Kick off.

Pillars of Eternity was a Kickstarter success story, launching in 2015 to extremely positive reviews. Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is a direct sequel. Last year’s Divinity: Original Sin 2, a game to which Deadfire may be immediately compared, was a sequel set 1000 years after its predecessor – this provided returning players with a sense of familiarity whilst avoiding overwhelming newcomers with the complexities of the narrative and lore before they’d even got to grips with the game. Pillars of Eternity 2, however, picks up directly where the first game left off. Having not played the original, it became immediately clear that I was going to have to pay close attention to catch up.

A new life awaits.

In Pillars of Eternity, the player’s character is known as a Watcher, someone who has the ability to talk to dead souls. Living the life of a retired hero at the fortress of Caed Nua following the conclusion of the first game, this Watcher is once again thrust into action when the deity Eothas decides to possess the form of a giant. Unfortunately for the Watcher, said giant was residing underneath Caed Nua. Eothas’ reincarnation of this colossus destroys the fortress and the Watcher is left for dead…albeit not for long. The Watcher is resurrected at the behest of someone who wants Eothas tamed.

MSRP: $49.99
Platforms: PC
Length: 40+ hours

Whilst those who completed the first game have, at this point, the option of importing all their decisions from a previous game save, this is where new players have to effectively go with the flow. Although aspects of the lore, narrative and early game dialogue can be initially disorientating, Obsidian doesn’t completely leave anyone hanging. New players are given the opportunity to select an automatically generated origin story in lieu of a previous game save – the player just needs to decide whether they feel they behaved like a tyrant, a saint, or something in-between in their previous life. When new players, such as myself, subsequently interact with characters with whom the Watcher had a previous relationship with in Pillars of Eternity, an origin dialogue option choice will sometimes become available.

Travel guide.

Pillars of Eternity 2 is solid CRPG fare. This genre has become a competitive one in recent years, between Pillars of Eternity 1, the Divinity franchise, and indeed Obsidian’s own Tyranny. Deadfire takes this genre and gives it a new twist, by taking things to the sea. Life onboard a ship, however, isn’t as exciting as it sounds – ship-based combat is something of a chore and the exploration is not as enticing as anticipated. Sailing is effectively just a glorified fast-travel mechanism with random encounters built in. That said, ship travel does at least cut down instances of unnecessary loading screens…but more on that later.

Fortunately, exploration of the game’s various islands and cities therein is vastly more interesting. Dialogue with characters who populate the Archipelago is largely what drives the diversity of Deadfire’s world. Players can focus on levelling up specific communication-based skills such as Diplomacy, which will frequently unlock additional dialogue options. Depending on how their character approaches interactions with the varied citizens of the game’s world, relationships within the player’s party – which can include up to five companions – will also be impacted.
Ready, steady, go.

Deadfire’s combat mechanics offer an interesting experience compared to its genre counterparts. It’s not turn-based, but nor is it strictly real-time. Instead, Pillars of Eternity 2 effectively blends the two. This has the effect of giving combat encounters (of which there are many) a sense of urgency. Players must keep a close eye on each battle, stacking various attacks and responding to AI manoeuvres promptly.

However, for new players this system will take a little time to get used to. Much like the world setting, Deadfire effectively puts the onus on the player to learn how to orient themselves. This approach is something of a gamble – it would have been nice to have a few rudimentary tutorials built into the campaign to explain the basics, whilst leaving it to players to explore the nuances as they progress. However, as a veteran of RTS and RPG games, part of me also appreciates the fact that Obsidian clearly respects the intelligence and enthusiasm of their player bases; trusting as they do that people will figure things out on their own or engage with the game’s community where required.

Sea sick.

Pillars of Eternity 2 is not without some significant problems. I’ll cut right to chase – I experienced frequent crashes when transitioning to new areas. Crashes occurred randomly during loading screens, of which there are a significant amount. Whilst this was somewhat mitigated when I turned down performance aspects, the fact that I had to do so is somewhat disappointing given that game doesn’t require an exceptional amount of juice to run well and doesn’t have an otherworldly visual style that would place a high demand on a solid gaming rig.
The propensity of the crashes I experienced became frustratingly intrusive. Whilst I trust that Obsidian will work to improve optimisation with future updates, I can’t currently justify a higher review score given my personal experience with these crashes. I had to run the game at very basic settings and still suffered an array of bugs and FPS drops; a real an indictment as to the technical state of the game at launch.

The main plot, such as it is, is also fairly weak. Whilst I accept that playing a sequel without any knowledge of preceding events would present some predictable gaps in knowledge, there isn’t much more to Pillars of Eternity 2 other than following Eothas around. There is no real sense of gravitas or choice, and for the most part side quests were far more varied than the main questline.

Think it through.

If one was to ignore the technical issues and consider it in isolation, Pillars of Eternity 2 could be deemed a solid game. Whilst on the surface it appears to offer depth and choice, effectively the content is relatively simple and linear. Nevertheless, there are some great side quests and locations to engage with, and a large number of stories and peoples to encounter.
However, given the optimisation woes and the illusory depth offered by the main story, I lost interest in what I was doing fairly early on. Whist Deadfire is certainly not a waste of time or money and has a number of positive aspects, players may want to approach with caution.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.