Pillars of Eternity Review (PC)

Pillars of Eternity really clicked into place about four hours into the game, when I was killed by a bear that was way too powerful for my party at the time, and I discovered that I needed to play through at least one hard encounter because I had once again failed to push the Quick Save button when I needed to, the kind of sin that Pillars of Eternity knows how to punish.

Something similar tended to happen in classic role-playing titles when I got carried away by a quest or by the need to secure some important item and failed to push F5 for a lengthy period of time. The result was that I was surprised and frightened when I died, and I was forced to redo much of the work I had previously accomplished.

Pillars of Eternity is a video game that knows what fans of the genre want and delivers it in spades, with a core story that feels suitably epic and tense, and with a wide range of side content that will test the combat skills of gamers while also introducing some very interesting choices.

Story

Pillars of Eternity is a game created by the developers at Obsidian, which pretty much guarantees a solid story and interesting writing.

The team has managed to outdo itself and has created a fictional universe that is at the same time familiar to fantasy lovers and different from the classic Dungeons & Dragons that we know and love.

The main narrative of the title is about the player character and his status as a Watcher, but even the most seemingly mundane areas of the game world have characters with interesting stories, and gamers will also have to deal with social issues, generational struggles, religious matters, political intrigue and companions who are looking for their own peace of mind.

Details would only diminish the impact of the quests and the character interactions, but it's entirely safe to say that Obsidian has managed to create interesting lore, cool locations to explore, a great cast of characters (with just one relatively bland companion) and to center the entire universe on the idea of souls without becoming too philosophical about the whole endeavor.

Pillars of Eternity mushroom battle

Even the character creator in Pillars of Eternity is a work of wonder, with six races to choose from, 11 classes, and even more important, a series of choices that have a clear long-term impact on the way players will guide their characters with a lot of replayability included.

Obsidian has always been known for their dialogue system, and for their new universe they have tweaked the way answer choices work, making it easy for each character to stay consistent when it comes to his world view rather than just choose the most advantageous option.

The only weakness of the narrative elements of Pillars of Eternity is that, at first, everyone but the main character seems to know about past events that have a big influence on the present, and it takes a while to learn about them organically and get a reliable view of the recent history of the world.

Gameplay

Pillars of Eternity is a very classic take on the party role-playing genre, with combat that's real time but pausable and a lot of attention devoted to world building, player choices, and character interactions.

The first thing gamers will do will be to create their avatar for the title, a process that is complex and very engaging and suggests the depth of the universe that Obsidian has created and the impressive variety of potential experiences.

The game starts off relatively slowly, with quests that are limited but hint at larger things, and gradually the quests become more engaging and the characters reveal their complexity as more locations become available and secrets are revealed about the main character and his importance.

The player party will explore a variety of environments, and more often than not, creatures encountered will prove hostile and a combat sequence will start.

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Gamers have full control over the movement, the attack and the special powers of each of their characters and will need to carefully take into account the type of defenses their enemies have and their offensive strength in order to take them out without using too many skills and without taking damage.

Special abilities and spells are offered in limited numbers and can only be replenished by resting, and that means Pillars of Eternity is as much about managing limited resources as it is about taking out black ooze and other weird creatures.

Combat is constantly challenging, even when lesser creatures are involved, and can become very difficult at times, but Obsidian is allowing gamers to drop or increase difficulty at any point in order to make sure that they can progress and experience the story and the interactions.

That's an excellent tool to make sure that no one gets irremediably stuck, but one of the great strengths of the game is that it has so many abilities, items, consumables and powers which lead to new combinations gamers can try out in order to make apparently impossible fights manageable.

“During combat, endurance is crucial and gamers should always emphasize ways to keep it up in the long term or to boost it when a character is close to getting knocked down.”

Careful placement of combatants and use of special abilities and spells is also crucial, especially given how frail magic users and enchanters can be.

Pillars of Eternity is also a very open experience and sometimes the best idea is to simply accept that an enemy is too powerful for the moment and that another path is needed until characters get a level up and have new ways to take him out.

Killing enemies is an important part of the experience, but the game also features a very solid system of conversation and world interaction, allowing players to use their attributes to unlock new dialogue paths, while also offering them ways to make sure that they have a clear core for their character.

Even reading books is fun in Pillars of Eternity and gamers who take the time to actually listen to all the NPCs they meet will be rewarded with knowledge that they might use later on or with details that will simply give them a better understanding of this new and fascinating fantasy world.

Graphics and audio

Pillars of Eternity is played from a very classic top-down perspective, with the development team at Obsidian consciously using the Unity engine to create a title that looks as similar as possible to experiences based on the Infinity Engine of old.

That being said, this is not a bad looking game and players will find plenty of details and colors to enjoy if they zoom in, although I suspect that most of them will prefer to stay zoomed out in order to get a solid look at the battlefield and the possible threats they will face.

Despite the fact that characters are not at the center of Pillars of Eternity, the game manages to give them individuality and makes enemies easy to recognize on the battlefield even without pausing and checking their description.

Upgrades in Pillars of Eternity

The user interface is easy to understand and to use, and it's a pleasure to look at the moments when the team is using pencil drawings to narrate moments that are simply out of reach for the graphics engine.

The use of the Baldur's Gate cursor is also a great touch for long-term fans.

When it comes to sound design, Pillars of Eternity introduces some solid voice work, although at times the accents seem a bit ridiculous, and music that is well adapted to the fantasy setting but does not necessarily stand out in any way.

The game also has developer commentary and it's a pleasure to explore an area and at the same time get info from Obsidian about the development process that led to its existence.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion