, it was the Defiant; and in New Vegas, it was the Lucky 38 Casino. While Skyrim’s companions return to the location of their recruitment and rarely have opportunities to interact, it’s likely that Obsidian’s companion design will allow for followers to have relationships with one another in the story, not just the player.

There’s an argument to be made that Obsidian’s follower design comes with risks in an open-world RPG. While character-driven games like BioWare’s Mass Effect series are able to make the most out of well-developed companion characters thanks to the clearer characterization of their protagonists, the followers in games like The Outer Worlds can highlight just how much of a blank slate the player character is to the detriment of immersion.

In Skyrim, the player is encouraged to imagine almost everything about their character’s history and internal life, and the game’s lack of developed followers encourages a similar mindset with the game’s secondary characters. While few of Skyrim’s followers have much story to speak of, the sheer breadth of companions that this allows the game to have shouldn’t be dismissed, and with players already relying on their own imaginations when it comes to the Dragonborn, the amount of followers in the game helps give greater variety to each Skyrim playthrough than a game like New Vegas or The Outer Worlds has.

It’s possible that if Avowed’s companions resemble those in other Obsidian games, the upcoming title will have less replay value than Skyrim. Few games, however, can hope to match the longevity of The Elder Scrolls 5, and a more in-depth focus on character could help Avowed distinguish its style from The Elder Scrolls and step out of Skyrim’s shadow to make its own mark on the genre.

Avowed is in development for PC and Xbox Series X.

MORE: Avowed's Setting Has One Strange Thing in Common With the Elder Scrolls