I’ve played Avowed for 15 hours, and this is the most fun I’ve had in an RPG since Skyrim released. It might not be as good as Skyrim, but it has a very similar feel for me, and I’ve encountered zero bugs so far. I’m having an absolute blast!
If you like RPGs, I highly recommend giving it a try. It’s included in Game Pass, so there’s no reason not to check it out!
Guild exclusivity is actually what I had in mind. Sure, there’s nothing that significantly changes the main quest in TES games (and I think I misremembered how much blocking is there in previous titles) but that still counts for me personally. Self-imposed role play is fine in general (I do it all the time in games in fact) but I still think that lack of reasonable requirements for some (optional?) content makes the world feel more generic and player-focused than I’d like.
Thanks for the reminder though.