It’s Time to Come Back to Pillars of Eternity

MMORPG.com’s Christopher Coke penned a piece to praise Obsidian Entertainment’s post-release support of Pillars of Eternity and the new expansion that’s been recently released for the title, going as far as to argue that there’s never been a better time to dive into the real-time with pause fantasy CRPG. While I’m not sure the improvements will be enough to bring back those who were disappointed by the title at release, my experience with them has certainly been positive:

But Obsidian is nothing if not receptive. Over the last eleven months, they’ve embarked on a forward march of adding features that players are asking for, while also lowering the barrier to entry. Party AI was one of the marquee additions of The White March Part One, and it worked well! Don’t expect Bioware levels of customizability, but party members can now be given roles from the standard assortment of tank, support, and damage dealer. On higher difficulties, you’ll still want to set your own actions, but in normal play, it gets the job done handily.

The White March Part Two also added a new difficulty mode to the game in the form of Story Mode. Story Mode isn’t exactly what it sounds like, but it’s close. Rather than just knock combat down into meaninglessness, Story Mode still demands you pay attention and strategize. Behind the scenes, it’s skewing dice rolls in your favor, making it more likely that you’ll Hit instead of Graze and deflect more damage than you’d take normally. It’s not a catch-all, though, and you will still be giving your best impression of a wet-mop if you’re not careful. But really, it’s a nice middle-ground that makes for the perfect entry point for players who were nervous before.

Those problems keeping people away? Obsidian pretty much made an option for all of them. And if you prefer a harder difficulty, well, the game has never had a problem with that.