I still remember the 2022 chatter around Avowed, and I remember how strangely specific it felt. Xbox fans were riding a mixed wave: the massive Activision acquisition had everyone buzzing, then Starfield and Redfall delays brought the mood down. A showcase was coming, and I was mostly hoping for a clean look at Avowed. Instead, the detail that stuck with me came from Jez Corden on the Defining Duke Podcast: Avowed could feature firearms, not machine guns, but muskets. Honestly, that got my gears turning.
For Red Dead Redemption fans, this was catnip. A musket is not just a weapon; it is a mood. It is smoke, powder, a long reload, and a very loud answer to a problem. Plenty of players had been asking for that kind of firearm in Red Dead Redemption, and hearing that Avowed might scratch the same itch made the game feel more textured before we had even seen much of it.
Why the musket rumor had legs
The theory floating around was that Avowed might sit centuries before the events of Pillars of Eternity. But the Pillars games already had muskets, so the safer read was that Avowed would share a similar period. That little continuity knot mattered. Avowed is not a gun game. It is a first-person fantasy RPG, and a firearm has to earn its place next to swords, shields, bows, and magic.
A musket does that by changing the rhythm of combat. It is slow. It is loud. It asks you to commit. In first person, the reload becomes a little ritual: powder, ramrod, panic. That is the good stuff. It gives players a story in every shot, even when the shot misses. No shade to machine guns, but they would have felt wrong here. A musket fits a world of ruins, frontiers, and old empires trying to hold themselves together.
What a single weapon type can do
| What a musket adds | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Pacing | It forces pauses and makes each shot feel deliberate. |
| Build identity | It can define a playstyle instead of being a generic upgrade. |
| Worldbuilding | Gunpowder tells you something about technology and trade in Eora. |
| Immersion | The sound, smoke, and reload animation sell the fantasy. |
I’ll be the first to admit I was skeptical. A gun in a fantasy RPG can feel like a gimmick if the developers treat it as a reskinned bow. But the Pillars universe has always been a place where souls, animancy, and powder can share a shelf. The musket does not have to dominate the combat loop. It just has to feel like it belongs. That is a higher bar than it sounds.
Looking back from 2026
In 2026, the conversation is different. Avowed launched in February 2025, so I am no longer parsing podcast hints or rewatching showcase trailers for frame-by-frame clues. I can look back at how a single weapon type can reshape the feel of a first-person RPG. The wait was long, and the speculation was half the fun. A rumor is a tiny thing. A podcast sentence. But it can reveal what players want: weight, texture, and a fantasy world that does not flatten every weapon into a stat stick.
Red Dead Redemption fans wanted muskets because they wanted ceremony. Avowed fans wanted them because they wanted Eora to feel lived-in. In 2026, that desire still makes sense to me. Sometimes the smallest detail in a showcase rumor says more about a game than a hundred flashy spells. And honestly, that is the good stuff. A lot.
With the Xbox showcase only days away back then, we expected more Avowed, and we eventually got it. Now the conversation has shifted from will it have muskets to how those weapons feel in hand. That is progress. That is also why I still keep an eye on fantasy RPGs that treat gunpowder with a little respect.