Pathfinder: Kingmaker

 PC
User Score
7.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 598 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 402 out of 598
  2. Mixed: 82 out of 598
  3. Negative: 114 out of 598

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  1. Hecatoncheires
    Sep 29, 2018
    2
    Maybe in one Year the Game is really cool like Poe .But now the customers are the Beta Test for the Game.EA or work on the Game longer maybe the smarter choise.Now the Steam Review and support for the game is dropping
  2. Magalha
    Oct 5, 2018
    2
    Despite being sold as a full release, it clearly is an early access tittle, keep your distance for at least 6 months.
    Has great potential, but the developer's "vision" about difficulty is to lazily just break a d20 system by doing flat increases to the enemies stats almost reducing encounters to pure RNG, making players have to rely on save/load on every encounter, and even when    Despite being sold as a full release, it clearly is an early access tittle, keep your distance for at least 6 months.
    Has great potential, but the developer's "vision" about difficulty is to lazily just break a d20 system by doing flat increases to the enemies stats almost reducing encounters to pure RNG, making players have to rely on save/load on every encounter, and even when travelling on the map, since you can get forced into encounters way above your level/abilities and there isn't any way to flee. While it's still plagued with several game-breaking bugs and the devs are slowly fixing them, it'll take a while for it to shine as much as it could.    … Expand
  3. KIlravock
    Oct 4, 2018
    2
    I have played the tabletop RPG since it began and was looking forward to a computer version I could play solo. I was hopeful, but after a very short time...greatly disappointed. Icewind Dale (ID) CRPG series was a long time ago, yet Pathfinder kingmaker demonstrates minimal advancement. in fact in PK, you can only create one character but years ago in ID you could create your entire partyI have played the tabletop RPG since it began and was looking forward to a computer version I could play solo. I was hopeful, but after a very short time...greatly disappointed. Icewind Dale (ID) CRPG series was a long time ago, yet Pathfinder kingmaker demonstrates minimal advancement. in fact in PK, you can only create one character but years ago in ID you could create your entire party of six.

    In PK you're given a choice of some pre-generated characters to come along with you that you can level up, but the developers obviously missed that character creation is one of the most fun aspects of these games!

    However, the absolute worst aspect of the game is the time limit. You must do "X" by a certain date or the game is over. "X" was not obvious to me as I started exploring the world and getting total party killed by spider swarms, single trolls or a handful of were-rats depending on where I stumbled upon.

    I never saw anything to do with setting up or running a kingdom, as the "timer" ran out on the game. By the way...that timer continues to count down even when you're resting or spending time constantly swapping out armour of your party members in order to rest and avoid fatigue.

    In real-time I played about 10 hours and lost the game. In game time....it is a fantasy calendar...I obviously spent three months. Half of that was either travelling from A to B and resting/changing clothes.

    I play Skyrim, different kind of game, with no issues. I loved Icewind Dale, Temple of Elemental Evil...all great. How to fix PK? #1 is to remove time limit. #2 is to allow character creation for your entire party from level one.

    I bought this on pre-order. 10 hours later it's game over...failed? I'll shelve this until it is fixed.    … Expand
  4. dontadow
    Oct 1, 2018
    2
    The game could have been a solid rpg, but it's mawed by trying to stick too close to a tabletop rpg but yet use computer game tropes.

    Tabletop rpgs are turn based, and yet the game decides to be real time. The result is a cluster. Monsters are not properly balanced for all party makeups, and the game does not allow you to choose who joins you in the beginning nor does it tell you that    The game could have been a solid rpg, but it's mawed by trying to stick too close to a tabletop rpg but yet use computer game tropes.

    Tabletop rpgs are turn based, and yet the game decides to be real time. The result is a cluster. Monsters are not properly balanced for all party makeups, and the game does not allow you to choose who joins you in the beginning nor does it tell you that a specific party makeup is neccessary. This game is the MMO of CRPGs without the experience of game designers who know how to make fun, tactical battles.
    To make matters worse, the AI for your comrades is nonexitence. You will spend a lot of time pausing and giving orders to your player. If you have played games like Pillars, Divinity, Dragon Age, where you don't have to micromanage party members, you'll miss them sorely.

    FOr those who manage to make the right party, and choose the right choices in the game, (i say right b ecause the game uses tabletop random encounters that range from things you can handle to things grossly out of your level ), then you wil have fun. However, there's 33 percent of people who've bought this game who the game has screwed.

    The only way to play the game is to min/max and power game. Making choices from a roleplaying point of view will cause you. Case in point, when the intro is happening u are gathering your starting party membres. However, you have chances to save certain people and change your alignment. If you don't choose evil, you will find yourself without an arcane magic user which is required (becaue of aoes ) for several encounters.
    Of course, nothing in the game will tell you that. You will spend 30 minutes fighting a spider swarm before you google things and realize that someone who has the srd figured out that the creature needs magic to attack. Well, here's the problem, no where in the game does it hint to how to hurt spiders.    … Expand
  5. Artmaton
    Oct 10, 2018
    4
    To understand this game you should get deeper into it. I spend 70h of Gameplay on it right now, and normally I would quit but I work in QA and thats why I move forward. Why I mention this? It's because game at current stage in not finished product. You got a ton of bugs, Check issues section on Steam it got over 2500+ posts. Some are minor like display of something, but others are likeTo understand this game you should get deeper into it. I spend 70h of Gameplay on it right now, and normally I would quit but I work in QA and thats why I move forward. Why I mention this? It's because game at current stage in not finished product. You got a ton of bugs, Check issues section on Steam it got over 2500+ posts. Some are minor like display of something, but others are like quests not working, characters roaming around without your interaction, spells vanishing from character, skills not working, missing descriptions and a ton of other things. For example so anticipated feature of building a kingdom is only partial at the moment, After building up and investing in my city it got high level and still looks like village full of peasants, so the video showing graphical advancement of your city was fake. At moment this is not implemented, one of major features of game which was advertised on video is not in game, and you still pay for it. The list goes and goes on, developers are trying to hotfix a lot but often with one fix they provide new defects. Its obvious that this game is lacking of good Testing team. I paid for it regular price and I'm not satisfied with result, and I must say that game has a huge potential but at this stage it should be called Beta, not official. Maybe if there would be a Modification tool for community, people would fix and improve game by themselves. For now I would wait around 2 months till everything gets fixed before buying it. I spend days playing rpgs when I was younger, finished BG, Icewind, Gothic and other multiple times with different ways but currently Pathfinder is the most bugged game which I have seen.
    Have a nice day.    … Expand
  6. Quakespeare
    Sep 30, 2018
    2
    In a game that was hyped for potentially great writing, the very first things you read in this game, in the character creator, are things like:

    "Everyone around target must succeed on a Fortitude save or become Nauseated for 1 round per 2d6+4 damage that alchemist bombs usually inflict. " There's no explanation what "2d6+4" means (I googled it; it means "6-16". Seriously.), nor what    In a game that was hyped for potentially great writing, the very first things you read in this game, in the character creator, are things like:

    "Everyone around target must succeed on a Fortitude save or become Nauseated for 1 round per 2d6+4 damage that alchemist bombs usually inflict. "

    There's no explanation what "2d6+4" means (I googled it; it means "6-16". Seriously.), nor what a "fortitude save" is. You're bombarded with literally 300 word spell descriptions, full of cryptic spell descriptions that are indecipherable to anyone but an actual tabletop D&D player - and even then the length of the descriptions is preposterous.

    If that's the first thing they're showing a new player, I have no interest in the rest of the game.    … Expand
  7. Taziar
    Sep 28, 2018
    0
    Game is completely broken. I have never seen so many bugs in a game before, and this is after 2 patches. As to the game itself, graphics are good, performance is good, beyond that, things start to fall apart.

    Difficulty. I love challenging games. If I don't get my party wiped at least once every few hours in a game, then the game is far too easy. This game is not too easy. It is    Game is completely broken. I have never seen so many bugs in a game before, and this is after 2 patches. As to the game itself, graphics are good, performance is good, beyond that, things start to fall apart.

    Difficulty. I love challenging games. If I don't get my party wiped at least once every few hours in a game, then the game is far too easy. This game is not too easy. It is hard. Unfortunately it is more hard than challenging. Yes, this game will kick your butt, but the problem is, it is due to inflated attributes, not encounter design. So you can have an encounter that wipes the floor with you. I mean, you don't kill a single enemy. But then, when you redo it, and use the exact same tactics, can wipe the floor with them, not losing a single party member. Challenging suggests that you need to apply strong tactics to win. Hard means reloading until you don't get one-shotted before you take your first action.

    To make a proper challenging game, you need to change the encounter for harder difficulty levels. Add more enemies. Replace weaker enemies with more powerful enemies, like casters. Enemies that are harder because they have more skills and abilities to use on the party. This game doesn't do that. It simply applies a formula that blindly boosts attributes of enemies. So, what happens is, the party misses 90% of the time, and the enemy hits almost every time. (They boost enemy AC and their attack rolls)

    The game is not all bad. You can tell they really tried to make a Pathfinder game that feels like the Pen and Paper version. They just made tons of mistakes. Given enough time, assuming the developers don't give up in it, it might become a great game. But it isn't today.

    The bugs are just too many. Not just bugs, the mechanics seem fundamentally flawed. The 6-second round system is broken. Flanking was redesigned to include simply being engaged to two enemies. So two fighters standing toe-to-toe with two rogues, in a battle line, and everyone is considered flanked. The rogues get to sneak attack the fighters standing in front of them. Not to mention any archers, regardless of where they are positioned.

    If they manage to fix the many, many bugs in this game and actually make it playable, I will rewrite this review. I want to like this game, I really do. But it was released in a sad, sad state.    … Expand
  8. Switters
    Sep 28, 2018
    0
    Half baked, unpolished, bug ridden, and imbalanced. Any 10 reviews are fanboys or shills. Check out Steam reviews for a more accurate picture (currently it's at mixed reviews which just "meh").
  9. mjprogue
    Sep 30, 2018
    0
    Any game that is bought and paid for and still can not be played after 5 days is a garbage game. If you are one of the very numerous people who are having problems, you can guarantee that Owlcat will put zero effort into addressing your issues. Buy at your own risk...its a gamble whether your money will be totally wasted or not.
  10. EricNeo
    Sep 29, 2018
    0
    Areas that crash the game.

    Swarm of spiders early game that you cannot kill unless you see a dev post or a youtube video on how to get by them. The game gives all the early kingdom quests to a single advisor and one of those locks him for 60 days which means you fail all the other quests because he is the only one you can select for them. Main storyline quest "Ancient Curse" has a    Areas that crash the game.

    Swarm of spiders early game that you cannot kill unless you see a dev post or a youtube video on how to get by them.

    The game gives all the early kingdom quests to a single advisor and one of those locks him for 60 days which means you fail all the other quests because he is the only one you can select for them.

    Main storyline quest "Ancient Curse" has a timer and hidden requirement that requires you hunt IRL forums for an obscure dev post on what you have to do, miss it and you're completely screwed. Enjoy watching the Eight-Legged Plague destroy your kingdom 2 days at a time and there is nothing you can do about it.

    I really wanted to like this game but this game makes it so hard. It's not fun running into game breaking bugs, bad design choices, and quests with hidden conditions that require you to hunt dev posts on forums to figure out what needs to be done.    … Expand
  11. night4
    Sep 25, 2018
    4
    Pros:
    -Character creation. Everything here is amazing except the extremely limited number of portraits and the fact that elves can't have beards.
    Cons: -Crashes. Crashes on startup, crashes on exit, crashes sometimes otherwise. -Graphics. It's ugly and the characters look like they're from 20 years ago, even with all options on high on a great gaming pc. -Too similar to Neverwinter    Pros:
    -Character creation. Everything here is amazing except the extremely limited number of portraits and the fact that elves can't have beards.

    Cons:
    -Crashes. Crashes on startup, crashes on exit, crashes sometimes otherwise.
    -Graphics. It's ugly and the characters look like they're from 20 years ago, even with all options on high on a great gaming pc.
    -Too similar to Neverwinter NIghts, in a bad way.
    -Extremely unoriginal
    -It should be turn based
    -Resting is tedious and unnecessarily time consuming.
    -Inventory management is ridiculous and unnecessarily time consuming
    -Too difficult/expensive to create your own group

    Edit: The game is just loading screens and small, bland, empty wilderness areas with nothing there. It's not fun, and I've enjoyed every D&D based game ever made.

    TLDR: The game feels like playing with a pedantic, punitive GM who is deliberately trying to suck all the fun out of it.    … Expand
  12. sunnycorax
    Dec 26, 2018
    4
    This game has so much promise and started out addictively fun. The battle system is trash. The encounters are exercises in patience and frustration. Complete unbalanced mess. I wish I could have made it to the actual management part of the game that is in the title but I couldn't help setting at some of these quest missions setting dumbfounded at what it was that this game wanted me to do.This game has so much promise and started out addictively fun. The battle system is trash. The encounters are exercises in patience and frustration. Complete unbalanced mess. I wish I could have made it to the actual management part of the game that is in the title but I couldn't help setting at some of these quest missions setting dumbfounded at what it was that this game wanted me to do. Enemies with high spell saves, DR given out to enemies like it is **** candy. Healing castings that works but your party member immediately dies after being healed because **** you that's why. Never before in a game has auto-save and quick save been such a companion...on normal difficulty. There is challenging and then there is brutally unforgiving. This game revels in handicapping the player and tossing them into fights in which luck has more to do with you beating an encounter than any level of skill, planning, or equipment. I found myself on main quest modules hammering save before each fight and load several times as my party gets wrecked with not a clue as to why. This game reminded me why I hate the idea of random encounters in game and in D&D when I play it. It is like a D&D game ran by the most chaotic evil DM on the face of the earth. There is plenty good here but the gameplay kills every bit of fun that the opening hours of play seemed to glimmer with. I want to like this game but as it stands right now it is garbage. Redeemable? Yes. Playable? No.… Expand
  13. suitejesus
    Dec 1, 2018
    3
    Starts off great, a true RPG..... until you run into a game crushing bug. You can easily but 50-60 hours in to all of a sudden find out you can't even finish the game. My first play through I made the mistake of trusting the developer comments about setting kingdom management to the auto mode. I found the idea of constantly assigning advisors to meaningless tasks to be a burden after aStarts off great, a true RPG..... until you run into a game crushing bug. You can easily but 50-60 hours in to all of a sudden find out you can't even finish the game. My first play through I made the mistake of trusting the developer comments about setting kingdom management to the auto mode. I found the idea of constantly assigning advisors to meaningless tasks to be a burden after a dozen hours in, so I set the option to auto which specifically states in the menu option that your kingdom CANNOT FAIL in the auto-mode, which is great considering once you click this option you cannot undo it. After all, maybe I just want to adventure around my lands instead of manage it. Well, guess what? 50 hours go by and all of a sudden I get a game over screen because my kingdom has crumbled, and there is absolutely nothing I could have ever done about it. On top of this, you will have countless missions you cannot complete if you happen to select dialogue choices out of order, happen to have the wrong companion at any given time, or sell items you didn't know you were supposed to keep. You want a customized party to compliment your play style? Hahahaha..... too bad, here are a bunch of pregenerated companions with horrible stat allocation that you will have to babysit in order to stay alive. Or you can buy mercenaries for an absurd amount of coin, but then forego some of the MAIN GAME content. Sadly this game had great potential, but the execution of the game is horrid.… Expand
  14. Steyraus
    Jan 30, 2021
    3
    It startsout really good butvall falls apart when you hit the open world. With glitches, awkward combat , ridiculas ballancing, you encounter almost invincible swarms and high level bosses just steps from the begining area. It throws yoi completely off the experiance.. Every side character has thr same damn story. Was not happy in their home town because life is hard fot wahmen and wahmenIt startsout really good butvall falls apart when you hit the open world. With glitches, awkward combat , ridiculas ballancing, you encounter almost invincible swarms and high level bosses just steps from the begining area. It throws yoi completely off the experiance.. Every side character has thr same damn story. Was not happy in their home town because life is hard fot wahmen and wahmen are amazing so they went off to lives on the streets and run around the wilderness.… Expand
  15. OleBergstedt
    Oct 24, 2018
    1
    Sadly, this game is a scam. It has huge potential but by all Desperation for a new cRPG, one should not ever Support the way this game was published. Small summery:

    Kickstarter asking for 500k, got ~900k - Devs knowingly released the game in an utterly broken state because the ran out of Money - reminding they nearly took twice as much as they asked for and cut A LOT of Content. The    Sadly, this game is a scam. It has huge potential but by all Desperation for a new cRPG, one should not ever Support the way this game was published. Small summery:

    Kickstarter asking for 500k, got ~900k - Devs knowingly released the game in an utterly broken state because the ran out of Money - reminding they nearly took twice as much as they asked for and cut A LOT of Content.

    The devs are simply not competent enough to ever finish this game. They release Hotfixes every 3-4 days which break significantly more than they actuall fix.

    They did NOT learn from releasing this broken game in a rush, now they try to fix it in a rush. They are simply bad coders.

    Sad for the massive potential.    … Expand
  16. Chashm0dai
    Dec 14, 2018
    0
    Full of bugs. Constantly updating with several GB of files each time, yet no big improvements. They're already selling DLCs even though the game is obviously far, far from finished. They also ban people from their Steam forum for nothing. Critique is silenced quickly. I think that has to do more with whatever idiot they hired as moderator, rather than the developers themselves.
  17. Leandhart
    Oct 15, 2018
    2
    There are very few redeemable features to this game.

    Given the sheer amount of bugs, this game should have stayed in early access, releasing this as a full-fledged product is practically making buyers into testers. At every corner, it feels like the game is far from finished...from minor text errors to bugs times a thousand, unpolished game mechanics, extreme poor balancing of    There are very few redeemable features to this game.

    Given the sheer amount of bugs, this game should have stayed in early access, releasing this as a full-fledged product is practically making buyers into testers.

    At every corner, it feels like the game is far from finished...from minor text errors to bugs times a thousand, unpolished game mechanics, extreme poor balancing of minions/boss difficulties, to poor quality of life/game design...it doesn't matter if the story would have been epic, the process to get there has been unnecessarily torturous and this makes the game as a whole one thing = bad. *Do not buy unless it is on sale or many months down the line when they finally fix it to playable levels.*

    There are many other games made by small companies that did it right, rather than this one that did so much wrong that it feels like they didn't care for it's fans or customers. In my 20 years of gaming I have rarely seen a screw up of this magnitude.    … Expand
  18. coredumped
    Oct 14, 2018
    1
    If you like reading the word "miss" on your screen, this is the game for you!
  19. stanrm
    Oct 10, 2018
    1
    epic bugs and as of now the game is broken....worst RPG game I've ever played
  20. Trypsinogen
    Oct 24, 2018
    0
    Do you like paying developers to beta test their games for them? If so, then go for it.
  21. Greenbob
    Oct 21, 2018
    0
    As the game stands right now, its really fun if you are into crpgs, but i can't recommend it, as it is not a finished product. you can really build up a group with great combat synergy and it gives you enough options to mold all the companion characters around your select characters role. Combat is fun and as fast or methodical as you need it to be. However the game has a plethora of bugsAs the game stands right now, its really fun if you are into crpgs, but i can't recommend it, as it is not a finished product. you can really build up a group with great combat synergy and it gives you enough options to mold all the companion characters around your select characters role. Combat is fun and as fast or methodical as you need it to be. However the game has a plethora of bugs and inconsistancies that pop up hindering your progress until you screen the forums for a work around or learn that you just have give up on some parts of the games stories and side quests. Its enough to make it not fun and pull you out of the experience as you always go back to wondering on whether or not you are doing things that are closing off options to you in game due to faulty coding on the developers behalf.

    Edit, having gone further into this misery Ive found an intellectually insulting kingdom management system. Like really... 'management" is, all it is.

    You gather BP "bp being, the currency you spend to manage and upgrade your kingdom." And I use the word, "upgrade", for the only other way to describe this process is "a measured exercise in doing something while you are breathing"

    Ohh dear reader i hear you say,
    "why do you gather BP?" to which I say,
    "so you can spend it" to which you say,
    "what do you spend it on" to which I say,
    "upgrading your ability to gather BP" to which you say,
    "well why do you need more BP if all you do is spend it to get it back." to which i say,
    "I dont rightly know, and neither does anyone else."

    during this whole process you are locked into countdown timers that will end the cycle of your kingdom unless you use Advisors to investigate events and reveal pertinent information as where to go on the map to prevent such atrocities happening to your kingdom.

    The problem with this, the game doesnt distinguish what is impending doom over what is a group of merchants just wanting a chat, thats right. youll have about anywhere from 5 to 15 of these " timed events" that youll have a very limited amount of rescources to investigate. All so you can figure out which one is related to the main quest and ultimately stave off that game over screen.

    That brings me to increasing your kingdoms stats, there are various kingdom stats that upgrade due to you building stuff in settlements you have founded, these settlements are generally a 3 by 3. grid with each cubicle representing a possible building that you can select to build. certain combinations of buildings side by side concede additional bonuses per month to the kingdoms overall stats. Stats upgrade in level every increment of 20. still with me? good. Now when we upgrade a stat, we have to choose an advisor to oversee the upgrades of these stats.

    In turn, this advisor requests you to oversee him, overseeing the upgrade in stats, which will advance time in game by so many weeks , so naturally, you click accept... and you get a F-cking game over screen because one of those events that kills your kingdom happens within this 14 day span and you werent even allowed to intercept it.

    So you do some save scumming, some testing, the days go by. you figure out a good date on which you can upgrade your Kingdom. you reload from a save file predestined to do exactly what you know will happen, Heres the big moment, you click accept, it completes, one of youre 10 seperate kingdom stats is now level 2... And you get nothing, nothing changes, no epic items, no visible upgrades to your kingdom, no extra dialogue. In fact you remember now that this is a crpg that has combat and tactics and trolls and fire spells, and you wonder... why the f-ck am I even doing this.

    To end, the kingdom management part of this game is so seperated from the game entirely it can only be described as ""a measured exercise in doing something while you are breathing".
    as for you, please dont be me.    … Expand
  22. Spiral
    Oct 14, 2018
    0
    Kingmaker is a great game in concept only...sadly, the release version does not do the game justice. I would be very highly suspect of anyone who has voted this game higher then a 5; they honestly must not be actually *playing* the game.

    First off, the game breaking bugs and terribly limited game design decisions...there are thousands of people stuck halfway through the game, including    Kingmaker is a great game in concept only...sadly, the release version does not do the game justice. I would be very highly suspect of anyone who has voted this game higher then a 5; they honestly must not be actually *playing* the game.

    First off, the game breaking bugs and terribly limited game design decisions...there are thousands of people stuck halfway through the game, including myself. Quest scripts are horrendously buggy, and if they break, they cannot be continued to allow access to later chapters. I havent been able to continue for over a week now, heh. Also, the choices the devs have set up in encounter responses FORCE you to take take actions that are not in accord with your characters alignment...it results in shifting your alignment rapidly. Want to play a Paladin or other alignment restricted character? Good luck with that.

    Secondly, nearly every aspect of the games core rules is broken in some way. More then half the feats dont interact with the game in the way they should, or with certain race/class combinations. Many of the spells are the same. The game even references some spells that are, apparently, not even in the game yet...sigh. With everything being a crap shoot as to whether its working or not its very hard to understand how the game in its current state was a release candidate. Monster stats...ah the monster stats..lol.. Okay, so in this game, "normal" difficulty has the NPCs sitting with at least +5 to +10 on most attributes...that means they deal TONS of damage and are almost impossible to hit with spells and effects due to having absurdly high levels of saves. Greater Owlbears have, no lie, higher stats in this game then Ancient Dragons do in the Pathfinder rules. Yep. Fortunetly there are difficulty sliders you can adjust to reign some of this stuff in, but in effect it makes the whole game feel bad from a player perspective... NORMAL should be core base rules and not having the stats of EVERY NPC bloated beyond reason.

    Thirdly, id like to touch on the Kingdom Manager aspect of the game, which is what sets it apart from the other 3d iso's out there currently. It too, is broken. Advisors that have maybe a plus 6 to plus 10 are excepted to make DC 30 tests. Sometimes the events bug out and pile up in your quest log causing a Game Over scenario with nothing you can do about it. The game literally locks you out of playing it for 14 days if you choose to do some of the event cards. If an event that requires IMMEDIATE attention pops up while your advisor is on a 60 day improvement quest, well sorry...your effed, as the advisor is LOCKED into there quest and cannot pause or end it to pursue something thats more pressing. This may not have been a problem IF you got more then 2 advisors that can qualify for doing the task......there is a severe shortage of advisors...severe. Your kingdom also currently does not improve in any way, not even visually, even with stats over 100! It doesnt bring in gold, no new vendors show up, nada.....In fact, the only bonus you get is to have the Artisan crafter occasionally gift you with something, which you will likely sell anyway.... The whole system is rubbish.

    So, if everything else is poorly implemented....The game must have excellent combat mechanics, right? No...nope. There is no agro management in the game. No scripts to tell your guys how to act within the combat system. Unless you micro everything you will surrender about 90% of your guys combat abilities......Rubbish.

    COMMUNITY SERVICE MESSAGE: Those who have voted the game 9 or 10, and have written one or two lines of review are paid reviewers. There reviews simply DO NOT reflect the current state of the game. Since its launch, 3300+ bug reports have been generated.

    Lastly....loading screens....Once you hit the Kingdom Manager about half the time will be spent in loading screens...there is just sooooo much screen flipping, ugh....Something must be done about loading screens.

    In closing, id just like to say that the Devs are working to correct the biggest issues, releasing one or two patches a week to solve the game breaking/ending bugs.. However, I as a player, I did not appreciate there "Studio Vision" posting on the steam forum....Its a load of drek which basically comes down to "We know better then the Players do". No, no you do not Owlcat. I wish they would just come about with something to the effect of "Hey, guys...we know we @#%@% up but had to release to keep the lights on. Our vision for the game and what the expectations were did not meet up, and we will do our best to fix it."....Sadly, nothing like this culpability statement has been posted.

    As it stands, Pillars of Eternity 2 has a much better feel to it and is the closer spiritual successor to BG 3 and the NWN nights series.    … Expand
  23. kt6193
    Sep 27, 2018
    4
    There's no huge fundamental issues with P:K, just a bunch of small things that begin to add up to a less than enjoyable experience at times.

    I'm about 2 to 3 hours in the game (not counting the 2 hours I spent making my character), and have experienced just as much frustration as enjoyment. Overall I can't give this game a bad rating as there are definitely fun and awesome things about    There's no huge fundamental issues with P:K, just a bunch of small things that begin to add up to a less than enjoyable experience at times.

    I'm about 2 to 3 hours in the game (not counting the 2 hours I spent making my character), and have experienced just as much frustration as enjoyment. Overall I can't give this game a bad rating as there are definitely fun and awesome things about it. Like I mentioned, I spent 2 hours making my character, but that was completely by choice. You can blaze through the character creator super quickly if you want (even by just choosing a pre-made character), or you can sit back and read about everything and choose, change your mind, consider other options, etc etc.
    After the creation I noticed one of the very trivial issues with these types of games: while the voice acting is great, there is no narrator. This results in having only part what's typed out said. You'll have typed out dialogue that features speech, narration, and then more speech, but due to the lack of a narrator you'll just hear the voice actor, and tiny pause about a second, and then the voice actor again. This causes the player to either have to read the narration super quickly (often while the voice actor is speaking) or waiting till the audio is done so they can go back and read the narration. I resorted to turning off voices to fix this issue as I'd like to get the whole picture of whats happening...not just what's being said.
    The next two issues are somewhat related to each other. The camera is fixed to an exact angle. I've personally always hated this as it quite literally hides things. Specifically this fixed angle—along with the fog of war—effectively hid the only way to progress out of the building my party was in. We walked down a hall way and into a room with a puzzle involving swords (don't worry I won't spoil anything) and couldn't see the door we could open due to it being hidden by the fixed camera angle. In similar isometric CRPG where you can rotate the camera this problem would never have happened for obvious reasons: the rotation of the camera! Because of this not only did I think we HAD to complete this surprisingly tough puzzle to progress, but I also became completely lost and confused when I eventually finished the puzzle and still was stuck in this building. Eventually after watching a few youtube let's plays, I found the door that was hiding in plain sight. This would be fine if the door was supposed to be hidden but when you spend 20 or 30 minutes looking for a door that you'd see in 0.1 seconds with a rotating camera that's no longer the player's fault....
    Lastly, and very briefly I experience a camera lock issue where I couldn't pan the camera in any direction and the only way to move it was to double click a character's portrait. So if they ran off the screen you'd have to double click each time they ran off the screen... A complete restart of the game fixed this issue though.

    All in all It's roughly worth it's base asking price of 39.99. I personally wouldn't bother with the more expensive special editions you can buy, but at the end of the day it's your money.    … Expand
  24. Fidi
    Jan 15, 2019
    0
    Too many poorly designed encounters that are guaranteed to be a TPK unless they player was lucky enough to accidentally bring the right combination of classes. Dying over and over again until you go back to an earlier save game and switch to a different party is "Replay value" according to Kingmaker.
  25. sundog005
    May 23, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Cannot recommend this without mods...if you buy it check out Nexus for some game fixing mods that rescue it... as usual it seems lately with many RPG's. The default companions are irritating aswell like PoE and PoE 2. My advice make your own party and don't worry about the *companion stories* they mostly aren't worth the effort of doing and the XP for them is skippable. My personal pet hate is the half orc sadist sorc....
    Sledgehammer difficulty spikes are apparently Owlcat's idea of making the game more challenging as well, severe absence of subtley in writing and design like i said get some mods to smooth the ride if you are determined to finish the game...i got as far as the *EVERYTHING in the Universe is trying to destroy your Kingdom!*, events and got tired of it personally. I mean whoever is behind all those over the top, even if you win you lose problems has to be some godlike mofo....at this point you can have the Stolen Lands it ain't worth the hassle, i'm off to play an actual good game :p...Sorry to say it but this is what happens when you give a big potential project to an amateur outfit like Owlcat.    … Expand
  26. setpol
    Jul 20, 2021
    0
    DO NOT BUY FOR PLAYSTATION CONSOLES

    This game is a buggy horrible mess. It crashes constantly and has not been fixed in the 3 years of it being out, it won't ever be.

    The game was fun interesting and has something to it but I absolutely cannot recommend when it crashes nearly as much as cyberpunk.

    This was even on a ps5 and it didn't help it at all.
  27. Cyberevil
    Dec 28, 2020
    3
    To summarize this game in one sentence: Critical socjus does unbalanced RPG that gets annihilated by a broken kingdom management sim doing piggyback.
  28. Hexen-Slayer
    Sep 8, 2020
    1
    This game was released in 2018 - it's been 2 years, it's still an unplayable buggy mess. The devs have announced a sequel - and this garbage isn't even fixed yet!
    Expect crashes, quests not to trigger, area transitions not to trigger, also an error in the encumbrance system had all my items gain weight overnight - dropping the entire inventory and standing butt-naked didn't change    This game was released in 2018 - it's been 2 years, it's still an unplayable buggy mess. The devs have announced a sequel - and this garbage isn't even fixed yet!
    Expect crashes, quests not to trigger, area transitions not to trigger, also an error in the encumbrance system had all my items gain weight overnight - dropping the entire inventory and standing butt-naked didn't change anything (no affliction, 16 strength fighter).
    Even if all the bugs would be fixed, this is average at the very best. PATHFINDER: KINGMAKER is basically a BALDUR'S GATE / ICEWIND DALE / PILLARS OF ETERNITY clone with a tacked on kingdom management system - which I disabled since I had zero interest in that kind of things. If you played the mentioned above games, why should you play PATHFINDER: KINGMAKER?
    You shouldn't!
    First off, the COMMAND & CONQUER combat system with pausing is obsolete. Either go DIABLO-style clickfest or go DIVINITY: ORIGINAL SIN 2 turn based combat (which would be my preference), but this combat system is garbage.
    Secondly, events with time limits are an absolute no-go! The first task has a time limit, run out of time: game over!
    Three: include the ruleset! Former RPG games of the 90s like EYE OF THE BEHOLDER had in-depth description of the D&D ruleset (on which PATHFINDER is based), even though that game only used a very simplified variety to them. Here you better have some knowledge or you're poop outta luck.
    Graphics and art style are ugly. Add terrible voice acting (Linzi, shut up!) but at least it has the typical "only every first line of each paragraph voiced" novel-length dialogues, so you won't have to put up with too much of it (Linzi ended up not in my party anyway). Sound effects and score are serviceable, but nothing more than that.
    Character portraits are a joke! Only a handful to choose from and not one was visually pleasing.
    A repetitive gameplay loop (especially if you've played the afore-mentioned games) with a copy & paste job of the HUD had me wanting to uninstall this garbage after only a few minutes.
    If you must play one of these COMMAND & CONQUER-RPGs, pick BALDUR's GATE II if you must, or PILLARS OF ETERNITY I & II to get the best of this type, but avoid this bugged, boring and bland BG-rip-off like the plague (you'll be glad you did!).    … Expand
  29. ottohahn
    Jun 12, 2021
    0
    Played the most recent patch in June 2021.
    The Kingdom Management Minigame is boring and sucks.
    The balancing is horrible. Some Enemies are Paperweights and some are just unbeatable. Additionally the difficulty is increased by throwing mob after mob at the player. Last act is incomprehensible and has also horrible balancing. Story is the generic "ancient evil destroys the lands".    Played the most recent patch in June 2021.
    The Kingdom Management Minigame is boring and sucks.
    The balancing is horrible. Some Enemies are Paperweights and some are just unbeatable.
    Additionally the difficulty is increased by throwing mob after mob at the player.
    Last act is incomprehensible and has also horrible balancing.
    Story is the generic "ancient evil destroys the lands".
    There are also technical difficulties. What can take approx 1min to save the game on a 8-core cpu with 32GB RAM and fast SSD?
    I had to force myself to finish the game.    … Expand
  30. F1_is_WWE
    Mar 20, 2022
    2
    Kingmaker faithfully adapts the pen and paper game to the video screen. This was seen by many as a huge plus - there is an in-depth tried and tested game system, rules, and adventure. But unfortunately what works with pen and paper doesn't work on a pc game. Yes, the rules are deep and you have hunderds of options for building you character - the only fun part of the game. But combat is aKingmaker faithfully adapts the pen and paper game to the video screen. This was seen by many as a huge plus - there is an in-depth tried and tested game system, rules, and adventure. But unfortunately what works with pen and paper doesn't work on a pc game. Yes, the rules are deep and you have hunderds of options for building you character - the only fun part of the game. But combat is a boring chore where you do the exact same moves every single fight and just mindlessly click away. Especially if you turn it to turn based mode, you'll see just how mindless and slow the game actually is.

    The story is alright, again you are presented with many different options on how you want to build your kingdom. But then you find out that the developers are highly biased towards "Chaotic Good" choices and disapprove of you choosing any other decrees. At one point my lawful character supported freedom of speech and this was counted as a chaotic action - what? Plot is linear and you aren't given much choice.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

19
#19 Most Discussed PC Game of 2018
100
#100 Most Shared PC Game of 2018

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
73

Mixed or average reviews - based on 33 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 33
  2. Mixed: 18 out of 33
  3. Negative: 0 out of 33
  1. CD-Action
    Feb 13, 2019
    75
    Pathfinder: Kingmaker offers an interesting world to explore along with satisfying combat, and the first half of the adventure is top-notch old school fun. Unfortunately later the game loses its momentum and becomes boring. Anyhow, it’s a solid RPG that should keep Baldur’s Gate’s fans happy for many hours. [12/2018, p.86]
  2. Games.cz
    Jan 15, 2019
    80
    A great adaptation of the original Pathfinder gamebooks. The story is sidelined by tough tactical combat - its steep difficulty may be daunting to genre newbies, but D&D veterans will be delighted. There are technical problems, yes, but those are overshadowed by refreshing kingdom management and interesting companions.
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  3. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Dec 31, 2018
    80
    RPG for the hardened. Get used to loadings and getting lost in the rules, get ready for an ok storyline - and in the return you will enjoy a deep level of challenge and great management of your own kingdom. Obsidian has a new competitor. [Issue#290]
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