Review: the declaration is my goty so far

Declared It is the first great game of Xbox Game Studios for 2025. It is developed by Obsidian Entertainment and is a first -person fantasy role -playing game (even if you can do it in the third person). The Xbox team was kind enough to give me early access to the game for the purpose of this review, but all the thoughts below are mine. You can reproduce it now on Xbox Series X | S and PC whether you buy it or access it via Xbox Game Pass.

Explore the strange and wonderful living lands, the mysterious island full of adventure and danger. As a correspondent of Aedyr, you are sent to investigate the voices of a widespread plague with a secret that threatens to destroy everything.

Mix and combine swords, pistols, spells and shields to fight while expanding many different environments and landscapes, each with its own unique ecosystem.

You fight together with the companions of a dissemination of species, which all have their unique skill set. Can you save the island and your soul from the forces that threaten to pieces?

All my time with Declared It was in the Xbox X series and was working quite well. I played around with the transition between the different graphic settings, but I barely noticed any differences in real performance.

I therefore checked the Digital Foundry video by specifically talking about Xbox performance and since then I have maintained it of quality without regrets. It is not 60 fps, but it is about 40 fps and more coherent despite being beautiful.

Before going too much about the pros and cons, I now want to talk about the basic premise of the game. I take on the role of a divine example, very rare of a person who was substantially touched by one of the gods and is special.

Since Godlike is very rare, you are a bit a big problem and of course several NPCs will have different reactions to go around. It is also important to note that you are an correspondent for the Aedyr Empire in the living lands, full of people who were trying to escape Aedyr, which also affects your relationships.

When you create your character, you have some choices to make. Obviously, you can adjust things like the appearance of your character (including interesting divine characteristics), but you must also select a background for your character who will essentially determine their style of play.

The backgrounds not only open the options of flavor and dialogue; They also determine the initial statistics and equipment. For example, the court wishes (my choice) gives you a club (I found this interesting choice) and the following increases: +3 perception, +3 intellect, +2 dexterity, +2 determination, +0 May, +0 constitution. In the meantime, the war hero gets a spear with +3 could, +3 resolution, +2 constitution, +1 dexterity, +1 perception, +0 intellect.

It is quite to dress the table. We child this game a couple of pegs! I will be honest, there is not much of which I don’t like Declared. My biggest complaint is a little situational. You can activate the game to be in third person, something I really like and that I want was available in any game that allows you to customize your character (looking at you Cyberpunk 2077).

At the beginning, this was very funny, but then I understood a problem. The jump and the fall seemed so floating that I had to return to the first person view that made me a little sad, but certainly not a dealbreaker.

Another negative on the matter Declared It’s just a strange choice. You can go to the settings and adjust the icons that appear in a minimum with all except a hinted for default. The one deactivated by default is related to Totems, a type of article that can give you various bonuses based on what you have set in your party field.

As I said, you can easily activate it, but it is annoying that it is turned off by default. Speaking of the minimap, I will admit that it is not my favorite and I would like it to provide a little more information on the ground. But it seems very clear.

My third and last complaint that I feel I am not sneaking somewhere else is that I don’t like the interface of the equipment. You can equip the weapons using the triggers to determine which hand is using it and I accidentally not equipped weapons a number of times and I have not realized it until a fight has started. It’s a bit annoying if I’m honest.

Now let’s talk about professionals for Declared. I admit it, I am a bit of a sucking for an oxidian role -playing game. I have played a handful over the years and I think my least favorite has been Fallout: New Vegas Because it was the most different from the others I played.

Declared He feels good at home with other titles such as how The external worlds. Collect companions while playing and while I have only recruited two so far, they are fantastic. In particular, I love Kai who is dubbed Brandon Keener Who many players will know Garrus Vakerian of the Mass effect Series and in all honesty, Kai reminds me very Garrus and I love it.

The way you respond to different circumstances will have different impacts on your conversations with party members and you will not be able to satisfy everyone. One thing that is taking some adjustment for me is how little I can really check what companions do.

I can’t tell them where to go or who to attack with the exception of making them use specific skills in specific contexts (such as Kai Burning Spider Webs) or using some combat skills on a goal of your choice. I would like to have a little more control of them, or at least I could adjust their equipment (you can only determine what skills learn).

Another aspect that I found interesting was what looked like a different approach to leveling. While you play DeclaredBuy experience and levels that allow you to put points in skills and attributes to make your character stronger.

This is important, but in many ways it seems a lower focus compared to the update of the equipment. Of course, you can go up to a level and download points in power to increase damage, but I think it would be an intelligent investment to update your weapon of choice of one or two levels instead.

Of course, this means that you also come across the problem in which instead of grinding for the experience you are grinding for the refresher materials (my kingdom for multiple soft wood branches) and everyone will have opinions on the fact that this is better or worse. In my opinion, I don’t know it’s necessarily better, but I like it and I like it how I feel different.

My complaint here is that I feel that the material requirements could be balanced a little better by adjusting the numbers, changing what some items require (such as changing a pelt requirement for an iron requirement) or making some materials a little easier to find.

In terms of graphics, I’m not an expert, but I think Declared It looks wonderful. The environment looks fantastic. The characters and monsters are designed and made phenomenally. There was no moment when I thought the game seemed badly.

Now I will talk about combat. You have two hands, so about two weapons at a time and you can have two sets of weapons equipped at a time. Each weapon has a variety of things to consider as damage, blockage and use of resistance. If you want to use the Grimoris, this substantially changes only a modifier of the cost of essence, a modifier of the damages and available spells.

In the meantime, the reinforcement has some statistics such as the percentage of damage blocked, the reduction of additional damage and the modifiers for the resistance and essence. All this does not take into account the unique articles with additional bonuses and the like. I also like the fact that the boots and gloves generally do not give you bonuses to the reduction of damage, but it will often offer other bonuses such as the efficiency of the parry, the speed of the parkour, the resistance, etc.

Honestly, the combat required some to get used to because the enemies seemed so aggressive and framed to the fray and I was trying to be more remote as a enchanting, but it was really easy to enter the flow of things.

One last thing on Declared That I love that it is a small detail is your invisible killing. First of all, I always like to have a good invisible killing in any game. In DeclaredYour invisible killing is essentially an integrated Halo energy sword and I love it. It’s a small detail, but I really like it.

In case I can’t say it, I like it very much Declared. It’s just a lot of fun to play and it looks great. Running for living lands is beautiful and cute. Of course, there are some finest details that I would like to adapt. However, at this point (and yes, I am aware that it is only February and Metroid Prime: Beyond is coming by the end of the year) I think Declared It is my choice for the game of the year.