Do enemies respawn in Avowed?

If you’ve ever played a game like Avowed, then you might assume that enemies will respawn in an area after some time has passed. Naturally, this is a reasonable assumption, but the answer to the question is slightly nuanced.

Will enemies respawn in Avowed?

To be upfront, the answer is ‘No’ in most cases, and ‘Yes’ very sparingly, specifically in that order. I know that sounds peculiar, but hear me out. There’s a reason.

Throughout most of your adventure in Avowed enemies will not respawn once you’ve cleared out an area. Defining ‘respawn’ here for clarity, the enemies you’ve once killed in an area will not come back to life almost under any circumstances. This, unfortunately, leads to situations where when you’re backtracking searching for loot or materials, you’ll have nothing to fight. Thankfully, the majority of experience you gain for your character in Avowed comes from quest completions over killing monsters, so this is rarely an issue throughout the game.

There is a situation, however, that can cause some monsters to ‘respawn’ in an area, if the criteria are met, and only once. If you’re a thorough explorer first who likes to prioritize that aspect over completing quests, like I am, then sometimes you’ll find quest-made locations with enemies inside. Avowed generally does not place obstacles in your path of exploration, so you can often go inside these questing areas and kill all the enemies within it.

However, if you explore a quest area and kill all the enemies inside before you have the quest associated with the location, sometimes enemies will respawn (only once) for the area after you obtain it. This isn’t always the case, mind you, but you can test this phenomenon yourself using the Nacib bounty quest in Dawnshore.

All you need to do is enter the Ruinous Cavern side area, west of Paradis, before grabbing the bounty quest from within the city. Slay the spiders outside then enter the cavern and kill all enemies in the first area. Before dropping down deeper, exit the cavern and pick up the Nacib bounty quest from the Bounty Board in Paradis. Then, return to the cavern again. You’ll find spiders that you definitely killed prior, roaming near the entrance of the Ruinous Cavern once again.

Is this a true respawn? I’d say so, but it will only happen once in my experience, and rarely at that. So, it’s safe to assume that most enemies will simply not come back once you’ve gutted them out of existence.