Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire DLC Interview

Obsidian Entertainment recently released the Beast of Winter DLC for Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, expanding the game’s storyline with a new adventure that had you visit an island full of doomsaying cultists. And if you’d like to learn a bit about the game’s two other planned story expansions – Seeker, Slayer, Survivor and The Forgotten Sanctum – then you should check out this Expansive interview with Obsidian’s Brandon Adler. An excerpt:

Why have Obsidian taken a different approach to DLC this time around with PoE 2 receiving a three part season pass compared to the two part saga of The White March in Pillars 1? What was your focus?

BA: We wanted to give a bunch of different adventures for people to go and explore. Archipelago itself is a great background with a lot of different islands and for each one you’ve got a different story and different environments. It’s also a great way to give players a bit of a break so they’re not doing the same stuff over and over. That was important for us.

You’ve recently released Beast of Winter and Seeker, Slayer, Survivor is up next. What can you tell us about the forthcoming expansions and how will they continue to evolve and iterate on PoE 2?

BA: On each of the DLCs, we wanted to explore a different aspect of the game. In the first DLC – Beast of Winter – it was important for us to focus on exploration and puzzle elements. And even digging a little deeper into the lore of things.

With Seeker, Slayer, Survivor we’re focusing on the combat, trying to explore how far can we take the combat system, and what kind of stuff can we be doing with this. What kind of cool encounters can we be setting up with this?

And then with The Forgotten Sanctum we’re going to build and provide the best dungeon experience. So it will be very dungeon dive-like and will really appeal to players who love Fort Deadlight, it’s going to have the same kind of feel. A big, cohesive dungeon.

So, we’re just taking what’s already in the game and evolving it to the max.