One of the biggest things that would make a Pillars of Eternity 3 interesting, he noted would be the addition of a full 3D world. Sawyer believes that the next Pillars of Eternity game should feature one such world where players get even greater interactivity with their environments.

“I’ve said this before and some people are really, really bummed out about it, but I think if we did go into a 3D environment, we could patch up one of the things that’s really lacking,” he said.

Sawyer also brings up the other most obvious game comparison – Baldur’s Gate 3. He believes that a fully 3D world was a big part of the critically-acclaimed RPG’s popularity, and notes that seeing a game with that kind of world with all the interactivity it would bring with it, but with the gameplay mechanics of Pillars of Eternity 2, would be “super-cool”.

“Because it is isometric, there’s no sense of height, and the environment can’t be that dynamic,” said Sawyer. “When you compare it to something like BG3, you realise it’s such a huge part of the appeal. I think, at some point, I would like to see a game that used all those Deadfire mechanics, plus more environmental mechanics, elevation hazards, and dynamic terrain stuff. That could be super-cool.”

“Our team did an incredible job on Deadfire, for a number of reasons,” he continued. “I think that a third game should be an isometric 3D with an environment more like Baldur’s Gate 3; it would work. And I think that could be really awesome. It would be easier for us to make the art and be a lot more dynamic. I’ve said this before, so hopefully nobody will get mad [laughs]. I think there’s a lot of cool stuff that we could do with it.”

Technically speaking, the last game to come out that takes place in the Pillars of Eternity universe was Avowed, which, while not a direct sequel, did help in fleshing out the world of the RPG franchise. The last mainline title in the series was 2018’s Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, which picked things up shortly after the events of the original Pillars of Eternity, with the player character hot on the heels of the same antagonist.

The first Pillars of Eternity, released back in 2015, was the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign. Both it, as well as its sequel, were released on PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. In the meantime, check out our review of this year’s addition to the franchise – Avowed – which is available on PC and Xbox Series X/S.

The developer has announced that it will be adding a turn-based combat option with a new Pillars of Eternity patch sometime later this year, with a specific launch date currently unknown.

“We’re excited to explore this new way to experience encounters in Pillars of Eternity, and your feedback will help shape its future. More details on how to participate will be shared in the near future,” the developer writes.

Turn-based combat has been one of the most frequently and strongly demanded features within the Pillars of Eternity community for quite some time now. Meanwhile, the recent success of Baldur’s Gate 3 has also led to a resurgence of interest (to put it mildly) in CRPGs with turn-based combat, so the timing here is certainly interesting.

When exactly we can expect the update remains to be seen, but suffice to say, Pillars fans are going to be excited.

Pillars of Eternity is available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

“Maybe a third of the team that worked on Pillars is on Avowed,” said Patel in an interview with MinnMax. She also spoke about the studio successfully creating a more interactive, explorable take on the world first introduced in the Pillars of Eternity franchise.

According to Patel, Pillars fans want to “see the world they got to know over two games in a big immersive space around them that they can explore.” She went on to say that it’s “mission accomplished” when it comes to this goal.

Avowed is slated for release on February 18 for PC and Xbox Series X/S alongside Game Pass. In the same interview, Patel had also revealed that the game would run at “up to 60 FPS” on the Xbox Series X. While further information was lacking, one can assume that it uses features like dynamic resolution tp ensure a stable frame rate. There is also no word on what kind of performance can be expected on Xbox Series S.

PC players looking forward to Avowed can look to the required specs revealed back in November. The bare minimum to play the game requires either AMD’s Ryzen 5 2600 or Intel’s Core i5 8400 CPU, an AMD Radeon RX 5700 or Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1070 GPU, and 16 GB of RAM (with an SSD mandatory).

Back in December, Avowed environment region designer Berto Ritger revealed that players would have plenty of options in how they complete various quests in the game. Most quests in Avowed will allow players to not only start them in different ways, but the freedom to complete them out of order, per Ritger.

In keeping with Obsidian’s history with the RPG genre, players will also get to make several choices that may affect various outcomes of side missions and main quests. While we don’t yet know the scope of changes being affected by player choice, the studio has confirmed “at least” ten unique ending slides.

Obsidian has also revealed the various accessibility features that will be present in the game. These include options for changing the field of view, disabling camera shake, changing how the UI and subtitles look, and more.

For more details on Avowed, stay tuned for reviews, which will be arriving on February 13. In the mean time, here is why fans of games with choices and consequences should be excited about Avowed. In case you’re interested about how it compares to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, check out the differences and similarities between the two.

“I don’t think I would make Pentiment 2,” Sawyer said. “I really do feel very satisfied with that game. It’s not like I don’t wanna return to it ever, but I just did it, so I’d probably wait a little bit.”

“I think if it truly was an unlimited budget, I think I would try Pillars 3 because I know what the budget was for Deadfire, which was not a whole lot and I have heard from multiple people what the budget was for Baldur’s Gate 3, and I’m not gonna talk about numbers, but if I got that budget, sure, I’ll make Pillars 3.”

Sawyer goes on to talk about some of the game design decisions made during the development of Pillars of Eternity and Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. Owing to both titles going the crowdfunding route to get their development funded, studio Obsidian opted to develop the games with a real-time with pause (RTwP) combat system. Sawyer states that if the titles weren’t crowdfunded, the studio would have likely gone the route of featuring turn-based combat in the two games.

“I’m pretty happy with Pillars and Deadfire, but I do think that if it were not crowdfunded, I would probably make it turn based,” said Sawyer. “I’m not saying to not have a real time with pause system, but I do think that the Deadfire turn based system which I can’t take credit for, that was Nick Carver and Brian MacIntosh, was really cool. But, the game wasn’t designed for it, so actually designing the game for turn based, fewer encounters, smaller encounters, but much more tactical, I think that would be a lot of fun, and having awesome cinematics and all that stuff. That would be great.”

In the same interview, Sawyer also spoke about bringing Pentiment to more platforms. The director stated that a release on the Nintendo Switch, and even on iPad, is a possibility. According to Sawyer, this comes down to players playing the title on the Steam Deck and wondering if it would make sense for it to also come to the Nintendo Switch.

Pentiment is available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

With the power gap between the Nintendo Switch and the consoles from Sony and Microsoft, it’s been amazing to see what some developers have been able to accomplish in downporting to Nintendo’s hybrid. One such example is the massive RPG originally developed by Obsidian, Pillars of Eternity. But is seems that, even with a lot of technical prowess, there are still limitations in place.

Publisher Versus Evil released a statement, which you can see in full below, confirming that there would be no more updates for the Switch version of the game. They say that the game has already been a massive undertaking and they have reached the limitations of what they feel they can do with the hardware. Unfortunately, the Switch version still suffers from several bugs and technical issues that will seemingly now not be fixed. That edition of the game is still largely playable, but it’s something to keep in mind if you want to try and take the game on the go.

Pillars of Eternity is also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

https://twitter.com/vs_evil/status/1359184325032488961?s=20

With the holidays coming up, Epic Games Store has confirmed the date for its Holiday Sale. It starts on December 17th and promises discounts up to 75 percent, though it remains to be seen if the storefront’s entire catalogue will be included. Perhaps more enticing is that the storefront’s “15 Days of Free Games” offer will return on the same day.

Much like last year, the store will give away a new game every day for the next two weeks. They’ll be free for 24 hours so check back regularly for something that may catch your eye. Until then, however, this week’s two free games are available now with Pillars of Eternity – Definitive Edition and Tyranny – Gold Edition.

Both are computer RPGs developed by Obsidian Entertainment and have met with critical praise. These two editions contain all of the bonus content and downloadable content in addition to the base game. Interestingly enough, a new “mystery game” will unlock in about 6 hours and 20 minutes, which is around the time that The Game Awards starts. Stay tuned for more details on in the meantime.

The latest free PC title on the Epic Games Store is now available with Cave Story+, the classic Metroidvania title from Studio Pixel and Nicalis. Those expecting something meatier should stay tuned next week though. Obsidian Entertainment’s Pillars of Eternity – Definitive Edition and Tyranny – Gold Edition will be offered for free on December 10th to 17th.

Pillars of Eternity is a return to the classic CRPG gameplay of yore with the player exploring Eora, meeting companions and ultimately following their destiny. The Definitive Edition includes the base game, The White March: Part 1 and 2 expansions, and the Royal Edition’s bonus content. Tyranny is also an RPG but sees the player working under the Kyros, an evil overlord that has conquered the world.

As a Fatebinder, one ventures the world, dealing with the aftermath of Kyros’ conquest and ultimately being as evil as they choose. The Gold Edition features the base game, the Bastard’s Wound expansion, Tales from the Tiers which adds new events, and other bonus content. Claiming both titles requires having an Epic Games account and the Epic Games Launcher installed.

The first Pillars of Eternity was an extremely important game for Obsidian Entertainment. Not only was it universally well-received, it was also a huge success for the then-independent developer, pulling them from the brink of bankruptcy. Now, though, Obsidian is a Microsoft first party studio, and though their upcoming Avowed is set in the same world as the Pillars of Eternity series, questions about whether there will ever be a third Pillars game have been asked often.

According to Josh Sawyer, director of both Pillars games – who recently confirmed that he’s working on a new unannounced project – whether or not a Pillars of Eternity 3 ever gets made depends on several factors, the most important of which is whether or not Obsidian would be excited about making it.

“I don’t think the fans need to convince me/Obsidian/MS of anything,” Sawyer wrote in a Tumblr post. “Your support is always heard and appreciated. I think that we need to believe that if we try to make a game in this style again, the existing fans will enjoy it, new players will enjoy it, and ex-fans who were disappointed by Pillars 1 and/or 2 will come back to it. On top of all that, we need to be excited about making it.  ”

Sawyer added that the Pillars of Eternity team had also been burned out on the property after having worked on the two games – and the second one’s DLC – back to back.

“Even devs who really enjoy working in the Pillars universe were burned out after the end of Deadfire, especially if they went on to work on the DLCs,” he said. “To put in all of that work and have the game limp over the finish line, sales-wise, doesn’t get people jazzed up about rolling on to a sequel.”

He added: “Ultimately I think this is a matter if internal will and belief rather than something that requires external validation.”

In November 2019, Obsidian said that Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire’s sales were relatively low, and that if they were to return to the property for another game, they would have to “re-examine the entire format of the game.”

As for Avowed, there’s no word yet on when the first person fantasy RPG will be out, but a recent leak suggested that the game would be releasing between late 2022 and early 2023. Read more on that through here.

Obsidian Entertainment’s beloved cRPG Pillars of Eternity was confirmed to be launching on the Switch a while back, and now we finally have a release date for when that’ll be happening. Thanks to an update on the Nintendo Switch eShop, we now know that the game will be releasing on August 8th, just a couple weeks from now.

The Switch will be getting the game’s Complete Edition, which will have parity in content with the Complete Edition that launched for the PS4 and Xbox One a couple years back. That includes the base game itself, as well as all the updates, DLCs, and expansions that Obsidian put out for the game’s PC version.

The game’s description on the eShop also states that updates have been made to the UI and controls, while the game has also been optimized to be played “comfortably” in both, console and handheld mode. It is currently listed with a price of $49.99, but right now, it can be purchased for $39.99.

Later on in the year, Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire will also be coming to the Switch, but a specific release date for that hasn’t yet been announced.

Obsidian Entertainment, developer of the critically acclaimed Pillars of Eternity, have announced a rather different RPG in its wake. Tyranny is a new RPG in development for PC and will take place in a fantasy world where evil has emerged victorious over the forces of good.

As Kyros the Overlord celebrates his victory in the war, players will find themselves as officers in his army. You’ll interact with the general population and encounter various “morally unclear decisions” as you traverse the world. It’s a rather interesting dynamic since we haven’t seen an RPG center on the villain since the days of Overlord (and that was more comedic than anything else).

Tyranny will be releasing later this year and an official website is now live. Check it out for more information and watch the official trailer for the game below. No updates on Pillars of Eternity 2 but it’s been confirmed for a while to be in development.