PILLARS OF ETERNITY II: DEADFIRE
A nautical RPG of epic proportions
“YOU’RE CHASING A GOD WHO DESTROYED YOUR CASTLE AND ALMOST KILLED YOU.”
The Deadfire Archipelago is a chain of tropical islands, home to weird creatures, crumbling ruins, dark dungeons, feuding factions, and ancient cultures – and it’s all yours to explore. Pillars Of Eternity II is a classic fantasy RPG, but with a piratical twist. Commanding your own galleon, you can hop between the islands, and the sense of freedom this gives you is exhilarating.
You don’t need to have played all 80-plus hours of the first Pillars Of Eternity to understand what’s going on. Obsidian’s seafaring sequel does a great job of filling you in on past events. All you need to know is that you’re a Watcher, a person who can relive the past via the souls of the dead, and you’re chasing a god who destroyed your castle and almost killed you.
This is a deeply old-school RPG, with monster battles, dungeon crawling, and thick paragraphs of descriptive text to sift through. But what makes it special is the sheer density of the Deadfire Archipelago. There are towns, cities, temples, and jungles strewn across the massive map, all stuffed with interesting characters, twisting quests, and tough moral choices. You’ll meet all sorts here, from pirates to royalty.
BAND OF BOOTY
Travelling in RPGs is often uneventful, but when you’re in charge of a ship there’s a lot to do. Your crew, who can be hired from taverns or met while adventuring, will drain your food and water resources. And how you deal with this will affect their morale. Feed them bread and water and they’ll quietly resent you, but lavish fruit and rum – which is more expensive – upon them and you’ll be the greatest captain who ever lived.
A happy crew will level up faster; an unhappy crew will refuse to work, or even mutiny.
You also have other pirates to contend with. Naval combat involves positioning your ship, adjusting your speed, and managing your crew – all through a turn-based, choice-led text interface. Crew members can sustain injuries, so if your veteran helmsman takes a cannonball to the face, you might have to hand the wheel over to a backup crew member… and your cook won’t be quite as skilled at manoeuvring the ship.
There are a lot of plates to spin, which adds a nice layer of roleplaying to what is normally just a lot of walking between quests. The ship stuff isn’t terribly atmospheric, though. You never really feel like you’re there, battling the elements, sea spray in your face – more like you’re nudging a tiny model galleon around a static map. And keeping the crew happy, the galley stocked, and your cannons loaded can feel like busywork.
It’s when you dock at one of the many islands littering the Deadfire Archipelago that the game begins to shine. Obsidian has always been great at building worlds with a convincing sense of history and place, but this is perhaps its finest work yet. The original game’s setting, the Dyrwood, was pretty familiar fantasy fare: castles, forests, and so on. But this place is much more exotic and alien, with strange architecture, colourful vegetation, ancient sea dragons, and water-shaping priests.
COLONIAL MARINERS
The far corners of the map are lawless, but foreign factions are creeping into the heart of the archipelago, which creates some complex human drama. Pillars Of Eternity II mirrors our own history, specifically the colonisation of the Pacific, with the native Huana threatened by outside forces. Some welcome the change; others fight to protect their way of life. And as the Watcher, you can pick a side in this conflict – or remain neutral if you prefer. Working with one faction can turn others against you, even closing off entire questlines.
Your main objective is tracking down the god who left you for dead, but good luck sticking to it. This is a game filled with distractions, where you can talk to some random dude in a bar and suddenly find yourself fighting evil cultists in a pyramid. And thanks to the colourful, descriptive writing you’re rarely disappointed to be presented with a wall of text.
The variety is incredible, from grand, important quests that can determine the fate of the entire archipelago to small, human stories, and moments of slapstick comedy. One quest in particular, set in a fortress called Fort Deadlight, is remarkable, almost like a Hitman level. You have to kill a pirate leader, and there are dozens of creative ways to do it. One of the best things about Pillars Of Eternity II is how it respects the character you’ve created. If you’ve prioritised
“YOU CAN OFTEN TALK YOUR WAY OUT OF TROUBLE WITHOUT FIRING A SHOT.”
charisma over combat prowess, you can often talk your way out of trouble without firing a shot.
Alas, you can’t avoid combat entirely. There are two flavours of fighting: turn-based and real-time. The former is slower, more methodical; the latter is more immediate, but you can pause at any time to stack up spells and attacks. The combat really sings when you have different classes in your party. Cocky pirate Serafen, a cipher, can penetrate enemies’ minds to confuse and terrify them. Xoti, a priest, will back you up with strength buffs and healing. And Tekehu, a chanter, can sing songs to paralyse, weaken, and generally mess with his foes.
TREADING WATER
Pillars Of Eternity II is a great RPG, with superb writing, unpredictable quests, and a fascinating setting. But technically it’s pretty scrappy. The menus feel sticky and unresponsive, which is bad news when you’re constantly shuffling items around in your inventories. Character movement doesn’t feel especially natural either; a result, no doubt, of its origin as a mouse-and-keyboard PC game. The loading times can be achingly slow. And while the backgrounds are gorgeous, the 3D character models look disappointingly low-res.
But these issues are worth fighting through. This is a roleplaying game in the truest sense, allowing you to create a distinctive character who has a genuine impact on the world around them. The sailing feels half-baked, but still, being able to travel freely, exploring at your own pace, is a delight.
VERDICT
Yes, it’s clunky at times, but get past that and you’ll find a deep, beautifully written RPG set in a massive world heaving with treasure, monsters, and moral dilemmas. Andy Kelly