Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

 PlayStation 4
User Score
4.8

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 128 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 49 out of 128
  2. Mixed: 17 out of 128
  3. Negative: 62 out of 128
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  1. RatchetClank111
    Apr 17, 2023
    7
    I played this game on next gen consoles so I didn't really have any of the performance issues that many have listed in other reviews. I forgot to write a review of this game, but basically what it comes down to is that the game has improvements over the first one (from making it less noticeable as a Kickstarter project , as the first game had all those character internal stories that II played this game on next gen consoles so I didn't really have any of the performance issues that many have listed in other reviews. I forgot to write a review of this game, but basically what it comes down to is that the game has improvements over the first one (from making it less noticeable as a Kickstarter project , as the first game had all those character internal stories that I didn't get what it added to the story until later finding out those were backers stories they came up with, which honestly was not needed and made it confusing if this was needed dialogue), to more voice acting and characters, and a more fluid combat system, and you get a more variety of items/weapons

    But the game takes steps back in regards to actually caring about most of the characters, as the factions in the game are all unlikable, they are all greedy and annoying, and oblivious in the errors in their ways. Like I remember reading that a poll/data the developers got, most people actually chose the ending/path to go it alone without help from one of the factions to finish the endgame. I think that's telling on how bad the factions are.

    Another issue was the ship combat was useless, it was just quicker to either flee or just ram and start the fight, not a very well implemented strategy minigame. Another issue was the random events that generally occurred while sailing, is that THEY REPEAT TOO OFTEN, it's like the developers only came up with a few roleplaying scenarios and thus it gets really annoying and noticeable once you get close to the end of the game that you really at the end game as there's not much to do and it starts to repeat. And what makes it even more annoying are the wait times/loading screens, so if you run into one of these on the main island you're just wasting time as travel takes awhile on the main island. And way too many loading sequences in general, so that gets annoying when you enter/leave areas or buildings. and they take a few seconds so you're going to be staring at those loading screens a lot........

    The game didn't really sell well at first, so I doubt they are going to make a third game of this series, it's a shame because there's a lot of good ideas, but better funding of these games would of led to better games, and perhaps a third game.

    Wait for a sale/play on gamepass//ps plus. Don't spend a lot of money on this game

    As for my score a 7/10 is fair    … Expand
  2. zazollo
    Feb 3, 2023
    3
    The technical issues here were not quite as bad as they were on ps4, but it still feels like an incredibly dated and pretty janky game. Unfortunate because there is potential.
  3. Diretornak
    Jul 13, 2022
    4
    The game is good but even playing on a ps5 the loading screens are painful. The game was clearly poorly optimized. Still, if u have time, its a good turn based rpg.
  4. yeaokwhatever
    Jun 2, 2022
    0
    DO NOT BUY ON CONSOLE. the ps4 port is a hot **** mess. im literally trapped in an act 1 city bc of a bug i cant leave to advance storyline common bug but the fixes dont work. nevermind that they ruined combat, made the UI even worse than poe1 load screens take over.1 min and theres one every time you turn around open a door go to a diff room etc. trash port of a bad game, sad to see it bcDO NOT BUY ON CONSOLE. the ps4 port is a hot **** mess. im literally trapped in an act 1 city bc of a bug i cant leave to advance storyline common bug but the fixes dont work. nevermind that they ruined combat, made the UI even worse than poe1 load screens take over.1 min and theres one every time you turn around open a door go to a diff room etc. trash port of a bad game, sad to see it bc i liked poe1 despite some ossues… Expand
  5. Lord_Khey
    Feb 16, 2022
    6
    Bear with me, guys and gals.

    (or don't - TL;DR = buy this game, but do it on PC. The story and writing is PHENOMENAL. The execution on PS4 is excruciating.) PoE2 takes what was an excellent tale and adds about 5 layers to it. I dumped about 130 hrs into this bad boy, but that might be a little misleading (more on that in a bit). I have the Ultimate Edition, so I tried to complete    Bear with me, guys and gals.

    (or don't - TL;DR = buy this game, but do it on PC. The story and writing is PHENOMENAL. The execution on PS4 is excruciating.)

    PoE2 takes what was an excellent tale and adds about 5 layers to it. I dumped about 130 hrs into this bad boy, but that might be a little misleading (more on that in a bit). I have the Ultimate Edition, so I tried to complete as much of it as I could without driving myself bonkers, but the main story is a pleasure and gives you many choices of how the ending will play out and which of your companions stand with you at the end.

    The stakes in this game are as immense as could be made - the fate of the world, and the fate of any world to come - as your party sails across a chain of islands to stop a rogue god from destroying the Wheel of reincarnation. Gameplay cycles between: roaming through towns in search of clues, gear, companions, etc; sailing between and exploring several islands of varying difficulty; two modes of ship battles - one regular ol' melee, and the other, a strategy text-based game of trying to out-cannon the other; and the occasional text-based "choose your path" points that determine if you get the extra treasure, or if you're treated to a rash of injuries instead.

    You can buy different kinds of ships, from a voyager to a galleon, and outfit them with crew members with specific skills (cannoneer, cook, surgeon, boatswain, etc), and they gain experience in those roles the longer they stay there. You also have to provision your crew with more than just hardtack and water, or morale may fall and they'll mutiny against you.

    The voice acting is quite good. Many epic games have strong leads, but the supporting cast is meh or worse. PoE2 is pretty strong top to bottom. How good? Well, i bothered to read the credits this time, and I JUST found out after playing BOTH games and having BOTH Eder and Aloth in my party that they were voiced by the same guy and I HAD NO IDEA.

    Much to my dismay, the game appears to have been purposely designed that you can only arrange to have one of the various factions in the game join you at the end, and you will NOT be able to keep your full compliment of companions no matter how you try to finagle it, but I suppose that's only right.

    Now to my complaints. If you've read many of the negative reviews, you see that common thread that load times between screens are -lengthy-. Roughly one minute every time you enter a store, then leave the store, then enter another store just next door. When you travel to the next section of town, leave the town, enter a cave, leave the cave...you get what I'm saying. This is why I wonder if I actually played 130 hours, or if it was really only, like 100, and the other 30 were loading screens.

    The game would also crash with a frequency that far outpaces when other PS4 games glitch out on me. And apparently, there is no user support coming for the console editions.

    A couple of consistent bugs would rear their ugly heads from time to time. Most notably, the "Manage Party" function. You can only carry four companions (plus yourself) at a time. So, if you want to change your "starting 5," you have to do so at a Port or an Inn. And when you drop one character, then select another, sometimes, the character you dropped still appears on your screen, but you cannot control them. So, you have 6 people on the screen. If you enter a store/go to another level (load screen), that "dropped" party member follows you. So, again, you kind of have to finagle a bit to ensure that the dropped character doesn't follow you. Why is this important? Well, if you're in a battle and that "ghost" character dies, they DIE. No injuries, they're gone for the duration of the game (thank goodness for multiple save and auto-save files).

    So, again, this game is a 10 without the technical issues. The game from an software-execution standpoint is a 2. Hence my final score and my suggestion that you bite the bullet and get it on Steam. Make sure to play the first one, too. PoE2 plays a lot better if you have the background of PoE1.    … Expand
  6. Kai82
    Feb 2, 2022
    5
    A great game but the bugs and long loading times ruin the experience. Without the flaws I would rate this game in the 9-10/10 range. Following bugs did I encounter: While the first 10 hours were free of crashes those became frequent later on. In a place called “The Gullet” the exit icons vanished and did not return (Triangle button and manual search to solve this). I was trapped in placesA great game but the bugs and long loading times ruin the experience. Without the flaws I would rate this game in the 9-10/10 range. Following bugs did I encounter: While the first 10 hours were free of crashes those became frequent later on. In a place called “The Gullet” the exit icons vanished and did not return (Triangle button and manual search to solve this). I was trapped in places and had to reload to solve this and when I acquired the biggest ship I could not manage / change my crew anymore. There were slow downs which also became more frequent (maybe related to crashes). Then there are the long loading times I did thought were extinct on PS4. I stopped 1 minute and you have those every time even entering in smaller areas. Basically the longer I played the buggier it got. Lets go to the strengths of the game: The story, characters, factions and game mechanics were great. Even more I like the option to import decisions from the first game (If you do not have a save file you can chose a general setting from pure good to chaotic with variations). After the events of the first game you are receding in your fortress Caed Nua when a giant statue underground emerges which is the return of the god Eothas who was though dead. His awakening kills hundreds of people and rips out their souls into him. You character the Watcher is trapped between life and dead and is recruited by gods to hunt down Eothas and find out what is happening as even the gods were surprised. The voyage takes you to the Deadfire Archipelago which has many competing fractions. This is the set up. I like the stories in the game. There are countless factions and each one has their stories, goals and corpses in the closet. Also your party members have preferences and can clash with each other and your decisions. In this regard it is everything I wanted. Gameplay: There is a lot to do and the new setting aka worldbuilding is great. You explore the Archipelago on your ship. You have resource management, can upgrade your ship and hire a crew. On each mayor location you have tons of quests, things to do and explore. Like I said there are factions and those have agendas aka goals. You have a reputation system and you will struggle to please everyone. The battles and character development is familiar if you played the first game and is like D&D but far from being a rip off. I especially like that each skill has a value and helps in different situations. The mechanics are well interwoven and together with the story are the reason I want go give a 9-10/10. The graphics are beautiful. They go for a more hand drawn looking style which fully delivers. I disliked the art style of the decision sequences first but it has grown on me. The soundtrack is well done and especially the shanties on the ocean are great. Overall I hate to give a lower rating but the bugs made it hard for me to justify a higher rating. It is a masterpiece but flawed in this regard.… Expand
  7. Hopkins65
    Dec 26, 2021
    0
    Осторожно игра не работает на PS 5
    Not working on ps5. Сони отмораживается, деньги возвращают.
  8. Thaksin
    Jul 13, 2021
    8
    Взял на распродаже, начал играть, предполагая что не играя в первую часть, я быстро перестану, как итог... Я прошел игру с большим интересом!
    Теперь хотелось бы сыграть в III часть, больше чем всеми ожидаемая baldur gate III (фанаты извините).
    Главный недочет, часто баги невнятные возникают, долгие загрузи, на PS5 переиздание не стали же делать.    Взял на распродаже, начал играть, предполагая что не играя в первую часть, я быстро перестану, как итог... Я прошел игру с большим интересом!
    Теперь хотелось бы сыграть в III часть, больше чем всеми ожидаемая baldur gate III (фанаты извините).
    Главный недочет, часто баги невнятные возникают, долгие загрузи, на PS5 переиздание не стали же делать.
  9. LunaresArienal
    Mar 25, 2021
    4
    TLDR
    I can't put anything higher than a red mark because of all the problems people point out in the other reviews.
    I can't put less either because the story seems great, the characters are nice, the assignements are cool, battles are interesting and less confusing than in say Divinity Original Sin 2. But it is just not playable on PS4. Now the long thing : Loading screens take    TLDR
    I can't put anything higher than a red mark because of all the problems people point out in the other reviews.

    I can't put less either because the story seems great, the characters are nice, the assignements are cool, battles are interesting and less confusing than in say Divinity Original Sin 2.
    But it is just not playable on PS4.

    Now the long thing :
    Loading screens take easily more than 1 minute and there are a LOT of them. Runeforged said precisely what I was willing to say : a single fetch quest that requires talking to a NPC in a house from the Inn in the same city will take literally 20 minutes because there is a loading screen to leave the inn, one to enter the house, one to get to the first floor of the house, one to get back to ground level, another one to leave the house and a last one to re-enter the inn. And that's in the case where the quest NPC is at ground level of the inn ... if not just add two more minutes of not being able to play.

    But listen, I could consider forgiving the loading screens. I remember a time where all games had super long loading screens (that's because I'm getting older). But I cannot forgive the combination of loading screens and constant crashes with a wonky autosave system. The crashes happen at weird times (except one that seems constant and not fixed since 2018 in Tikiwara) and the autosave does not seem to take into account that I already did that bloody inn-fetch quest and I have to do it all over again !

    I know it's a global pandemic and i have a lot of spare time at home. But I can't - and I won't - do the same quest three times because the game crashed.

    It breaks my heart because the work behind the game is phenomenal, the lore is great, the art is nice. But it's simply unplayable. So I'm going to stop playing there, it's the first time I stop playing a game for technical reasons and let me tell you : that sucks.    … Expand
  10. enemy655
    Dec 14, 2020
    5
    The game itself is great! Great story, voice acting, characters, gives a lot of options - really a great RPG game! But compared to the PC version, it has painfully slow loading times, that can very from 30 sec, if you're entering a new room to 2 minuts visiting a new city. And this really takes a lot out of the game, because you don't wanna explore certain places because of the longThe game itself is great! Great story, voice acting, characters, gives a lot of options - really a great RPG game! But compared to the PC version, it has painfully slow loading times, that can very from 30 sec, if you're entering a new room to 2 minuts visiting a new city. And this really takes a lot out of the game, because you don't wanna explore certain places because of the long loading - there's also a lot of crashes, atleast every 2 hours, the whole game will crash, and you'll have to open it up again. I would recommond the game if you have the patiences for it - played it in 2020 june, so a patch might have come since then.… Expand
  11. AlexKhor
    Dec 12, 2020
    0
    Errors and bugs. Game doesnt work even 5 minutes. No patches. Playstation store does not make a refund after playing game.
  12. AaronF
    Feb 3, 2020
    0
    This game has been out for months and is still un-f*****g-playable and what's worse is that every so called patch introduces even more bugs. The game is great when it works but unfortunately Versus Evil can't be trusted to put out a quality game

    An edit several months later. The game is still broken and Versus Evil seems to have no interest in communicating with the player base anymore.    This game has been out for months and is still un-f*****g-playable and what's worse is that every so called patch introduces even more bugs. The game is great when it works but unfortunately Versus Evil can't be trusted to put out a quality game

    An edit several months later. The game is still broken and Versus Evil seems to have no interest in communicating with the player base anymore. Do not buy this under any circumstances    … Expand
  13. kirioroshi
    Sep 11, 2020
    1
    I can't believe this garbage in this age!
    Paid 60 dollar for a price of full game, got headache peace of crap
    Pros: -in the time of lacking decent RPG game! -lore. Cons : -Ps3 graphics. - loading screen for 5 minute every door you enter! Cant believe a development can ve this much bad. - bad UX. -bad combat. - lots of useless complexity in builds. - lag in every moment the memory tries to    I can't believe this garbage in this age!
    Paid 60 dollar for a price of full game, got headache peace of crap

    Pros: -in the time of lacking decent RPG game!
    -lore. Cons :
    -Ps3 graphics. - loading screen for 5 minute every door you enter! Cant believe a development can ve this much bad. - bad UX. -bad combat. - lots of useless complexity in builds. - lag in every moment the memory tries to calculate some code. And I'm playing it at ps4 pro. My advice to you dear friend dont waste your poor money.    … Expand
  14. Rysi0
    Aug 28, 2020
    2
    This game is unplayable, loading times are so big ...
    I have played 4 hour (2 h loading time, 2 h actual gameplay...)
  15. CatBlade
    Aug 12, 2020
    2
    This game is broken on PS4. Deadfire has menu scrolling/selection issues, save file slots have to be kept at 3 or less or it crashes, and the load screens take a minute each to load. And every transition requires a load screen - even if you are in a house with three stories, each floor requires a full load screen. Combat is broken. I have companions that are not in my party that are inThis game is broken on PS4. Deadfire has menu scrolling/selection issues, save file slots have to be kept at 3 or less or it crashes, and the load screens take a minute each to load. And every transition requires a load screen - even if you are in a house with three stories, each floor requires a full load screen. Combat is broken. I have companions that are not in my party that are in the combat lineup. They cause the camera to go off screen and make combat buggy. I have no way of fixing this. I even deleted the entire game and did a hard re-download/reinstallation. It can't be fixed. Obsidian keeps referring me to VersusEvil for these issues. VersusEvil ignores my messages. It is too late for a refund. The actual game, itself, looks so fun if it worked. But it doesn't. I find myself fighting more with the game itself than with the enemies in combat.… Expand
  16. DeadZenWalking
    Jul 28, 2020
    0
    Obsidian ports do not function well, and the PS4 version is no exception. While much better than the terrible Switch ports they do, the loading screens are last-last-gen compared to other games on the PS4 in this genre. Disappointed.
  17. Lfz
    Jul 27, 2020
    7
    各方面實在不出色，但這類型遊戲稀少，喜歡這類型遊戲所以給出及格分數。
  18. deadlyshadow777
    Jul 22, 2020
    9
    POE2 is a precious gem. Mostly, because of the story. All these godsmankind conflicts are very intriguing.
  19. Spinnning_Jenny
    Jul 7, 2020
    0
    Loadddddding screens loadddddding screens and MORE loaddddding screens. More boring than fun because you can't actually play anything.
  20. MasterGibz
    Jul 5, 2020
    1
    Obsidian and VE have proven that they couldn’t care less about their console ports. The game is unplayable due to game breaking bugs that they have shown absolutely no initiative on fixing.
    The game is terribly optimized for controllers, and as many have mentioned, the load times are abysmal. Load times lasting upwards of 5 minutes per room. God for it you have a fetch quest, where they    Obsidian and VE have proven that they couldn’t care less about their console ports. The game is unplayable due to game breaking bugs that they have shown absolutely no initiative on fixing.
    The game is terribly optimized for controllers, and as many have mentioned, the load times are abysmal. Load times lasting upwards of 5 minutes per room. God for it you have a fetch quest, where they force you to pop through 12+ load zones in a single area. You can get trapped in an Interact State completely removing your ability to fight, making it impossible to progress in the game. Do not buy this game, your money would be better spent as fireplace kindling.    … Expand
  21. Spellcheck_
    Jun 30, 2020
    0
    Bought this game on release, and it was the most buggy, waste of money I had seen in some time.

    Almost half a year later, having shelved the game, I picked it back up. I have seen to-date I believe 2 large patches, the game is exactly as unplayable and bugged as it was at release. The Publisher a company called Versus Evil, and their chosen developers a company named Grip Digital are    Bought this game on release, and it was the most buggy, waste of money I had seen in some time.

    Almost half a year later, having shelved the game, I picked it back up.
    I have seen to-date I believe 2 large patches, the game is exactly as unplayable and bugged as it was at release. The Publisher a company called Versus Evil, and their chosen developers a company named Grip Digital are thieves.

    No one in their right mind would have released this game, either their quality assurance testers need to be fired as there is no conceivable way they could miss this many glaring, game-breaking bugs, or they don't have any. As I first encountered a bug within my first hour of playing when this released, checked back today with a new game, and yep... hit a bug again within the first hour.

    Versus Evil have had just under half a year to get this game in a fixed and working state, and it is just as bad as it was in January, they are awful, dishonest and do not care about the player base, they just seem to care about getting their money. I am honestly surprised this game is still up for sale tbh.

    I will never again trust or buy anything associated with Versus Evil or Grip Digital, anyone reading this - do not buy the game, save your time and money and go elsewhere.    … Expand
  22. ozjohnd
    Jun 22, 2020
    2
    I had high hopes, played for as long as I could tolerate. The loading times killed it for me (I can forgive the occasional glitches and crashes) ... go inside a room and load, load ... single gameplay task, leave room and load, load, load ... in some sections of the game the loading time exceeds the actual gameplay time.

    Particularly fond of RPG and THQ Nordic but this one is    I had high hopes, played for as long as I could tolerate. The loading times killed it for me (I can forgive the occasional glitches and crashes) ... go inside a room and load, load ... single gameplay task, leave room and load, load, load ... in some sections of the game the loading time exceeds the actual gameplay time.

    Particularly fond of RPG and THQ Nordic but this one is seriously frustrating.

    ( opinion from a Bard's Tale tragic )    … Expand
  23. Kangaroos_R_Bad
    Jun 10, 2020
    0
    Do not blame Obsidian it is their publisher for this mess of a port, my animation friend at Obsidian says they have nothing to do with it
  24. tellus
    May 15, 2020
    3
    I have the PS4 version of the game.

    Currently I do not recommend this port. The game is not optimized for the console. Loading times are frequent and can last almost 3 minutes in bigger areas. In big cities, where you need to transition a lot to complete quests, you can expect to play 2 minutes in a 15 minute session. There are also an inordinate amount of game breaking bugs. This needs    I have the PS4 version of the game.

    Currently I do not recommend this port. The game is not optimized for the console. Loading times are frequent and can last almost 3 minutes in bigger areas. In big cities, where you need to transition a lot to complete quests, you can expect to play 2 minutes in a 15 minute session. There are also an inordinate amount of game breaking bugs. This needs to be fixed, fast, for the game to be enjoyable, which I have no doubt it can be.    … Expand
  25. ZXSth
    Apr 15, 2020
    5
    While my impressions of this game were quite favourable at launch, my love for the game has soured as I've had time to watch it fall apart at the seams in comparison to other similar games in the genre. To provide an example: While recently playing Greedfall, I experienced infrequent, average load times of about 10 seconds when travelling large distances between areas, and not betweenWhile my impressions of this game were quite favourable at launch, my love for the game has soured as I've had time to watch it fall apart at the seams in comparison to other similar games in the genre. To provide an example: While recently playing Greedfall, I experienced infrequent, average load times of about 10 seconds when travelling large distances between areas, and not between individual areas within the same region. Whenever they were longer (i.e. between regions), I was greeted with an area where I could buy and sell gear, and speak with my companions. This was a fantastic breath of fresh air after what I had experienced with Deadfire.

    Deadfire has so much to enjoy - the incredible amount of power one has to create the fantasy-themed character(s) of their dreams, and to form and develop their characters however they wish. Unfortunately, what is worthy of high praise demands that you sit through loading screen after loading screen, and pray that your game doesn't crash at any given moment. While many of the patches have been ironed out, the lengthy load times have not been mitigated to my knowledge, and are unbearably frequent. They also feature a banal, uninteresting, prototypical screen featuring one of three backgrounds and several game tips.

    The most disappointing thing about this game is that it possesses immense replay value, solid and challenging gameplay, and a wonderful story - all reduced to mediocrity by the absurd amount of loading this game does. At this point, I may have spent a comparable amount of time waiting for the game to load than I have actually playing the game. Considering the semi-open world and isometric nature of the game, this feels worse than archaic - it is shameful. I have heard that the load times on PC are also rather rough, but I might be mistaken.

    If you are not an incredibly patient player who adores CRPGs, I'd give this a pass unless the price drops under $20. Otherwise, I feel the absurd amount of waiting cannot justify the wonderful game that you would likely enjoy past all that loading.    … Expand
  26. TheGrackle
    Apr 4, 2020
    4
    A truly great game that is totally ruint by technical issues. If you buy this game you will literally spend half your time staring at the load screens. The game feels like a horrible beta nightmare.
  27. unbridled_anger
    Apr 3, 2020
    0
    Writing after waiting for my last loading screen. Burned on Switch port, burned on this. Thanks Obsidian for taking a great game on the PC and then not even caring about the PS4 and Switch.
  28. Varbog
    Apr 1, 2020
    0
    I want to like this game, I really do. I love isometric RPGs. This is, however, the most bug-infested port I have ever played. After 30+ hours of spending more time fighting with trying to get the game to actually work I finally have had enough. To detail the exact problems:

    -Frequent blue screen crashes. I have never seen a game hard crash this much on PS4. It's honestly shocking how    I want to like this game, I really do. I love isometric RPGs. This is, however, the most bug-infested port I have ever played. After 30+ hours of spending more time fighting with trying to get the game to actually work I finally have had enough. To detail the exact problems:

    -Frequent blue screen crashes. I have never seen a game hard crash this much on PS4. It's honestly shocking how often it happens. Easily has happened a couple dozen times.

    -Bugged NPCs: while I only came across two, I have no doubt there are others. Two enemy NPCs I encountered (at different places) would immediately crash the game as soon as they began their first action in combat. This happened reliably such that I had to just go around these encounters. Luckily they were not scripted encounters I couldn't bypass.

    -Buggy controls: this one is seriously mind-boggling. On occasion, the game just flat out decides it's not going to accept certain types of input from the PS4 controller any more. The most annoying of these is when circle will no longer back you out of menus / information screens because the only way to get out of it is to force close and restart the game. Other times it won't take input from the d-pad / sticks and you have to close and re-open a menu to fix it. This is a frequent problem. It happens even more often in sea battles for some reason. Sometimes it will stop accepting input from square, so then you can't "Loot all and continue" after a ship battle but you have to loot every single item individually (sometimes there's 15-20 items) and if they come in stacks you have to pick up the whole stack, move it down to your stash and place it manually. Really obnoxious.

    -Bugged PCs: I encountered various issues with playable characters. Sometimes when you're moving through poison clouds or other persistent damage effects the game just decides to put itself into manual cursor mode and the left joystick stops navigating your character. Also ran into a lovely bug where I swapped characters out of my party, but any time I got into combat the game still thought one of them was in the party. I couldn't do anything with them, it just would fly the camera way off screen and I would have to "End Turn" manually to get back to what I was doing. Maybe not game breaking but holy mother of God is it annoying.

    -Last, but certainly not least, saved game corruption: Here we go, the Mac Daddy of game-breaking bugs for you to behold. A number of others have mentioned this, but yeah, sometimes your saved files (or a bunch of them) will just get corrupted and guess what? You're f-ed. Hopefully you have a ton of saves to scroll through so you can MAYBE find one that will work. Enjoy your "map cannot be loaded" and trip back to the PS4 main screen.

    Now for some minor gripes. Yes, the game loads slow. Even on PS4 Pro with the game loaded onto an SSD. Even for tiny areas (think a single-room hut that doesn't even fill the entire screen). I realize we used to put up with this all the time when I was a younger gamer, but it's 2020. This is not a graphically intensive game. It shouldn't take so long for small areas to load. This port is just really poorly optimized. I COULD live with this if not for all the other bugs and frequent crashing, but all of that together is just... infuriating.

    I've seen claims that Versus Evil is working on fixing them, but it's been over 2 months since release and it's still this broken? Honestly I wish I could just get a refund. DO NOT BUY ON PS4. Been trying to get a refund for this for over a week, but Sony makes it a huge pain to try to get refunds on "faulty" games.    … Expand
  29. Inkedhulk
    Mar 18, 2020
    0
    Boy oh boy.... The game is great from the story and mechanics point of view. But port to ps4 is horrendous. Not only the controls are unintuitive and take significant time to get used to (POE1 had a much, MUCH better controller layout) and even after getting used to it's frustrating to use... But the loading screens... OH MY GOD the loading screens... it's insane!!! Even the smallest roomBoy oh boy.... The game is great from the story and mechanics point of view. But port to ps4 is horrendous. Not only the controls are unintuitive and take significant time to get used to (POE1 had a much, MUCH better controller layout) and even after getting used to it's frustrating to use... But the loading screens... OH MY GOD the loading screens... it's insane!!! Even the smallest room will load for like a minute... Any transition to whatever area takes FOREVER... plus crashes from time to time... and more loading screens... and other minor bugs... I wanted to love this game, but i absolutely hate to play it right now. I hope they will fix it in some patch and it will be better. For now - disappointing and frustrating AF. Regret buying it on PS4.… Expand
  30. LordAnakin
    Mar 13, 2020
    0
    Just unplayable "PC port".

    Through my 20 years of videogame expirience - it is first time i see such broken game on PS4.

    1) Huge, enourmous time of loading areas. You are playing 1 hour - and 3 hours waiting untill area will load.
    2) Bugs which didnt let you end quests
    3) Awful controller usability.
    4) Many game mechanics is broken.
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Awards & Rankings

77
#77 Best PS4 Game of 2020
60
#60 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2020
8
#8 Most Shared PS4 Game of 2020

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 20 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 20
  3. Negative: 0 out of 20
  1. PLAY! Zine
    Apr 8, 2020
    85
    Pillars of Eternity II arrives on consoles in it’s the best edition with all additional content, completely bringing all of it’s best aspects to console gaming. With its rich non-linear narrative, astonishing world and lore and interesting characters and both real-time and turn-based gameplay, it still is a great game, even with its bad optimisation and confusing control scheme for controllers.
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  2. DarkStation
    Mar 17, 2020
    50
    Porting a game made for PC to consoles can be an iffy situation. It’s absolutely something that should happen when possible, as I am all for everyone being to play everything if they are able, but some just flat out work better then others. It’s a shame that the largest and unavoidable knock against Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is something as silly as load times, but it is what it is. If you have a chance to play this game on PC, you should without question. If this is your only way to play this, just make sure you have something to do while you’re waiting.
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  3. Cubed3
    Mar 10, 2020
    50
    It is mired by a litany of hurdles, that perhaps a more patient player can deal with, but many will really wrestle with this - for them it is advised to seek out PoEII on a platform that it's design is more inherent. At very least, wait until a patch can fix some glitches, and the egregious loading times, in particular. Someone that can get beyond those inconveniences will discover there is a deep novel-esque adventure to be had. This adventure is full of loot, bounties, ship battles, and engaging fetch quests; all of the usual RPG fare that would keep aficionados happy. The island setting is memorable and full of lyrical, witty writing to be discovered which is great. When it works, it can be immersive and no doubt extensively replayable. It's just a shame that it didn't quite nail the port execution.
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