Post Script
How Obsidian defined its future by delving into its past
What do players really want from a retro proposition like Pillars Of Eternity? If it’s purely about the nostalgic appeal of the Infinity Engine RPGs – Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate – then why not just play those games? They do still exist, after all, and thanks to Beamdog’s efforts they even have remastered editions for those unwilling to delve into fan patches and text file editing for the original discs’ sake. Therefore nostalgia can only provide part of the draw of Pillars.
There are other significant facets of game design from that halcyon era that should be celebrated on their own terms, not simply because they remind us of our younger days. The level of challenge games presented 20 years ago was certainly higher, for one. The audience hadn’t yet broadened out beyond an engaged hardcore that was willing to spend hours on a single encounter when Baldur’s Gate was released in 1998, so its developers were entitled to pitch the difficulty at a high mark. As the medium’s matured and attracted mainstream audiences, learning curves have shallowed, and a certain contingent feels perpetually overlooked. The kind of player who might back a crowdfunding project that promises old-school tabletop RPG mechanics, perhaps.
And then there are what creative director Josh Sawyer called ‘wildcards’ in his GDC 2016 postmortem of the first Pillars: the offbeat, throwaway elements that might make developers cringe to recall later in their careers, but convey a sense that this is something human beings made, and even enjoyed doing so. The golden pantaloons and Noober the NPC in Baldur’s Gate, and the talking – often caterwauling – sword in its sequel are often what people remember most vividly about those games, and by extension that era. Before huge development teams with countless department leads smoothed out every rough edge, wildcards would often make it through to release. Ultimately they contribute to that elusive ‘soul’ of a game. The tone and atmosphere are created by all the component parts, and the reason people are still passionate enough about it decades later.
These tenets were all identified early in pre-production, with the aim of creating a new title with just enough devotion to the original Infinity Engine games to come across as authentic, without drilling so slavishly into their specifics that it lost sight of their soul. In Pillars I and II that means 2D isometric environments with 3D lighting, which literally casts a new complexion over an old and familiar environment style. Meanwhile, raising the isometric viewpoint by seven degrees compared to Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale’s perspective allows for more emphasised vertical structures in exterior locations, and fewer instances of characters wandering in and out of view behind objects. It’s an almost imperceptible change that, like many touches in Pillars, circumvents the inherent fiddliness of the older games without upsetting the apple cart. In other words, Obsidian found a way to recreate the experience players remembered, rather than the one they had.
In those newfound spaces they created between the old foundations, Obsidian could exercise some creative freedom. Ship management in Pillars II has no analog in any of the Infinity Engine RPGs, and yet it seems to fit so naturally with the rest of the experience because its menus and visual markers are consistent with the whole. The same can be said of other new elements in the dynamic 3D models breathing life into static 2D maps: birds flying overhead as you walk across a town square, or lapping waves by the dock. You don’t stop and think about whether they were present in Baldur’s Gate II – you just drink in the atmosphere. This is a balancing act that few developers have attempted, and Obsidian’s blueprint will prove useful to any that do.