![]() ![]() ![]() Xbox One announcement is bad news for PS4 and Nintendo Switch, but great for MicrosoftĬombat begins simply but grows in complexity at a pace that feels earned.While visually there are very few options (which is fine given the distance of characters from the camera), classes play very differently to one another, while stats can make all the difference in the kind of “dice roll” moments you’d expect from something like an evening of Dungeons and Dragons. These decisions crop up upon starting a new game, with a deceptively deep creation suite. Do you want to play as a hero, a villain, or are you more of a morally ambiguous character? The decision is yours. Pillars of Eternity offers complicated moral choices against a backdrop of a fantasy world gone mad, similarly to The Witcher 3’s finest moments. Told through a combination of great voice acting, truly engaging writing, and a wealth of impressive narrative choices, the story of Pillars Of Eternity holds up against many of the best in gaming. Meanwhile, our protagonist is slowly going mad owing to his new status as the Watcher, these symptoms manifesting as visions and insomnia. Those born without souls are “Hollowborn”, a phenomenon causing plenty of distrust of magic wielders in the region. The central conceit here is that souls are more than simply a supernatural idea, they exist as more metaphysical. Pillars Of Eternity's story starts a little slowly but soon becomes one of the genre's finest (Image: Obsidian Entertainment/Nintendo) It’s this story that feels at once at home with the game’s seemingly nondescript and generic fantasy setting and a pastiche of genre tropes (you’ll swing your greatsword, battle spiders and the like, and uncover plenty of subplots about arcane energy) but also helps it stand apart from others like it. Players explore richly detailed dioramas, striking up conversations with town folk, and battling through all kinds of fantastical monsters as a Watcher - a person able to “read” souls. Played from an isometric perspective, younger gamers may be expecting the “hack and slash” combat of Diablo or similar, but Pillars Of Eternity is more cerebral than that. By tapping into that, Obsidian was able to build not just one of the best in the genre, but one of the best games of 2015. This was for good reason - Pillars Of Eternity is a homage of sorts to classic old school RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, a genre that there’s clearly still a market for. Thankfully, the Complete Edition of Pillars of Eternity does just that.Ī record-breaking Kickstarter project, Pillars of Eternity saved Obsidian Entertainment from bankruptcy as it pulled in thousands and thousands of backers - reaching a cool million dollars in just three days. While many undoubtedly see both commercial and critical success, it often feels as though we’re awash in ports, making it hard for a title to stand out. These days, it feels a safe bet that older titles will come to Nintendo Switch, and plenty of newer ones too. ![]()
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