Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

 PC
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 740 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 540 out of 740
  2. Mixed: 102 out of 740
  3. Negative: 98 out of 740
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  1. mykeymoonshine
    May 18, 2018
    8
    Project Eternity sought to revive the style of the infinity engine games using crowd funding because major publishers don't make anything like that anymore. This was a success, POE and a few other games showed that there was still a market for this type of game and now the genre is back in full swing.

    The sequel improves on that game massively. It looks so much better than the last    Project Eternity sought to revive the style of the infinity engine games using crowd funding because major publishers don't make anything like that anymore. This was a success, POE and a few other games showed that there was still a market for this type of game and now the genre is back in full swing.

    The sequel improves on that game massively. It looks so much better than the last game, the art style is fantastic. The last game had beautiful 2d environments but the 3d character models looked a little dated and out of place but that is not the case here, the character models are for the most part really good and the new lighting and vfx really brings the game to life.

    the majority of dialogue is voice acted and the VO is for the most part great. All the important npc's have hand painted portraits now, Obsidian used a simpler watercolour technique which allowed them to create portraits for every quest relevant character. This really helps make each character seem more unique a problem i had with the last game was that very few of the side characters were all that memorable and this really helps with that.

    The world is more open and it's a lot easier to explore the many islands in the Deadfire Archipelago. There are also a lot of side quests most of which are well written and interesting. You have a ship and there are many ways to upgrade, customise and even buy new ships in the game. There are many potential crew members for your ship. You can either hire them from taverns or more interestingly there are npc's dotted throughout the world who can potentially be hired as crew members. This is a nice touch for example I was able to recruit an ogre as my ships cook who was tired of her job cooking in this dive of a tavern.

    The combat is more fun and the new subclass and multiclass system is for the most part fantastic it adds so much more customisation to the game, some classes have more versatility than others but then you can always multiclass. I do think in the current state though the combat is a little too easy, that is supposed to be being patched some time soon.

    The game really reacts to the way you customise your character, there are all kinds of skill checks and background checks. For example you can play as a "godlike" which is essentially a person who has been touched by a god and blesses with certain godlike characteristics, this is supposedly rare and people react strongly to it. In POE though there were other godlike everywhere and reactivity to godlike characters was uncommon. This is not the case in this game it comes up a lot which is really nice to see.

    I am not giving this game a perfect score because there are a couple of problems, for one thing the intro forces you to either import a save from the last game or choose a preset world state (you can also make a custom world state in the options menu without importing). This would seem to imply that your choices from the last game matter in this one but many of them simply do not. Sure they come up a lot in conversation but most of them have very little in the way of consequences. Even some choices that should have major consequences don't at all. The import system is also quite buggy but that has already been patched for the most part.

    The main plot is not as long as I would like and there isn't really a way to change it much either, this was the same with the last game and it was my biggest gripe but at least that one had a longer main quest that didn't feel bogged down either. This one could probably do with being about twice as long as it is. Don't get me wrong though the game isn't lacking in story content, it's just that there is a lot more focus on side quests and specifically faction quests.

    Another problem I have is the companions, they just feel less important than the ones in the last game. Even the returning ones I feel like they are just along for the ride. There are also "sidekicks", I would be fine if that was like Baldur's gate where some companions just had less content but sidekicks have so little after the initial meeting that they seem pointless and not worth taking. They should have some party banter and a few comments and reactions to certain quests here and there to make them feel worth taking. It's a shame too as some of these characters have potential. The companion relationship system is also quite buggy so lets hope it gets patched soon.

    I would definitely recommend this game, despite a few flaws it improves on the last and I am already enjoying my second play through.

    Disclaimer: I backed this game    … Expand
  2. Willar
    Nov 21, 2018
    8
    I am a big fan of this kind of RPG but I have never been a massive fan of the Pillars world. There have been better crpgs but this is still a very worthy and enjoyable title.
  3. almax
    Jul 19, 2020
    8
    Very good sequel which, unlike other wonderful rpg (e.g.dragon age or fallout 3 ), do not upset the original title transforming it into garbage.
    Only the story is, from my point of view, a little less addictive than the first one but you should not miss it if you liked pillars of eternity
  4. Oshiri_Maeda
    Oct 31, 2020
    8
    Great game! Too bad I'm not a fan of real-time pause fights. It is playable in turn-based mode, however it is not as polished and doesn't feel as good as something like Divinity Original Sin. You can feel that the game was not planned as turn-based, still alright though. Art and classic setting are superb, dialogs and text quests are pretty well done too. Love the text quests, too badGreat game! Too bad I'm not a fan of real-time pause fights. It is playable in turn-based mode, however it is not as polished and doesn't feel as good as something like Divinity Original Sin. You can feel that the game was not planned as turn-based, still alright though. Art and classic setting are superb, dialogs and text quests are pretty well done too. Love the text quests, too bad there were not very variative and pretty short. My biggest issue, besides the non-native turn-based mode that just lacks some zest, is the myriad little items and abilities, each with miniscule bonuses that just hard to manage and remember. I'd rather have twice or three times less abilities and item effects, but making them more impactful. Just tired of managing all those buttons and tired of keeping so many numbers in my head. and soooo many stats...
    Still, wonderful game, I'm just nitpicking.    … Expand
  5. cezar88augusto
    Dec 9, 2022
    8
    I decided to play it in turn mode. The story of the game initially is cool, but as the game goes on, it gets dense, with many unnecessary characters and dialogues. I managed to finish Pillar of Eternity in 65 hours of gameplay: I completed several side quests and obviously, the main quest.

    It's a good RPG game. The game is open world and there is a navigation system and naval battles    I decided to play it in turn mode. The story of the game initially is cool, but as the game goes on, it gets dense, with many unnecessary characters and dialogues. I managed to finish Pillar of Eternity in 65 hours of gameplay: I completed several side quests and obviously, the main quest.

    It's a good RPG game. The game is open world and there is a navigation system and naval battles different from conventional RPGs.

    I liked the game, but I confess that I expected more since I saw the many positive reviews before playing it. I recommend the game, but it's nothing fantastic.    … Expand
  6. Demiurge11
    Feb 25, 2021
    8
    The Good:
    - The game is quite fun.
    - The tactical combat can be quite challenging, and interesting. - There are lots of places to see, characters to talk to, and moral dilemmas to consider. - The epilogue felt like a satisfying accumulation of my decisions along the way. - The story definitely fits well with the Pillars mythology and is a good sequel to the original game. - I got 80    The Good:
    - The game is quite fun.
    - The tactical combat can be quite challenging, and interesting.
    - There are lots of places to see, characters to talk to, and moral dilemmas to consider.
    - The epilogue felt like a satisfying accumulation of my decisions along the way.
    - The story definitely fits well with the Pillars mythology and is a good sequel to the original game.
    - I got 80 hours of fun game play out of the game, and hadn't quite tapped all the game's potential.
    - Worth the money. I'd buy a sequel.

    The Bad:
    - Director Josh Sawyer said that sales of this game were low and he didn't know why. I can explain what the missing "je ne sais quoi" is from my perspective. While the game is fun (as stated above), the story is very fragmented. There are tons of side quests and factions to support, but the main storyline is pretty short and not well-developed at all. The game starts off well, with lots of richness in the story and characters, but that fragments into a ton of little side quests and things to keep you occupied. Don't get me wrong, those things are fun, but they don't add up to a story that feels really satisfying. There are plenty of hack & slash and MMO games that offer tons of diverting side quests. I think people play an Obsidian game for the story. Pillars of Eternity II did not deliver here. The ending is interesting, but getting there felt... meh.

    The Ugly:
    - two of the playable characters are cardboard cutouts--this is apparently due to the game having gotten insufficient funding from backers. Some of the characters are full of personality and have things to say at various points in the game, and have their own personal quest and epilogue, whereas there are a few that say virtually nothing and seem like ghosts. I would have preferred that the cardboard cutouts be removed entirely rather than haunting the game.
    - I didn't really like *any* of the factions presented. They were all unlikable in my opinion. At least, on the bright side, the game-makers gave me the option to go independently.    … Expand
  7. F1_is_WWE
    Mar 20, 2022
    8
    This is the best CRPG game simply because it has by far the best combat of them all. No longer do you just spam heal and attack like in other games, here you have to actually use your skills and items with different tactics each battle. Muticlassing and leveling characters is fun. I can't go back to any of the older CRPGs after this one, it just blows them out of the water.

    The only    This is the best CRPG game simply because it has by far the best combat of them all. No longer do you just spam heal and attack like in other games, here you have to actually use your skills and items with different tactics each battle. Muticlassing and leveling characters is fun. I can't go back to any of the older CRPGs after this one, it just blows them out of the water.

    The only problems with the game are the boring story and naval battles, but they don't take up too much time.

    Would recommend playing with the Diffuclty Tweaks mod so you don't get overlevelled.    … Expand
  8. Tomplexthis
    Jul 7, 2022
    8
    This game builds alot upon the first pillars of eternity, but also has a Awful ending, the game in its entirety is pretty amazing, and worth playing, it adds on a lot of new features that are kind of awesome, like the dumb boat, with repetitive fights, or the many islands, with places to see and explore, loved its dlc, for what the game is, i liked it alot, but that ending, sours everyThis game builds alot upon the first pillars of eternity, but also has a Awful ending, the game in its entirety is pretty amazing, and worth playing, it adds on a lot of new features that are kind of awesome, like the dumb boat, with repetitive fights, or the many islands, with places to see and explore, loved its dlc, for what the game is, i liked it alot, but that ending, sours every aspect of playing this.… Expand
  9. HydrophobikFish
    Jun 9, 2023
    8
    Huge step up over its predecessor. Interesting concept of a pirate rpg, the story and setting are both very engaging. There are many interesting questions posed to the player, small and large. Combat is fun and did not wear out its welcome. Characters a bit hit or miss but some real stars in there. Soundtrack and presentation appropriately mythic.
  10. nomemory
    Dec 6, 2019
    7
    There a few wrong things with the game to distance it from a great experience: loading screens, weak main story and easy combat even on higher level of difficulty.
  11. Gamed2long
    Apr 6, 2022
    7
    Ultimately I developed a love/hate relationship with this game, that continued to its deeply unsatisfying conclusion. It is in many ways an improvement over POE 1. But would I recommend it to a D&D game fan? It depends. To anyone not already a fan of the genre? Definitely NOT!
    The good: Enemy and companion AI is a big step up from the first game. Characters have more voiced dialogue.    Ultimately I developed a love/hate relationship with this game, that continued to its deeply unsatisfying conclusion. It is in many ways an improvement over POE 1. But would I recommend it to a D&D game fan? It depends. To anyone not already a fan of the genre? Definitely NOT!
    The good: Enemy and companion AI is a big step up from the first game. Characters have more voiced dialogue. Characters are more grounded and there were better companion interactions to be had. Some settings are very creative and pretty. The class system is more polished and intuitive. Some more compelling side quests and 3 DLCs far better than the base game. The game even got a bit philosophical at times. In places it had that old school Baldur's Gate quirkiness that is missing in most modern games.
    The bad: Fight balance. How items were handled. I liked the idea of finding gold items and upgrading them until they had the best stats in the game and came with a special ability, however a lot of the time this meant I found a best in slot item for a character, and had no need to change it out for the rest of the game. I took half my crew through the whole game never changing off the equipment they started in. It already had the good perk attributes, so it was just a matter of upgrading with gold and generic crafting stuff. So that took some fun out of itemization. Potions/scrolls would have made a big difference early on, but it costs gold to brew/craft them. Was too poor to when they would have made a huge difference and by the time I was rich enough to, I'd amassed basically all I'd need. So that was largely a wasted opportunity. The 4 major factions in the game are all flawed. Perhaps too flawed to the point it was hard to see redeeming qualities in any of them. I appreciate they didn't want clear "good guy/bad guy" choices. But the factions could have shown more good to go with their bad.
    Then there was ship combat. Basically its own text adventure that ended in a typical fight anyway. I appreciate this game is small budget and chose not to go into battle animations or cutscenes. But the text crawl with unclear rules made it no fun if you know what you're doing and just bad if you don't.
    Finally the main plot started off strong, but ended with a whimper, not a bang. It started out better, but ended worse than most of the side quests and DLC.    … Expand
  12. theirrelephants
    Jun 9, 2020
    7
    Good game but I didn't enjoy it as much as PoE1. 90% of the quests happen around one hub city, and 90% of the other "dungeons" consist of (admittedly pretty) one to two rooms on a single floor. The story didn't flow very well either, and while the faction system was entertaining, none of them were remotely likeable.

    The new party members were okay, but Eder and Aloth were the most    Good game but I didn't enjoy it as much as PoE1. 90% of the quests happen around one hub city, and 90% of the other "dungeons" consist of (admittedly pretty) one to two rooms on a single floor. The story didn't flow very well either, and while the faction system was entertaining, none of them were remotely likeable.

    The new party members were okay, but Eder and Aloth were the most enjoyable companions. The new ones didn't really compare to old favorites like Durance or Sagani. Xoti and Maia were.. okay. The rest of them were either bland or bad. The only one that might have been more interesting was confined to a companion role with no real story (some elf undead woman).

    The main quest also feels incredibly rushed. It's basically four missions and the final "boss fight" is a quick check list of questions and then the credits are rolled.

    It's a good RPG, but it's not a great one. Thaos was a much better villain than Eothas was. The latter comes off like a spoiled child who's smashing things because no one else will let him have his way, and yet his fellow gods wont intervene for reasons that are never really clear despite hitting him with a magic nuke the last time he tried to pull this. Despite attempts to handwave their inaction away, Woedica repeatedly makes it clear that they could stop him, they just wont because...reasons?

    I liked PoE2, but I didn't love it.

    By the way Sawyer, if you're reading this and still confused why it didn't sell as well as the first one - it's because of bad marketing. I didn't even know a second one had ever released until years later when it popped up as being on sale on steam.    … Expand
  13. jseph1234
    Apr 17, 2022
    7
    What a lovingly well-crafted game this is. From the beautiful animation and awesome story that carries over from Pillars of Eternity 1. Was a bit disappointed though how my original charater from #1 was Nerfed badly so I have changed my rating to 7 / 10
  14. Thilijan
    Jun 15, 2018
    7
    If you enjoyed Pillars of Eternity, there's a good chance you will enjoy part two as well. The writing is still relatively pretentious at times, the voice acting ranges from excellent to mediocre (some npcs seem to change accents mid conversation), the ship to ship combat is dull and feels unfinished, especially considering the time you will spend on it. I get a piratey vibe but with fewIf you enjoyed Pillars of Eternity, there's a good chance you will enjoy part two as well. The writing is still relatively pretentious at times, the voice acting ranges from excellent to mediocre (some npcs seem to change accents mid conversation), the ship to ship combat is dull and feels unfinished, especially considering the time you will spend on it. I get a piratey vibe but with few supporting features. The story gets you going for a couple hours if you played the previous game (how dare he destroy my castle?!) but quickly turns dull. The new graphics, dialogue system and combat feel like a great improvement. There are some lost opportunities that keep this game from being very good. I can still recommend it for fans, newcomers should wait for a sale to grab it!… Expand
  15. Gamebeating
    May 21, 2018
    7
    A tiny bit above average. Everything the game improves over the first title (combat, visuals, sounddesign) it destroys with bad writing and funky voice acting.

    While the combat gets better and better with every game Obsidian makes, the writing takes a nose-dive over their last titles.
    I hope they can break this trend with their next project, while keeping the combat as good as it is now.
  16. MR67
    May 30, 2020
    7
    I finally managed to finish this one in around 60 hours without playing any of the DLC, as I probably plan to do another playthrough at some point.

    It's an improvement graphically from the first POE, but suffers from the same poor optimization issues as the first one; frequent lag and stutter while exploring or in combat, frequent and overly long loading screens, CPU getting a tad warm,    I finally managed to finish this one in around 60 hours without playing any of the DLC, as I probably plan to do another playthrough at some point.

    It's an improvement graphically from the first POE, but suffers from the same poor optimization issues as the first one; frequent lag and stutter while exploring or in combat, frequent and overly long loading screens, CPU getting a tad warm, and a ridiculous amount of hard drive space consumed. POE1 (and all DLC) uses up just over 40gb on my drive, while POE2 (and all DLC) uses around 51gb - that's more than the Witcher 3 (and all DLC)! The game is also somewhat easier than the first one (I played on Classic difficulty in turn based mode) - you would probably want to be playing this on Veteran or higher if you've played the first one extensively like myself.

    Zipping around the Deadfire Archipelago in my ship made me feel like I was playing Sid Meier's Pirates game all over again, though unlike that one, ship to ship combat is done via selecting text options instead. I never really bothered with this as it seemed very clunky, so I just opted to select the 'board' option instead, which takes you straight to a big melee involving the crews of both ships. Consequently, I never bothered upgrading my starting sloop, as my crew was sufficient to manage all boarding battles. You can find yourself swimming in loot if you end up attacking other ships on a regular basis, though it's a bit harder to find really good stuff that your party can use.

    The main story of the game is quite short compared to POE1, but the open world nature of the game encourages you to go off the beaten path somewhat and explore the world at your leisure. The new companions introduced in the game are mostly on the bland side, and you have nobody nearly as interesting as Durance from POE1. Thankfully the return of some of the old companions from POE1 helps to soothe things somewhat. More characters are voiced than in POE1, but whoever decided it was a great idea for a number of the characters to have southern American accents deserves to be keelhauled.

    *** The TLDR section ***
    Pros:
    - Graphically superior to POE1
    - Fun open world gameplay
    - Option of turn based or real time combat

    Cons:
    - Poor system optimization
    - Short main quest
    - Some iffy voice acting

    It's a good game and certainly worth 8/10, but I'm subtracting 1 point because of the optimization issues.    … Expand
  17. Rilke21
    Jul 17, 2018
    7
    Well, I'm torn.

    I loved the original Pillars. The story, writing and mechanics were excellent. I was drawn into the world and spent many hours there. Deadfire improves on some of the weaker aspects of Pillars. Graphics are sharper and the AI is smarter (with the exception of wizard Ai...ye gads, those fireballs.) Combat is more fluid, but a little dumbed-down, and significantly    Well, I'm torn.

    I loved the original Pillars. The story, writing and mechanics were excellent. I was drawn into the world and spent many hours there.

    Deadfire improves on some of the weaker aspects of Pillars. Graphics are sharper and the AI is smarter (with the exception of wizard Ai...ye gads, those fireballs.) Combat is more fluid, but a little dumbed-down, and significantly easier . However, the narrative is decidedly weaker. Pacing is a serious issue, especially at the beginning. The main quest is short--it is interesting, but a little flaccid, and not entirely sensical. Maybe the biggest problem with the game is that, apart from the main quest, there seems to be little reason to engage with the world. There is nothing comparable to exploring Caed Nua or hunting nigh invincible dragons. The bounty quests are much less engaging. The "factions" seem under-developed.

    It's not all bad. Some aspects of the game are down right exceptional--like the sea shanties! They have been stuck in my head for weeks.

    My first run of the game was 40 hours (down nearly 30 from first run of Pillars.) I am usually a completionist, but felt no need to stick around here...

    I'll update this review after a second play. Maybe a solo nightmare run will spice things up...there's hope here.

    *And here's an update after 2 runs and 98 hours of play. I'm left with an inescapable impression of "meh." The game is sometimes inspired, beautiful and rich in many ways...and yet somehow feels empty. The weakness of the main quest is difficult to overcome. I was leaning toward upping this rating to an 8 for most of my second play, but just felt so let down by the anti-climactic finish that I'm stuck with a solid 7. This is a good game that flirts with greatness, but falls short. We'll see what the DLC brings.    … Expand
  18. night4
    May 8, 2018
    7
    Pros:

    - Amazing graphics - Incredible sound - High flexibility in creating a character due to subclasses/muticlassing - Probably good replayability - Unmatched AI options Cons (Roughly in order of importance): - The drop to 5 party members is unnecessary and a step in the wrong direction. Improving the AI addresses the micromanagement concerns people had. - With so    Pros:

    - Amazing graphics

    - Incredible sound

    - High flexibility in creating a character due to subclasses/muticlassing

    - Probably good replayability

    - Unmatched AI options

    Cons (Roughly in order of importance):

    - The drop to 5 party members is unnecessary and a step in the wrong direction. Improving the AI addresses the micromanagement concerns people had.

    - With so many subclasses and multiclassing options, the game will *never* be balanced, or even close. Balance isn't the most important thing in a single-player RPG, but it is something that needs to be done, and they've created far, far more work for themselves than they can handle.

    - Dropping back to level 1 with your characters is... somewhat expected, but I'm finding that because most spells/abilities are identical to the first game, it's like I'm just playing the first game all over again. I thought we were getting a sequel here.

    - Related to the previous point, far too many spells are identical to Pillars 1, with longer cast times and adjusted damage. It's disappointing. The new spells they did come up with are, again, mostly blatant copies of D&D spells.

    - It feels like they spent far too much time and far too many resources on martial characters rather than casters. Somewhat related to the previous point on unoriginal spells.

    - Most spells take too long to cast and/or recover from. It makes combat feel like a slog.

    - Too much information during character creation is far too vague.

    - Loading screens are still too long.

    - It's a bit too "pirate-y".    … Expand
  19. HpfllyIRmbrThis
    May 17, 2018
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I really liked the first one and I'm kind of Obisidian fanboy, but there is just something weird with this game. I kind of like it and the potential is huge in paper, but when you actually play, it seems so...well not shallow but shallow (I have 18 hours clocked atm).

    What I mean is that yes, the overall lore and companions are as deep as they can get, but the main story is just bland. There are so many side quests given to you, filling your log very quickly, BUT these side quests are mainly serving the purpose of leveling up so you can progress the main story. The quest log actually shows a level cap that is "required" for the quest, meaning that there is definitely going to be fighting and you kinda must meet the level requirement to survive.

    Pros:
    + exploring the world can feel rewarding
    + solid cRPG
    + ship customization
    + choices have weight

    Cons:
    - plays it too safe
    - the story is too "epic" with gods and end of the world
    - auto regenerate HP...why?
    - auto regenerate spells...why?
    - these accents...lol. For example I met a skeleton guardian with a basic Scottish accent. Voice pitch was normal and there were 0 effects on his voice. It felt as out of place as Xotis southern accent
    - combat is just meh and there is (again) a lot of it
    - too easy even with higher difficulty
    - too much combat
    - combat gets repetitive as there is no weight on it (just rest and eat those fruits)
    - bugs
    - FPS drops
    - pirate battles get repetitive

    I don't know, I really want to like this game.    … Expand
  20. Geralt123
    Sep 13, 2022
    7
    In one sentence: fun combat but mediocre story 7/10

    Pros ----- - Beautiful grahpics - Endless skills / weapons - Satisfying combat - Nice finisher animations - Ship management increases immersion - Entering other ships is fun - Quickload/Quicksave is really good Cons -------- - Load screens when you enter a house or even a new floor of a house, this is really too long -    In one sentence: fun combat but mediocre story 7/10

    Pros
    -----
    - Beautiful grahpics
    - Endless skills / weapons
    - Satisfying combat
    - Nice finisher animations
    - Ship management increases immersion
    - Entering other ships is fun
    - Quickload/Quicksave is really good

    Cons
    --------
    - Load screens when you enter a house or even a new floor of a house, this is really too long
    - Too much religious blah blah
    - Story and most dialogues rather boring
    - Pirate settings is so overused I can’t believe why they chose that
    - Not much to do on many islands
    - Disappointing ending    … Expand
  21. GabFire
    Aug 10, 2020
    7
    Joguei esse jogo há pouco tempo, e realmente não vi nada legal, fico em dúvidas sobre a qualidade do novo jogo ''Avowed'', porque se for no mesmo universo dessa franquia, melhor abandonar e fazer outra coisa.
  22. laertan
    Feb 5, 2020
    7
    My impression of this game is mixed.

    Good things: 1. Sailors songs! 2. Stats of your party affects the outcome of checking. 3. During checkings you can use party members to do smth that they are more skillful. 4. Quests are slightly diffrent depending on what party members are with you. 5. Good sense of humor. 6. You can feed your crew with meat of fallen foes. Fine, I didn't do    My impression of this game is mixed.

    Good things:
    1. Sailors songs!
    2. Stats of your party affects the outcome of checking.
    3. During checkings you can use party members to do smth that they are more skillful.
    4. Quests are slightly diffrent depending on what party members are with you.
    5. Good sense of humor.
    6. You can feed your crew with meat of fallen foes. Fine, I didn't do it, but the fact that this is at all possible somehow make game better!
    7. Battles are much easier then in first PoE1.
    8. Management of the ship is brilliantly designed.
    9. If you killed the enemy, and only after that get quest for his headm you still can say "Yeah, I have his head right here, in my bag!" Glorious.
    10. No limits on how much loot your carry.
    11. Fast mode. Nuff said.

    Bad things:
    1. Main plot is too flat.
    2. Game felt a little bit empty, with not enought content on most of the isles.
    3. Next to none interaction with party members. There are romantic options, with 3-4 dialogues at all. And no romantic scene/art. Call me picky, but that's not enough.
    4. Many quests have almost none actual content, just go and kill someone. Maybe a little bit of background story would be nice.
    5. Strange loot system, by the end I have gathered enough swords and cuirasses to provide equippment for an army, and only some grimoires/boots.
    6. DLC that added to game unkillable foes aren't nice. I mean, I understand that some players like hardcore, but I personally don't, and that's why I use easy game difficulty. And when you add smth to game, perhaps it's reasonable to give all players ability to interact with it.

    I did enjoy it by the end, but still it's not as good as PoE1.    … Expand
  23. S3XU4LH34L1NG
    May 1, 2023
    7
    In its core a great game is hidden but I'll deduct a full 2 points for the shabby state this game is in 4 years after release.

    There a game breaking bugs with gear / spells / potions. Bugs that can ruin full playthroughs. There's memory leaking (I thinks this was an issue in P1 too). After 1-2 hrs this gets unbearable. Also you can clearly see some areas are extremly fleshed out and    In its core a great game is hidden but I'll deduct a full 2 points for the shabby state this game is in 4 years after release.

    There a game breaking bugs with gear / spells / potions. Bugs that can ruin full playthroughs.
    There's memory leaking (I thinks this was an issue in P1 too). After 1-2 hrs this gets unbearable.
    Also you can clearly see some areas are extremly fleshed out and others lacking heavily.

    The characters and the combat system is satisfying and I have no complaints there. The story is well thought out and deeply philosophical just like in the first game.

    Atm this is on gamepass. I recommend grabbing it there.    … Expand
  24. Woolee
    Sep 29, 2021
    7
    In my opinion, PoE2 is a huge step up from PoE1 (which was also a great game). It improved on many areas, and from what I've noticed hasn't worsened in any aspect that was in PoE 1.
  25. alex_opr
    Apr 14, 2023
    7
    I wanted to like this game more because I really liked the world and all the deep lore, but it had so many things going against it. The writing is pretty bad my biggest problem is the inconsistent tone, the gameplay is too safe, and too old school imo, and it felt that it provides 2 interesting dungeons in my 40-hour playthrough and the ending was just lackluster. I love RPGs but I thinkI wanted to like this game more because I really liked the world and all the deep lore, but it had so many things going against it. The writing is pretty bad my biggest problem is the inconsistent tone, the gameplay is too safe, and too old school imo, and it felt that it provides 2 interesting dungeons in my 40-hour playthrough and the ending was just lackluster. I love RPGs but I think there are better options out there to put the hours in.

    I will still give it a 7 because again I liked the world, the locations were beautiful, good music and good sound, there are some interesting quests and the combat is pretty enjoyable for a time. I also liked the reputation system and the responsiveness of the world to your actions.. well untill the end.    … Expand
  26. Hyperfailure
    Apr 29, 2023
    7
    In spite of improving on its predecessor in many aspect, the sequel simply does not reach the same heights as the first instalment. While mechanically much more sound, the story and characters do not feel as endearing as the first game.
  27. RMDsilva
    Jan 13, 2019
    6
    It's a good game, but definitely not as good as the original.
    The storyline gets considerably simpler, there's a "pick your own ending" and nonsensical alliances/diplomacy.
    Combat is also still not super satisfying. Running over everything with the same tactic unless you're on POTD is a bit meh.
  28. ministry86
    Sep 26, 2021
    6
    I don't like to **** on a game that's already sold poorly, but in this case, I have to. There's a lot of nonsense cultural jargon you're supposed to read and actually care about. I'm happy to learn a game world's history and lingo if the journey I'm going on is interesting, but it's not. Don't mistake a Fampyr for a Vampire or Hel for Hell. They're different, but not really. Even readingI don't like to **** on a game that's already sold poorly, but in this case, I have to. There's a lot of nonsense cultural jargon you're supposed to read and actually care about. I'm happy to learn a game world's history and lingo if the journey I'm going on is interesting, but it's not. Don't mistake a Fampyr for a Vampire or Hel for Hell. They're different, but not really. Even reading the quest log is annoying. Obsidian's idea of interesting writing is to throw as many adjectives, nonsensical character names and long winded descriptions into every line of dialogue and scene description. Yet, in the end, very little of it is engaging, exciting or worthy of the time I'm putting into it. As I hear some of the dialogue being spoken, I frequently laugh because of how damn silly it all sounds. It just comes off as pretentious to me. This is one of the most cynical games you'll ever play. Every faction is made up of monsters and bigots.

    There are a lot of time wasting issues within the game. For instance, the load times in between each floor of a building and entering and exiting a building. To fast travel around the city you have to run to an exit, you can't just open the map up and fast travel that way. Why? The "running" speed is also ridiculously slow. Nobody besides the obese run nearly that slow in real life.

    Why does it cost copper to craft items? For example, it costs 300 gold to create a single scroll of "Garden of Life" and 200 gold to craft a "Potion of Ironskin". That's a lazy way to "balance" crafting. If you add up the cost of the ingredients and the copper cost, it probably costs just about as much as buying one. That's stupid. What, are my characters tossing the gold pieces into the potion as it's being brewed? Why does it cost 30k gold to enchant an item from 'superb' to 'legendary' if I already have the skill and items to do so?. I've heard the counter arguments and they don't hold up. "Balance".

    So many potions and spells are so situational that they are useless because you can't use items from your personal inventory in battle. You can only use "quick items" in battle. That's 4 slots. I'm not going to load up my 4 slots with potions that I will likely never need.

    It's so easy to make your crew happy that low morale is never an issue. With all the money you rake in selling dead enemy loot, due to unlimited stash, that you can afford all the good food and drink and never have to worry about anything. You can also share the gold from every enemy ship defeated and that raises morale drastically. 10 morale up to plus 40 morale easily. There is no challenge in the ship combat because you can just board their ship and can avoid the text based naval battles every time. Obsidian is scared of commitments. They design a system but make sure to leave you an out and to allow you to skip it entirely, making that entire system they spent a long time developing pointless. According to the Fig campaign having a ship crew was an actual stretch goal, yet Ydwin, one of the more interesting sidekicks was locked behind the 5 million dollar goalpost. The ship crew was little more than flavor text. There are storms on the world map that you can see when sailing. They're just big circles on the world map to easily sail around. If you go through them there are some text based options that can kill or wound crew if you get unlucky, but mostly, you just gain a little experience. There is no risk whatsoever of running into a storm unless you want to. I sail into them for the nearly free experience points. The entire ship portion of the game is of no consequence. If I had donated money to that Fig campaign, I would be pissed off about the half-assed implementation of the systems on their stretch goals. I didn't and I'm annoyed.

    There is a formula for nearly every place you find exploring the world. You land on an island of interest, there is a site you want to visit. You're greeted by someone with vague speech who makes an offer. You say yes or no. Fight if you said no. You go to the site in question. The little text book pops up as you enter. Inconsequential words. You enter. It's essentially the same map as every other island's mini "dungeon". It takes 5-15 minutes and you're done. I have a feeling the writers were too busy arguing over which companions were going to screw each other than writing quests with substance. As a straight male playing a male character, having two male party members trying to **** me is a bit much.

    Obsidian, hire somebody to write for you besides 20-35 year old Californian hipster liberals. Get a little diversity in there. You actually do need it. And make sure to keep Justin Bell as your composer no matter what happens. He's really great. The music is fantastic.    … Expand
  29. philb74
    Jul 13, 2018
    6
    Rewrite of earlier review. The gameplay is excellent and lots of classes give you many options. The fighting is lots of fun except for the ship battles where I used to just ram the other vessels (for getting the battle over faster) most of the time even though your crew pick up injuries this way. The loot and stuff you can buy is good but I thought the first game had better items.

    The    Rewrite of earlier review. The gameplay is excellent and lots of classes give you many options. The fighting is lots of fun except for the ship battles where I used to just ram the other vessels (for getting the battle over faster) most of the time even though your crew pick up injuries this way. The loot and stuff you can buy is good but I thought the first game had better items.

    The story is simple and doesn't really surprise you at all. Compared with other classic RPG's where you could get captivated and immersed in the story this is very poor. The same can be said for companions/NPC's. There is no meaningful dialogue apart from some banter and the odd comment.

    All in all, if you like party based RPG's and only want good gameplay then this is recommended, but if you want a decent story also then you might be disappointed as I was.    … Expand
  30. OfCourse
    Feb 15, 2021
    6
    This game has great tactical combat and and many interesting classes and multiclasses to build. RPG system was pretty meh in PoE1(percentages everywhere, graze/hit, overly convoluted and shallow at the same time) and it was somewhat improved here, but nearly all character builds focus around the same stat spread, which again shows that its not a great system. Overall gameplay is veryThis game has great tactical combat and and many interesting classes and multiclasses to build. RPG system was pretty meh in PoE1(percentages everywhere, graze/hit, overly convoluted and shallow at the same time) and it was somewhat improved here, but nearly all character builds focus around the same stat spread, which again shows that its not a great system. Overall gameplay is very enjoyable. Graphics are good, they even fixed ugly character models and bad animations, which plagued all kickstarter RPGs of that era. A lot of quality of life changes(like city navigation) are also appreciated.
    Why the score is so low you ask?
    Well because everything else is from mediocre to terrible.
    Soundtrack still puts you to sleep.
    Setting of Deadfire is a step up from the generic medieval fantasy, but its still not that interesting(because the real world cultures it was copied from are not that interesting either).
    Overreliance on textual adventures for everything gets stale very quickly. SHOW, DON'T TELL.
    Unity is still sluggish, stuttering mess, as usual(yeah its not the engine, its the programming, except when 99% of the games have exactly the same problems and its all somehow the fault of programmers).
    Writing went from boring in PoE1(except Durance, who was written by one who shall not be named) to outright amateur purple prose. Story is unengaging, short and pointless, characters are one dimensional and unmemorable. But this is expected to happen when you hire a bunch of amateurs and drive out the real talent. They had a fairly interesting setting, but then they force feed you its lore by the cartload, until you want to puke every time "soul" is mentioned. Soul this, god that, soul, god, soul, god, soul, god. No character development, no strong motivation, no revenge story, no political nuance, no twist, no emotions, no finale, nothing but countless babble about souls. Not every writer can manage to make you hate the lore that you initially though was cool.

    My advice to new players is ignore the story and just play this game for the combat. Its polished and you see people who were involved into its development knew what they were doing.
    Don't bother reading every sentence, its no planescape torment, not even kingmaker. Unless you can tolerate fanfiction tier writing, you won't get any satisfaction from reading Deadfire.

    My advice to Obsidian is to sack all its "writers" and get some people who can actually write themselves out of a paper bag.    … Expand
  31. Gilgamesh37
    Jun 24, 2018
    6
    Combat is boring, cumbersome and just plain uninteresting. Instead of being excited and wanting to manage any of the characters in my party, it was a chore to get through. I elected to let my party do whatever they want and just point them to which the mob they should fight, and keep an eye on their health. Naval combat is even worse.
    Story is passable, but not exciting. The game is quite    Combat is boring, cumbersome and just plain uninteresting. Instead of being excited and wanting to manage any of the characters in my party, it was a chore to get through. I elected to let my party do whatever they want and just point them to which the mob they should fight, and keep an eye on their health. Naval combat is even worse.
    Story is passable, but not exciting. The game is quite badly optimized and seems to become more sluggish after a few hours, even quitting to desktop takes almost a minute. And so many loading screens! Every level of every building requires a long loading screen. This makes it feel like a game made 20 years ago.
    Itemization is not that good either, some classes get magical/enchantable items way ahead of others, getting hold of basic things like belts, boots, and rings is a problem.

    I rate it at 6 just because it works, and is passable if you have nothing better. If I had to recommend a similar game, I would say that Divinity Original sin 1 and 2 were MUCH more fun to play and enjoyable overall.    … Expand
  32. RaurosAmmonoide
    May 26, 2018
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Obsidian is each day concerning, likely approaching downfall. In Deadfire, though assignee of a handful of neat design choices (sea exploration; not everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoyed it; fluid combat, optional level-scaling, etc.), falls short on what once was the trademark of this company: the narrative. It seems the lads at Obsidian —those who remain anyways from recent purgues— took to heart the dumbfounding complaint of ''Too many words'' and ''Too much text''; hence in POEII everything pertaining to its story (quests, companions and lore, sweet lore) is minimized, not synthesized but downgraded and sadly uninspired.
    The gist of Pillars of Eternity is philosophical, perhaps more actual than ever —kith are a metaphor for humanity in all its diversity and collective delirium —facing the struggle of faith crisis, godlessness and subsequently loneliness in our contemporary age; an issue glimpsed by Nietzsche and practically all thinkers that ensued. Its treatment is poliphonic, diverging: different characters share their feelings of the matter: either desperate nostalgia for their inextricable gods, spite for their misdeeds and abandonment or utter rejection of their inmanence. The Wheel concept, however, is picked up from easternly breezes, namely Hinduism and Buddhism; it presupposes a mechanism of soul-binding in recurring stages of life and death (together with an interstitial state, the In-Between) with goddess Berath as their caretaker. On this intrincate canopy of recycled myths and all-too-human disquietudes Eothas (the one astray, making a mess!) rises as a prophet, a philantropist; or at least so he claims... He represents Nietzschean will to power, his sacrifice wistful and an opportunity for kith to disentangle themselves from gods and their machinery, attain liberty... But what is to be done with such liberty? Other deities, pressuming that mortal lives can only be ripe for confusion and suffering, vouch for complete annihilation. In any event risk is at the heart of Eothas' manoeuvre.
    No, PoE's not your typical inane fantasy setting; even to cynics or atheists, it resonates with how we feel, a pivotal ambiguity —now asymbolic hopelessness, now a manic struggle towards ghostly knowledge. Not even the Eoran Pantheon itself is beneath these woes. Hence my pain at watching it butchered, mishandled, vandalized and discombobulated by (no doubt) incompetent writers. Cringe-inducing bits of dialogue, atrocious romancing, characters striped hollow... fetch-quests, uneventful journeys, undeveloped ship combat... Must be played in Hard Mode so as not be a walk-in-the-park.
    Not **** but not too good either.    … Expand
  33. sk77
    Jun 19, 2018
    6
    So I just finished the game after about 80h of game play and the felling I got after finishing the game is somewhat ambivalent. Let me explain. POE2 is a good old BG2 style RPG with nice graphics, voice overs, combat system and generally seems like a type of game I would enjoy. However there are few problems for me that prevent me from giving it a higher score.

    The first problem in my    So I just finished the game after about 80h of game play and the felling I got after finishing the game is somewhat ambivalent. Let me explain. POE2 is a good old BG2 style RPG with nice graphics, voice overs, combat system and generally seems like a type of game I would enjoy. However there are few problems for me that prevent me from giving it a higher score.

    The first problem in my opinion is the main story itself which is not very interesting because you don't really know what's going on until the very end where they dump all the exposition on you within an hour of the ending. Another problem with the main story is that it clashes with the "free open world RPG" nature of the gameplay instead of supporting it. The story introduces you to a great threat that needs to be dealt with immediately. Furthermore you learn very quickly exactly where you need to go to confront the threat. The problem is that you can't just go there - you need to level up first of course as in any other RPG. This process however takes about a year of in-game time but there is really no good in-game explanation of why you delay and do bounties and side quests first other than the knowledge of the game mechanic that you know as a player. Also the delay does not make sense within the logic of the story (without getting into spoilers). This is the reason why the story does not work very well in this game in my opinion. It could work with few tweaks, few more "in-between" things you'd need to do before you can go after the main threat and some exposition you'd learn along the way would make the story more interesting. Unfortunately they didn't do that. Ultimately the main story ends up not being very satisfying anyway and the game ends with a whimper rather than a bang.

    But "forget the main story, the meat of the game is the exploring and side questing anyway" I hear you say. Well, the problem with that is that the side quests are not terribly interesting neither. There are not many interesting locations, factions or characters. During the 2nd half of the game the exploring felt more like a chore I had to do to level up before I can get this over with. There are only few somewhat interesting places you can find but mostly it felt like a dime a dozen, especially if you've played other RPGs before. Also most of the side locations are quite small and there's usually not much to do other than a side quest or two. The bounty islands are usually completely generic. There were few nice quests/story book interactions, etc but they were too few and too far between. Also unfortunately the devs did not learn from POE1 and doubled down on unpronounceable names of everything so after I just literally finished the game I cannot remember a single NPC/island/creature name, excluding few main names like Nekataka where you spend half of the game, but what was the queen's name for example I have no idea and she's one of the main NPC characters in the game. Okinawa or something, wait that's not right. Anyway the NPC characters generally, including the main ones, have just few "tell me about yourself/this place" interactions and once you've read them that's it, there's nothing else to them. It does not help that the NPC characters are not very interesting or memorable but the weird names of everything on top of that makes it impossible to get invested in anything.

    It seems like I'm giving the game a hard time but it's not all terrible. The game play itself is enjoyable enough so that I finished the game but I have no interest in 2nd play through. As it is the game is average in my opinion. It's not terrible, you'll get your money's worth but in the end it does not really excel at anything in my opinion which makes it average. This game could have been great with better writing in my opinion, the basic game play is there and it is mostly solid, unfortunately the writing does not elevate it but rather brings it down which is unfortunate as a good story, quests and characters is what makes a good RPG in my opinion. POE2 lacks in all of these departments. Ultimately at the end the game feels unsatisfying and lacking the details that would make it really great. I applaud the devs, clearly fans of the genre, in their efforts to revive the good old BG2 style game where story and gameplay is more important than newest graphics, etc. Unfortunately they did not quite hit the mark for me.    … Expand
  34. Trix122
    Jun 29, 2018
    6
    Although im a huge fan of old school rpg POF 2 is weak in a lot of points, controls are overcomplicated if played manually and boring if automated (micromanage is garbage) and the game is eaaaasy as soon as you get good skills, UI is horrible with a lot of unnecesary things that can't be removed or changed, can't set simple shortcuts such as 12345, you need to set them skill by skillAlthough im a huge fan of old school rpg POF 2 is weak in a lot of points, controls are overcomplicated if played manually and boring if automated (micromanage is garbage) and the game is eaaaasy as soon as you get good skills, UI is horrible with a lot of unnecesary things that can't be removed or changed, can't set simple shortcuts such as 12345, you need to set them skill by skill manually in every different character.

    On the positive side the game has decent story and excellent writing, but some characters and dialogues... are completely out of the fantasy context, for example they emphasize in a lot of current moral conducts like women being equally strong or superior to man and equall rights, instead of focusing in the game itself, wich totally breaks the 3rd wall and pulls you out of the fantasy immersion... like they want to educate their players with some extreme moral mindset and I just want to play the game to be honest...    … Expand
  35. frogeater
    Dec 18, 2018
    6
    This is a rather good traditional D&D inspired RPG a la Baldur's Gate, with a decent story so far, nice character interaction and affinity system, nice NPC side stories, lots of spoken dialogues, kind of pretty map design in cities in particular (the small outdoor maps for certain encounters are absolutely boring).
    Combat system is nothing new, exactly similar to BG with pseudo real-time    This is a rather good traditional D&D inspired RPG a la Baldur's Gate, with a decent story so far, nice character interaction and affinity system, nice NPC side stories, lots of spoken dialogues, kind of pretty map design in cities in particular (the small outdoor maps for certain encounters are absolutely boring).
    Combat system is nothing new, exactly similar to BG with pseudo real-time and pausing system... ship approaches and combats are fun in a way, even if a bit of a repetitive dice-throwing exercise.

    But... BUT... It's major drawback, the reason that makes me hesitate to return to it, is the absolutely crazy loading times. You spend 20% of your play time waiting for a map to load. It is just unbareable in 2018. You enter a buidling, 20 seconds. change floors, 20 seconds. Go to the balcony (ie load the main city map you were on before) 30 seconds... repeat ad vitam eternam. We are talking smallish, barely animated 2D isometric maps with few characters on them! Even loading the map for boat trips takes unreasonable amounts of time. Compared to the seamless wanderings of your party on massive outdoor maps in Dos2, which is to me way more detailed and animated, it makes PoE2 an insult to modern graphics engines.
    My time is precious, and I have a decent computer config to avoid such issues. I am writing this very review during the loading time breaks. Luckily enough, Alt-Tab works ok...    … Expand
  36. Odal
    Nov 30, 2021
    6
    Too many things felt off with this game. From the weird aesthetics of African italians in European clothing with weird accents (woke?) to the whole theme of pirates and Islands. Characters were pretty weak as well. Apart from Eder, Aloth, Xoti and Serafin, there wasn't much there.
    And even then Aloth and Serafin are not the best characters ever created exactly. I did like Xoti and Eder    Too many things felt off with this game. From the weird aesthetics of African italians in European clothing with weird accents (woke?) to the whole theme of pirates and Islands. Characters were pretty weak as well. Apart from Eder, Aloth, Xoti and Serafin, there wasn't much there.
    And even then Aloth and Serafin are not the best characters ever created exactly. I did like Xoti and Eder is a likeable classic from PoE though.

    Some may like it better than PoE 1 and it did have some great moments, but overall a very "meh" experience. Especially comparing to Pillars of Eternity 1 in my opinion.

    The plus of the game is the movement with the text-RPG, those I really liked. But the story, atmosphere, characters and quests were all worse than PoE. The terrible combat from PoE was neither improved. The music is pretty good, but not again as good as Pillars Of Eternity 1.

    Still as a fan of RPG:s, I say, give it a try. However, I personally burned out pretty quickly on the game and had to force myself to finnish it.

    I hope if they make a PoE 3, which I hope they do, that they take it back to a classic adventure setting without pirates and that they improve on the things mentioned as negatives in this review: aeshetics, setting, combat, mainquest, characters.

    +
    Text RPG moments
    Beautifully made enviroments
    Music

    -
    Aesthetics
    Setting
    Character choice (too few good characters)
    Factions
    Combat    … Expand
  37. Mike_M
    Jun 16, 2018
    5
    Review on hold, pending fix of quest bugs and a few companion or ability bugs.
  38. GaryLinekar
    Jun 15, 2018
    5
    Lots of content and deep mechanics. Great replay value due to endless numbers of builds and branching storylines. The game falls short in its character design choices and writing, vital to fantasy games. When the 999th big aggressive female appears to show you how women can be strong too, you start to get the feeling that their goal isn't to create the most immersive and magical fantasyLots of content and deep mechanics. Great replay value due to endless numbers of builds and branching storylines. The game falls short in its character design choices and writing, vital to fantasy games. When the 999th big aggressive female appears to show you how women can be strong too, you start to get the feeling that their goal isn't to create the most immersive and magical fantasy experience but rather to change the thinking their misguided and uneducated players. This repeatedly drags you out of the fantasy, which sadly ruins the game.… Expand
  39. Nimbus1701
    Mar 22, 2019
    5
    Deadfire features a number of 'qualify of life' improvements over the previous game. The problem with Deadfire, however, is that the writers seem to have gotten lost in their own mythology. The lore is quite hard to follow, despite a familiarity to pacific cultures in real world. Even the logic behind the main storyline feels forced - and segmented. The player spends most of their timeDeadfire features a number of 'qualify of life' improvements over the previous game. The problem with Deadfire, however, is that the writers seem to have gotten lost in their own mythology. The lore is quite hard to follow, despite a familiarity to pacific cultures in real world. Even the logic behind the main storyline feels forced - and segmented. The player spends most of their time moving between large swathes of ocean, stumbling onto islands, where you 'play' multiple choice text-games - that is to say, it is mostly padding.

    Had the developers simply extended the storyline, and maintained every other aspect of the original PoE - you'd still have a superior game.

    It's worth buying on discount, to support the developer. But I can't recommend it at full price.    … Expand
  40. marc5477
    May 28, 2018
    5
    Update 2: I finally got passed the 10 hour mark and unfortunately, the game actually got worse about 25 hours in. Initially I though the boat battles were fun, now I find them a complete waste of time. I also realized there is no economic balance to the game. If you do boat battles, you get rich so fast, that you can buy all the unique stuff in shops by 15 hours in. The writing does notUpdate 2: I finally got passed the 10 hour mark and unfortunately, the game actually got worse about 25 hours in. Initially I though the boat battles were fun, now I find them a complete waste of time. I also realized there is no economic balance to the game. If you do boat battles, you get rich so fast, that you can buy all the unique stuff in shops by 15 hours in. The writing does not improve, though quest quality did improve. Dialog however never improved and remains terribly boring.

    Update 1: I just tried playing it again and again, 10 hours in and I couldnt stay awake. The story is not interesting and the writing is just horribly boring. I am not sure how this is above a 8.0. Its not like the RPG elements have not been done before in every infinity engine game. This game plays it too safe. It needs something to call its own. Text boat battles dont do it.

    First the good. There are a lot of class options for player customization. I actually enjoy creating unique characters and trying different combinations. I settled on a monk/wizard using staffs which makes sense and actually did fairly well in the time I played the game.

    The not so good but still ok.

    Graphics are decent but areas are very small and it feels static. Everything seems to be voice acted which is nice, except the voices were inappropriate for the game. Some voice actors are great which is why I am placing this here but others are atrocious for the setting. See below for an explanation. Combat is iffy.

    The combat ok but the interface design is very poor. For an action style RPG, they went out of their way to place important information out of the action (view) area requiring you to take your eye off the action to see characters conditions. For example, there were a few situations where my characters almost died and I never even noticed they got hit. This is because health indicators are not above the characters but down below outside of view. Also the camera does not turn, a negative for a modern game with a large budget because it means that at times, its hard to see due to bad angles. The menus are terrible popup sub-menus inside of menus inside of other menus... terrible gui design. Still combat itself is not bad inherently but they added absolutely nothing new.

    Last, the bad stuff...

    #1 Completely UN-immersive. This is a two parter. First, this game that takes itself very seriously (like the 1st) but the story is high school level silly. The two simply do not mix. If you are going to take yourself this seriously, you better have a grade A story and dialog to back it up otherwise it will be a complete drag. I barely got to the 2nd island and I dreaded clicking on an NPC because I didnt want to hear more about the Watcher or get another fetch my money quest... There is a little bit of comic relief but it is very far and few between.

    Second, the accents... oh my god they are so out of place that snap you right out of the game entirely. The girl (Xoti) and her mom, with the southern accents were a complete turn off. I made a mistake by recruiting her but I didnt want miss any content so I usually recruit everyone. I just turned down the volume and started reading so I didnt have to do a double take every time she spoke. But that was not the only accent out of place. The Italian accent is also completely out of place and through the 1st 5 hours it seems that half of the population was Italian. How did someone think that this would be immersive in a game that is as serious as this one? It would have been great for a comedy but not here.

    #2 Group AI is completely borked and unreliable. For example, the AI does not even turn on if your characters are moving at the start of an encounter. It takes them about 5-10 seconds before the AI kicks in and in the meantime, they enemies will get 2 rounds off against characters that are just sitting there doing nothing. Since I play on the highest difficulty, this means that at times, 1 character is dead before the AI even starts up so I had to micro everything. Also, the AI turns off for a bit if you directly order your characters to use a special ability. All this means you have to constantly micro everyone in the party or you will have serious problem at higher difficulties even against trash enemies. This makes every battle a huge drag. You need to do a lot of pausing and clicking and pausing and click and pause and click every few seconds. Too much repetition. Macro'ing in this game is not fun, fair, nor balanced. If you micro everything the game becomes nearly trivial. If you dont micro you will lose to laughable enemies... POE1 had similar problems and I got bored of that quickly too. Baldurs Gate was never like this. They need to fix the AI and reduce the number of clicks (better gui).

    Ultimately, I played about 10 hours and I was so bored that I didnt want to continue. I may go back to play this again later but right now, just seeing the game icon makes me feel sleepy.    … Expand
  41. DarkyBlack
    Jun 23, 2018
    5
    If you liked the first game this will disappoint you a little. The drop to 5 party members is unnecessary, the ship combat feels unfinished, the side quests are boring, there are not many interesting locations, factions or characters, and the caster system is way worse than in the first game.
  42. passionne
    Sep 7, 2019
    5
    Compared to the first episode, this one is bad :

    - bugs (disappearing ennemies, crash) in August - September 2019, more than 1 year after the release date ! Of course, the latest patch was applied. - a few spells require some time before launching (fireballs) whereas enemies move : fireballs often explode when enemies are no longer in the area. In the first Pillars of Eternity, these    Compared to the first episode, this one is bad :

    - bugs (disappearing ennemies, crash) in August - September 2019, more than 1 year after the release date ! Of course, the latest patch was applied.

    - a few spells require some time before launching (fireballs) whereas enemies move : fireballs often explode when enemies are no longer in the area. In the first Pillars of Eternity, these spells were launched immediately.

    - enchanting is far too expensive.

    - areas are still too small.

    - impossible to turn around the combat scene which makes impossible to have a clear view.

    - naval combat is really bad and does not work : I had destroyed the enemy ship sail so it shouldn' move. I chose to move forward with my ship many times and the distance between the 2 ships does not change ! The developer never played Assassin's Creed naval combats which is miles better than this ****

    - Technically, a disaster : with a high-end PC (9900K, RTX 2080 TI, 32 GB RAM, Intel Optane 900p), there are stutters, the loading times are too long and occur too often, as soon as I move in a building or change area ! Really, the developers should learn from CD Projekt, the Witcher 3 developer.

    I liked the first Episode, despite a few mistakes. I hoped that the developer learnt from them but is it not the case. It is my last Pillars of Eternity.    … Expand
  43. MarkandJez
    May 20, 2018
    5
    I was hit by a game breaking bug in the core storyline when playing pillars of eternity two only a few quests in.
    I think there is a console work around that I found but that will take time for me to figure out.
    Abit of a shame tbh also a lot of loading screens will break the altogether emersion since every transition seems to load a different map.
  44. Prometheus1241
    Aug 22, 2020
    5
    I must start from the thing, that i liked the first Pillars

    But the second part is just a step back I do not realize why the hell obsidian decided to create and open world. It just longs the gameplay and forces it to continue for 2-3 hours longer( and if you want to complete all the side quests for 10(!!!) hours or more). and yet, you do not have an ability for quick travel.    I must start from the thing, that i liked the first Pillars

    But the second part is just a step back

    I do not realize why the hell obsidian decided to create and open world. It just longs the gameplay and forces it to continue for 2-3 hours longer( and if you want to complete all the side quests for 10(!!!) hours or more). and yet, you do not have an ability for quick travel. Secondly, after 5-10 hours of gameplay it becomes sooooo boring even for the fan of CRPGs like me. All the dungeons are almost the same, and i have found only 3(!!!) interesting for me side quests. the main story is just **** If the game had autoleveling, it could be completed for 3 hours...

    But lets talk about pros of the game:
    1) the graphics is one of the best among CRPGs
    2) battle system has become better( which is the only thing that saves you from their monotony)
    3) "The Forgotten Sanctum" DLC is quite good( it is best content of the game, as for me)

    So, that is it. I can't recommend it even to the fans of the first Pillars, so 5/10    … Expand
  45. Traxillion
    Sep 29, 2020
    5
    Feels a lot shallower to the first game in almost every aspect despite having a lot more mechanics.
    Also gets very boring after a while.
  46. Sayno
    May 14, 2018
    4
    If you want a bunch of flowery language, buggy inconsistent combat, bland characters, a quota-filling system of sexuality with hetero being the minority, a much shorter game then PoE and not as good as any RPG in recent or semi-recent memory but are desperate for an isometric game, then I suppose it is OK. The world is quite nice. I'm really concerned about the direction Obsidian is takingIf you want a bunch of flowery language, buggy inconsistent combat, bland characters, a quota-filling system of sexuality with hetero being the minority, a much shorter game then PoE and not as good as any RPG in recent or semi-recent memory but are desperate for an isometric game, then I suppose it is OK. The world is quite nice. I'm really concerned about the direction Obsidian is taking though with their game quality and leftist agendas.… Expand
  47. Shinno
    Dec 1, 2018
    4
    A circus parody to the first Pillars of Eternity. Even Aloth is cracking jokes now, the whole game is one big laughing stock.
  48. GVB
    Oct 30, 2020
    4
    Rpg are my favourite genre. But this game its simply... meh. A lot of content, yes, and the writing is good, but the plot is uninteresting, the quest are a bit repetitive, and the companions are underdeveloped in every aspect and not have much weight in the story of your hero. So, if you want to play a great isometric rpg... play Disco Elysium. Or Baldur's Gate 2. Or Neverwinter Night...Rpg are my favourite genre. But this game its simply... meh. A lot of content, yes, and the writing is good, but the plot is uninteresting, the quest are a bit repetitive, and the companions are underdeveloped in every aspect and not have much weight in the story of your hero. So, if you want to play a great isometric rpg... play Disco Elysium. Or Baldur's Gate 2. Or Neverwinter Night... or Baldur's Gate 2 again, and again, and again... :-D… Expand
  49. Deaden
    Jun 16, 2020
    3
    ...Bok gibi oyun. Never Winter Nights ı yapan firma olduğuna inanmak zor...
  50. PenetratorGod
    Feb 10, 2023
    3
    It's a bad Divinity ripoff. The first game tried to copy Baldur's Gate. It's a series with no original ideas of its own. Even if we leave the story aside, the gameplay is terrible.
  51. CoolDadTx
    Dec 23, 2018
    2
    Updated score after starting the DLCs. They are worse than the base game. Every enemy is way above your level even when you are maxed. So there is absolutely nothing you can do to even the odds. You are pretty much given to luck to win the boss battles. The bosses are so horribly overpowered that even micro-managing is of limited effect. This is some of the worst DLC I've seen. it's so badUpdated score after starting the DLCs. They are worse than the base game. Every enemy is way above your level even when you are maxed. So there is absolutely nothing you can do to even the odds. You are pretty much given to luck to win the boss battles. The bosses are so horribly overpowered that even micro-managing is of limited effect. This is some of the worst DLC I've seen. it's so bad I'm skipping the rest of them. Obsidian really screwed up on this mess of a game. I wonder if they even bothered to playtest anything or just kept "upping the numbers" to make it "more challenging". I thought we left that broken game design system to the novices.

    Mediocre RPG that doesn't do have a good job as the first one. All the time the devs spent on building up the lore and world just falls on deaf ears. Who really cares about the lore when everything you read is a bunch of hyperlinks to some additional data that is just long and boring. The time could have been better spent on the mechanics.

    The ship-based system is just awful. It is so bad that if it wasn't needed for getting around I would never use it. I completely avoided any combat if at all possible because it was just a badly implemented mess. Firstly it is completely random and it didn't appear that, irrelevant of rank or equipment, anything actually impacted it. I had the same chance to hit early on (very low) as I did late in the game even with expert crew. Every ship I met hit me every time they fired their cannons yet I hit probably 50% or less. The movement in combat (and turning and pretty much everything else) had no impact. Basically you jibe and then you fire. Rinse and repeat in what turns out to be very long battles. Nothing else really changed anything. Firing at sails didn't do anything to the opposing ship even when at 0. Taking out the crew didn't help because they replaced them just as fast. Running away always said you lost morale for fleeing an inferior opponent even though most opponents out gunned us in every way. The ranking system and the fact that you couldn't move crew and do anything else at once was just a round-based system applied to ships. It just doesn't work. This is by far the worse system in the game and really dragged it down because it was constantly in your face.

    The rest of the game was not much different than the original. Way too many skills that seemed limited to useless. The attempt at showing quest levels is just broken. There were many questions that it said I was ready for but then you encountered groups of enemies with 2 or 3 skulls above their names. How in the world can a quest have these enemies and still be at my level.

    You are also constantly outnumbered and have to micro-manage every battle if you want to win. Irrelevant of any AI settings you make the mages always feel the need to run right up to the melee folks. The ranged fighters do the same thing. Yet the opposing AI never had these issues.

    The constant DLCs add nothing to the broken mechanics. Since Obsidian is moving on to their next game I don't expect anything on this game to be fixed. If you're a fan of the original you'll like it but otherwise this is nowhere near the best we've seen from this company in the past.    … Expand
  52. svarog
    May 9, 2018
    2
    Loading screens, loading screens everywhere... Optimization? No, better to add more loading screens.
  53. user9991213131
    May 19, 2018
    2
    Played game for a several hours before giving up. As a fan of the genre, I was disappointed. I did not play the first game. Cons: Poor character creation (low selection of faces, portraits, and more), poor mix of 3D and isometric, lacking polish (generally clunky interface), poor dual class system, filler in gameplay (I suspended judgement on walking around map etc. but am now certain thatPlayed game for a several hours before giving up. As a fan of the genre, I was disappointed. I did not play the first game. Cons: Poor character creation (low selection of faces, portraits, and more), poor mix of 3D and isometric, lacking polish (generally clunky interface), poor dual class system, filler in gameplay (I suspended judgement on walking around map etc. but am now certain that this is simply filler in lieu of content). I honestly cannot think of any pros to compare to either the classics (IWD, BG), or similar modern games like divinity, which I highly recommend. If you are new to the series as I was, purchase with caution.… Expand
  54. KomradJurij
    Nov 17, 2018
    2
    If only Larian made this...
    This game had potential, but the combat is garbage plus the graphics are hit or miss.
  55. djball
    May 20, 2018
    1
    Garbage extreme verbose over the top writing that drags on for eternity. Story that is absolutely non existent, hunt down big blue dude with big feet WTF! Fetch stuff, kill stuff, and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk... Meanwhile load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen, loadGarbage extreme verbose over the top writing that drags on for eternity. Story that is absolutely non existent, hunt down big blue dude with big feet WTF! Fetch stuff, kill stuff, and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk... Meanwhile load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen, load screen. You get the picture.… Expand
  56. maxikyd
    Aug 31, 2018
    1
    Managed to play for 6 hours since June with intermittent crashes. Now the game either gives a black screen at startup, or the crashes are roughly every 5 minutes with no sign of patching in sight. Devs seems to be leaving the repairs up to users. Cannot recommend until the crash problems have been fixed by the devs. Currently unplayable.
  57. TyrantGodBane
    May 11, 2020
    1
    I do not understand how there are 420 positive reviews on a game that has base features still bugged. Bough his May 2020 and I just deleted it for good. The main island before you get your ship based on your main character is6-10hrs long, 2hrs of them are Loading Screens. When you save it kicks you to the main screen. Continue or load up and that save file vanishes. Auto saves are justI do not understand how there are 420 positive reviews on a game that has base features still bugged. Bough his May 2020 and I just deleted it for good. The main island before you get your ship based on your main character is6-10hrs long, 2hrs of them are Loading Screens. When you save it kicks you to the main screen. Continue or load up and that save file vanishes. Auto saves are just one time and you can't locate them(via PS4) so if you die there goes all that hard hard. Au

    10 playthroughs and I'm done with the game. The amount of glowing lying reviews is staggering. “its a great game" lies just to make you buy it.    … Expand
  58. 2random
    Sep 4, 2022
    1
    The game feels extremely unsatisfying to play. A huge disappointment. Not even close to baldurs gate. It just tries to be what it isn't. There's no real depth to the world, most of the NPCs speak with one-liners, stand in 1 place all the time and are more like decorations than actual people. This isn't how you make this kind of games. The game is in poor technical condition- lags, bugs,The game feels extremely unsatisfying to play. A huge disappointment. Not even close to baldurs gate. It just tries to be what it isn't. There's no real depth to the world, most of the NPCs speak with one-liners, stand in 1 place all the time and are more like decorations than actual people. This isn't how you make this kind of games. The game is in poor technical condition- lags, bugs, takes ages to load. But the woke sure is there, the game's just infested with it.… Expand
  59. KalrocVN
    Aug 16, 2018
    0
    Cringe inducing dialogue. Weak character development. Horrific ship-to-ship combat-in text-that last forever. Do not waste your time or dollars.
  60. nanddo
    May 17, 2018
    0
    It's a nice game, but is full of bugs, when you select a quest and open the journal, the quest is not even preselected WTF, there are missions you cannot finish because of bugs, crew members that don't heal due to bugs. Is not enjoyable like this, wait till they patch it properly. Pillars of ethernity I did not have this kind of bugs.
  61. AcerolaOrion
    Jun 26, 2019
    0
    Let me just explain one (of the many) objective problem this game has in detail.
    Deadfire is extremely poorly optimized to the point where it affects gameplay and overheating might damage your hardware.
    Google it if you dont believe me "ultimate gaming rig deadfire" "overheating deadfire". What happens? The game drops A LOT! of frames all the time even on high end machines to the    Let me just explain one (of the many) objective problem this game has in detail.
    Deadfire is extremely poorly optimized to the point where it affects gameplay and overheating might damage your hardware.

    Google it if you dont believe me "ultimate gaming rig deadfire" "overheating deadfire".

    What happens? The game drops A LOT! of frames all the time even on high end machines to the point where it affects the gameplay. I can not count the number of times when i engaged combat and the game just skipped entire seconds of time to the point where it made me reload because of how bad the engage ended up (without having any control).

    There are fights on ships. The ship areas are un -fffffing- playable. I have frame drops to below 10 on a good desktop PC ON LOW SETTINGS! I can play recently released AAA games on high and its nowhere near that (Sekiro, Tomb Raider, Monster Hunter DMC5 or Pathfinder Kingmaker (by a team who made their first major title!!!) to name a few) and Deadfire is a bloody year old?! How is this not patched?
    I have never seen anything like this in my life. It is unbelievable.
    Its not just in combat. The game gradually runs worse and worse the longer you play. (Visibly consistently worse framerate on steam over time in the same areas)
    Some areas get my CPU to 80+ degree Celsius AND THERES NOTHING IN THEM (Beraths temple, the area under the watershaper guild to name 2 of them)??? Its completely random. WHY? WHAT? HOW?
    The game doesnt even look particularly good. Maybe its the effects? I wouldnt know since i can never see them because the game just frameskips over them most of the time LMAO!
    Ohh and of course... Loading screens. Loading screens everywhere all the time.    … Expand
  62. marcus113
    May 14, 2018
    0
    Do people have no standards? Baldurs Gate I & II, are so much better in every way and they're almost 20 years old... they put better graphics in the game and assume that this is all you have to do? Why not do something different and unique? If this were a movie that remade an older movie it would get destroyed in reviews. Why are gamers giving it a pass for being a safe remake of an olderDo people have no standards? Baldurs Gate I & II, are so much better in every way and they're almost 20 years old... they put better graphics in the game and assume that this is all you have to do? Why not do something different and unique? If this were a movie that remade an older movie it would get destroyed in reviews. Why are gamers giving it a pass for being a safe remake of an older game.

    Also this is an RPG. Graphics are not what makes RPG's great. Its character development, story, writing, lore... This is a lot less complex than the original D&D games in terms of classes, combinations and abilities so no points for that. I mean... if you are going to copy, at the very least maintain the level of quality of the old games and dont cut content. The bad thing about this game is that its so boring. The story is just drab and tiring.    … Expand
  63. Sandman83
    Nov 27, 2018
    0
    Tried and tried to get into this game but yeah this game just didn't do it for me, don't really get why it's so highly scored?
    Is it because it's and indie or something?
  64. jcolin
    Oct 24, 2018
    0
    They finally added romances to one of their games but screwed it up completely. If they ever patch in a romance for Eder then I'll give it a shot. At least with pillars 1 we knew there weren't any from the start, but with 2 it was a stretch goal and they just hodge podged some stuff together.
  65. metalreflectsli
    May 18, 2018
    0
    The Mac OS X port does not work. The developers are unresponsive on both the Steam forums and the GOG forums.
  66. maxmoefoe
    May 8, 2018
    0
    Boring characters, boring story, boring narrative design. Easy combat. This feels like a horrible DLC for the original pillars of eternity.
  67. Ololof
    May 23, 2018
    0
    One of the worst CRPG ever made
    Writing is cringe, gameplay is boring and "safe" garbage
    Honestly I can't understand how can someone defend this game, it just doesn't have redeeming qualities. Obsidian blaming backers for the final state of game, just like they blamed publishers everytime before was just too much for me
  68. Caveretien
    May 16, 2018
    0
    Pros: Pirate! Beautifully old graphic, a lot of classes and a lot of abilities.
    Cos:
    -Terrible music, cheap quality regarding both composing and producing tracks. - long and drag out unimportant and uninteresting dialog. Even with alot more voice over compare to POE 1. Voice over team has little to no emotion or that many lines to say. Saying "I got it" 50 times in a row is terrible.    Pros: Pirate! Beautifully old graphic, a lot of classes and a lot of abilities.
    Cos:
    -Terrible music, cheap quality regarding both composing and producing tracks.
    - long and drag out unimportant and uninteresting dialog. Even with alot more voice over compare to POE 1. Voice over team has little to no emotion or that many lines to say. Saying "I got it" 50 times in a row is terrible.
    - Main story is very very short and boring. There is not really a lead of why one thing lead to another. Their purpose of the whole POEII: Deadfire is not convincing.
    - Too many side quests, they are random and uninteresting. Aside from distracting the player from the main quest, in one town, there are about 20 NPCs each gives 5 quest. It forces you running back and forth too much, not only that the amount of loading screen, you tell me. Game feels like a series of side quest rather than telling a story. I'd call this one Pillar of Many Random Pirate Side quest.
    - Pausing/AI configuration. Again, developers provide too many unnecessary tools for a simple task, 95% of the scripted AI condition aren't needed. Getting interrupted on a spell will make character skip that spell entirely..Compare this to Dragon Age: Origin or Final Fantasy XII ( game on a ps2), they are simpler and doing a much better job.
    -Even though there are alot of classes, abilities and weapon of choices, the way active and passive abilities are made making building a character is oblivious, you cannot fail to build a character in this game. It's very wide but shallow. I'd rather have something narrow but deep, that's character building.
    - Pathing, character can't reach a destination run around and getting hit by engagement attack continuously.
    - Developers are so lazy to balance the game so that they make an option of scaling, game is too easy even on path of the damned difficulty once you reach high level
    -level of a character define its power, everything else is irrelevant: your class, weapon of choice, abilities, potions, scroll etc..

    Final word, I can't believe this PoE I and PoE II both budget about $6 M, compares to DOS I and
    DOSII with the same budget. or even its predecessor NWN or Baldur's Gate. After 40 hours to finish this game on Path of The Damned. I'm very dissapointed    … Expand
  69. Nostalgo
    May 22, 2018
    0
    Bugsidian is back in full force like never before.

    Radio silence from the developer on the exact release date of patches. Game is unplayable couse of terrible optimization, crashes, fps issues due to memory leaks even on top pc, difficulty is laughable that the party autopilots itself, ship combat is boring and simple,companion side quests are nonexistent, I could go on for another    Bugsidian is back in full force like never before.

    Radio silence from the developer on the exact release date of patches.
    Game is unplayable couse of terrible optimization, crashes, fps issues due to memory leaks even on top pc, difficulty is laughable that the party autopilots itself, ship combat is boring and simple,companion side quests are nonexistent, I could go on for another 1000 words.

    This game is a disaster that will require months to fix.    … Expand
  70. Matt_H
    Apr 27, 2019
    0
    If you like bugs and glitches that will never get repaired, you'll LOVE Obsidian.
  71. BakriSaragih
    Jul 29, 2020
    0
    "Do not make further Pillars of Eternity game anymore, you'll only screw things further"

    The statement above is the bottom line I would like to give to this game. Don't get me wrong, I WAS a big fan. I love the writing, 10/10, the story and dialogues, 10/10, I have no problem with bird view 3D character, but the game design, about how you managed it, really put everything into the    "Do not make further Pillars of Eternity game anymore, you'll only screw things further"

    The statement above is the bottom line I would like to give to this game. Don't get me wrong, I WAS a big fan. I love the writing, 10/10, the story and dialogues, 10/10, I have no problem with bird view 3D character, but the game design, about how you managed it, really put everything into the trash can.

    First of all, I am a "hardcore" gamer, which means, I always do the craziest difficulty any game ever has, which includes PotD. I love it, I love the concept, what really infuriated me though was, "What did you smoke when you put that save mechanism". Honestly, if you want to remove auto-save for the sake of "you get what you play", not gonna lie, I will agree with you. But how can you expect us to forgive you, for punishing us because of one of your GAMEBREAKING BUG? Not to mention how annoying it is to manual save because of your bizarre manual save system. And now you wonder why nobody cares to buy your game.

    This isn't just some "bug issue", this is some "mind concept" issue. You want to punish the player as hard as possible but you don't want to compensate or anything of your own failure. That is a selfish paradigm.

    As a verdict, put your thought about making PoE III to the grave. The franchise is done. You are done. Don't screw things any further than it has.

    For new-players: forget PoTD. Not because it was too hard, but because this game got too many game-breaking bugs that would make you wasted a couple of hours.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

8
#8 Best PC Game of 2018
22
#22 Most Discussed PC Game of 2018
10
#10 Most Shared PC Game of 2018

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
88

Generally favorable reviews - based on 71 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 68 out of 71
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 71
  3. Negative: 0 out of 71
  1. RPGamer
    May 7, 2019
    70
    Those with an appreciation for the tabletop games and classic PC games this pays homage to will likely have an enjoyable experience. The learning curve is a bit steep, the seas may get choppy, and the deck can get rather slippery, but with some patience and perseverance, even the greenest sailor can go from lowly deckhand to decorated captain.
    Read full review
  2. Game Debate
    Oct 22, 2018
    95
    With DLC called 'The Deck of Many Things' and rules system that very closely mirrors the fundamentals of D&D right down to individual spells, it's sort of a crying shame that the powers that control licensing on both sides were unable to consummate this obvious marriage. Pillars of Eternity, for me, is the best D&D series there never was.
    Read full review
  3. Gamers Heroes
    Sep 4, 2018
    80
    Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire is not for everyone. The web of intertwining features and mechanics are as deep as they are complicated, but for those looking for more from their RPGs – more character, more wonder, more life – Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire is a fantastic homage to the true roots of the RPG genre.
    Read full review
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