In an IGN article published on February 1, 2024, the game’s director Carrie Patel confirmed that players can only create human or elf characters in the game. This is unlike previous installments in the Pillars of Eternity series, which let the player choose from a number of different character races. Patel explained that this limitation is due to both story and development reasons. From a story perspective, the player in Avowed is a representative from the Aedyr Empire, which is predominantly made up of humans and elves. On the development side, Patel explained that the variation in sizes of different species in the series' universe is easier to account for in an isometric game than in a first-person game like Avowed.