Divinity: Original Sin II – Surprises and Deadly Twists

Divinity: Original Sin II is an open-ended RPG filled with secrets, surprises, and optional content. It has no problem with killing your characters or letting you stumble into an unwinnable encounter. And that’s fine, because the game’s save system along with its abundant resurrection scrolls allow you to mess around, experiment, and test the game’s limits.

Finding creative solutions to seemingly insurmountable obstacles is when video games are at their best, and perhaps this is exactly what makes Original Sin II feel fun and exciting even after you’ve played it for a hundred hours. For example, this PC Gamer article details one particular event that can throw you a curve ball right when the game’s about to end. The article is filled with late-game spoilers, so here’s the intro and you can take it from there:

The first time I died, it was because I didn’t think crocodiles could fly. In Divinity: Original Sin 2, that’s a big mistake. Any enemy you underestimate is probably going to be the next enemy to kill you, or sap your magic armor, brainwash you, and make you watch helplessly as your character drinks the potions you’ve been hoarding and uses your best scrolls. An early fight with teleporting crocodiles drove home that I should be prepared for the unexpected, and that I’d need a stockpile of resurrection scrolls to bring party members back from the dead.

Almost four months later, with nearly 100 hours of game time behind me, my co-op buddies and I had nearly finished this insanely long, ambitious RPG. We each controlled a character, selected from Original Sin 2’s presets. There was Fane, the undead wizard and thief. He got us in a lot of fights by pickpocketing people who didn’t like getting their shit stolen. There was Beast, the dwarven pirate who maxed out persuasion to sweet talk our party through sticky situations. And I was Lohse, the traveling minstrel who just happened to be possessed by an incredibly powerful demon. At this point, it was pretty rare for me to die in battle. I’d been stacking constitution until I was built like a brick wall, and could crit for almost 3,000 damage with a two-handed hammer. I had a pretty badass cape. But I wasn’t ready for what would happen when we finally faced down my demon.