GB Feature: Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Preview

We managed to get our hands on a limited preview build of Obsidian Entertainment’s Pillars of Eternity II, which led to Steven taking the RPG sequel through its paces (and then some) to bring you a detailed two-page preview. Here’s a bit of what he had to say:

The Deadfire build I played had one town, a coastal village of aumauas just trying to survive. I picked up three quests in this town, and all three had at least two solutions. As an example, in the simplest quest you learn that one of the villagers has been accused of theft. As you investigate the crime, you discover that the villager is innocent — but that he has done enough other things that maybe he deserves the thievery punishment. So do you clear him or not? The quests in Deadfire don’t look like they’re going to have just “good” or “evil” solutions, but instead you’ll get options where you’ll to have to decide which one is the most fitting. I like dealing with gray areas more than black and white, so this is a fine style for me.

Then when you explore the world map, you don’t just click on a location and automatically travel there. Instead, you click to move using a system similar to the one employed by Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (which, not coincidentally, was also developed by Obsidian). That means while you’re moving around, you might discover something to loot, or a creature to fight, or a dungeon to visit. I saw “sparkles” over areas where there were interactions, which gave away their location too easily, but hopefully sparkles only appear based on the perception level of your party rather than all of the time. I prefer the “walking around” system of Deadfire to “clicking and traveling” system of Pillars of Eternity — provided there are enough interesting things to see on the world map to make the extra effort worthwhile, which there isn’t any way to tell yet.