As such, you can start to align yourself with one company over another, become a menace to the lot of them, or just try to keep out of it entirely.Īlongside this, there are many new cultures to discover, whose lives are heavily impacted by this colonialism. It all appears to be a look at colonialism, at the spread of various trading companies around the 17th century, along with the piracy and seafare that accompanied this. I suspect rather strongly that the big issue with what is, unquestionably, an astoundingly vast and intricate and often pleasing role-playing game, is that it fails to get across to me why anything that’s happening really matters. I’m not sure, though, that this is entirely on me. I am, undeniably, in the former camp, and have struggled with Deadfire’s sprawling nature. If, however, you prefer to amble, to get lost down a quest line completely separate to the main reason you’re there, to get embroiled in the politics and matters of new communities and peoples, to pick and choose and just occasionally get back to the main quest as and when, the PoE2 has this in spades. If you play for the tight stories, propelled down a main quest by an urge to save the day, torn away to side quests because of the personalities of your adored gang, then PoE1 met your needs splendidly. I think at this point how you receive the game will very much be determined by what you love most about this old-school model of RPG. ![]() The counter to this, of course, is you’ve got an extraordinarily open and loose RPG, with a vast network of islands to explore, at your own pace, while introducing a whole new set of mechanics around owning and operating a ship, a crew, and indeed, the matter of ship combat. The impact of this almost incidental establishing lasts for a really long time, in a game that’s already extraordinarily open and loose, meaning that you’re going to have to do a lot of work yourself to let the events feel like they’re of any particular import or impact. You wake up from death in a hand-drawn cutscene that obliterates your castle, and then you’re fleeing by ship to another land, bam. Thankfully, while there are more familiar faces to come, you can pull together a new team of new characters reasonably quickly. Then you bump into Pallegina, and… well, it becomes a little concerning this is going to feel like a band reuniting long after they should have retired. ![]() Quickly you gather up rogue wizard Aloth. And it’s Eder, Mr Meh from the first game. You awaken on a ship, your ship, to find that most aged of Bioware-inherited traditions in place: the most bland whitebread character possible first to join you. Either way, your stats are scrapped and you start from level 1 again. I wanted Ambree, my paladin from before, and had to load up PoE1 and copy all the minutiae of who she was to get it all right. Which makes it a giant pain for anyone wanting their previous avatar. However, despite being able to import your choices, for some reason you can’t import your actual Watcher. ![]() (Now, if you finished PoE1 you’ll be thinking, “But hang on…” and yes, it does address that rather sticky issue of deities, while at the same time rather fudging around it.) She wants you reborn, to tackle Eothas, and in the process gives you the chance to import an end-game save from the last game to bring over all your decisions, re-decide everything again in meticulous detail, and most of all, reroll your character entirely afresh. The destruction of Caed Nua also destroys you, The Watcher, whoever you might have been in the first game, and sees you in the In-Between, confronted by Berath, the god of death. In a giant form, he erupts from the ground under your castle in Dyrwood, destroying it, and then strides off toward the archipelago of Deadfire, stamping on all sorts on his way. You’ll perhaps remember that PoE1 was about, amongst other things, a blight of soulless children on a region shortly after a god, who took on human form, had been killed. Such is the nature of this sequel that to explain its opening plot is to impose upon the ending of the last. ![]() And in others, it feels wearily stretched from the process. It needs to be a completely new dozens-of-hours-long RPG, while it also needs to be a sequel to 2015’s stunning first outing, while it needs to feel like it’s evolved from then, while it needs to feel like it’s faithful, while it… In many ways, it succeeds despite being tugged in all these directions. What a lot Pillars Of Eternity II feels like it has to do. Despite a week of playing, I'm still going, so here's my in-depth thoughts about the game excluding the impact of its ending. Pillars Of Eternity II is seemingly infinity hours long.
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