Pillars of Eternity is a game that I first bought way back in 2015. I downloaded and installed it, played it for about an hour then switched it off and didn’t play it again, until recently. What attracted me to it back then was it being a well reviewed dark fantasy RPG made by Obsidian (one of my favourite devs), and I was intrigued by the idea of a modern take on the older Black Isle Studios and Bioware DnD CRPGs. As much as I was intrigued by the game, I just didn’t really have the mental energy to play a very obviously densely detailed and wordy kind of game like this. Back in 2015 The Witcher 3, Cities: Skylines, MGSV, and Fallout 4 all came out too.

But having really enjoyed playing through Baldur’s Gate 3 recently, I couldn’t help notice a lot of people compare this game in a favourable sense. Many even declaring this game is better. I was itching for more CRPG goodness anyway. So I decided I’d finally give this game a proper play-through.

I did enjoy the way this game looks. The game has a very effective dark and brooding kind of look, whilst also managing to be quite fantastical and mysterious. For instance, you’ll see very typical looking wooden medieval homes and castles, but then they are juxtaposed with strange large organic crystals and ancient esoteric mechanical structures. There’s also more modern looking structures and things like early guns. Like early Renaissance era things. Animancy, the ‘scientific’ study of souls, is a strong theme in this game. Various forms of undead are prevalent in the game. There’s also more typical fantasy mobs like ogres, trolls, giant spiders and dragons. Humans, dwarves and elves are in the game, but it also has its own unique races such as Aumaua, Orlan and Godlike. There’s also some interesting unique mobs like Xaurips (reptilian humanoids) or Vithrack (spider like humanoids with ‘cipher’ abilities).

As stated, I liked the way the game looks. It’s familiar but very much has it’s own thing going on. It does look very retro, with the fixed isometric pre-rendered maps and the small 3D character and mob models. But, I can’t fault the game for it’s level of detail and art style. Details like the mist and rain weather effects, the swaying vegetation and flickering lights, and the different spells and attack animations and particle effects are very nice.

I particularly liked the nice subtle background music as you wonder around. Some of it kind of reminded me of The Lord of the Rings soundtrack at times, which I enjoyed. Although, the combat music I didn’t really like. It was too repetitive and thudding for my tastes to be honest, and got on my nerves a bit after a while. I would’ve appreciated a separate volume slider for it.

The voice acting, when it happens, is really good. At times exceptional in fact. Durance in particular is a stand out performance. It’s just a shame there isn’t more of it. I do appreciate VA cost money, and there is a lot of dialogue in this game, but it can be very disorientating frequently switching from reading to listening.

Performance was good enough. I did notice some frame-rate dips occasionally during more intense fights with large amounts of mobs and spells going on, but never to a degree that bothered me. Load times could be quite long sometimes. I didn’t experience any significant bugs or crashes.

It would be hard to talk about the story of Pillars of Eternity in too much specific detail without spoiling it. What I can say in general is that the game focuses on themes of animancy, memories and past lives, war, race, politics, and gods and their influence over different groups of mortals.

I really enjoyed the quality of the writing in this game. It did not dumb-down anything, and was not afraid to go into great and extensive detail on dark and disturbing things. You could make the argument that it perhaps goes into too much detail at some points, and can be a bit mind-boggling at points, and it did annoy me a little bit in that way. But I cannot fault the depth of the worldbuilding or quality of the writing.

What I particularly enjoyed was the themes of memories and the ramifications of experimenting with souls that it explores. Although the way the game ends I was a little bit disappointed by. I thought it was interesting, and I respect the point the game was trying to convey, I was just a little disappointed by the options given to you to respond to a certain key bit of information given to you right at the end. It’s like you just have to accept it. For a game that does freedom of choice making so well, I felt it slightly falters in that regard right at the end.

A classic style isometric CRPG with combat that uses RTwP. There is a lot of fighting mobs in this game, talking to people and making choices, wondering around and looting, choosing load outs, trading, crafting, levelling up and choosing skills and spells, and enchanting your weapons and armours.

The game does the whole RPG thing of choosing a class and customising it to your liking really well, and it does exploration and choice making really well too. I feel like the combat in the game could have been better though. It’s either like you don’t really do much at all in combat and just let the AI beat the mobs for you, or you are just constantly pausing and micromanaging your party. The combat is at its best when it’s somewhere in-between these two things, but rarely was it like that for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m saying the combat wasn’t enjoyable at all, I liked the different abilities you can use and how you can combine them and stuff. But it could have been better balanced in my opinion.

There’s an interesting approach to stats and skills and a reputation system going on in this game. It’s well done and works well generally speaking. There is no kind of dice rolling going on during conversations. It’s more about your skills and reputation opening up conversation options. The choice and the consequences of the choice is what matters here.

You also end up with a stronghold to manage in the game, and there is a lot of side-quests to do. Some of them are quite simple, some of them are more complex. The game tries it’s best to avoid the whole fetch-quest trope, and has fleshed out side stories with detailed characters and interesting choices to be made. There is a lot to do in this game, perhaps a bit too much at some points though.

It took me about 100 hours to get to the end credits, with doing the White March Part I & II DLC and most of the side-quests. That was just playing on normal though, and I didn’t quite do every quest. There is certainly a lot to do in this game, and the choice and class based story and gameplay certainly gives it a lot of replay potential. Whether I’d actually want to play it again any time soon I’m not sure. It’s a lot. Though certainly I am interested in playing the sequel at some point.

I bought the base game years ago I think for about £8 from a key reseller. I bought the DLC recently each for about £6. So about £20 the game cost me. You can buy them as a bundle on Steam for about £35 which regularly goes on sale for about £9. I definitely do think the game is good value for money.

So, would I agree with those who say this is a better game than Baldur’s Gate 3? No. It just isn’t quite the complete package in the way that game is. But it is a really great game. I do think it falters with it’s combat a bit and the game can go into too much detail at some points. But I’ve got to commend it for its intent. What I really enjoyed about it was the quality of the writing, the really solid RPG mechanics, the worldbuilding, and the well implemented choice making.

• Visuals – 8.5/10
• Audio – 8.5/10
• Performance – 8.5/10
• Story – 9/10
• Gameplay – 8/10
• Lasting Appeal – 9/10
• Price – 9/10

• Overall – 8.8/10