Drink up me hearties! Yo ho ho! We’re about to review Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire !

Crowdfunded in less than 24 hours, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire has been developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Versus Evil.

The game allows you to live the life of a pirate captain given the task of chasing down an awoken god on a path of destruction and putting a stop to his plans.

Currently, it’s only available on PC, however, it will be released on Xbox One, Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch in 2019.

Gameplay

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire is a Role-playing game in the style of old-school Forgotten Coast PC RPGs like Baldurs Gate or Icewind Dale. You get to play a “Watcher” who has the ability to peer into the souls of others and read their memories, which can be pretty helpful along the way on your journey.

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire takes place five years after the events of Pillars of Eternity and starts off with the god Eothas, who was believed to be dead, awakening from his slumber below your fortress from the first game, destroying the fortress and nearly killing you.

You are then contacted by the god of death and tasked to follow Eothas and find out what he’s up to. Along the way, you meet new party members and deal with several different factions who are all trying to gain control of the Deadfire archipelago the game takes place in.

In this second entry in the series, you travel by ship between islands and tackle various quests and bounties to aid you in your main task.

Ship battles are handled by a text screen where you strategically choose options to place yourself and attack ships, or you can board the opponent’s ship and fight them using your individual characters.

It does the old-school RPG feeling justice as it runs on a series of dice rolls in the background and has a very Dungeons and Dragons inspired class system.

Graphics

The game runs amazingly well on PC, with no visible frame rate drops or performance issues, and I hope to see it continue to run well when it releases on consoles.

The textures in the game are fantastically detailed for the isometric camera angle, the effects used on spells are also particularly well done. During my time playing I’ve not encountered any glitches or crashes at all, which is pretty amazing in this day and age of half baked titles coming out all the time.

Sound

The soundtrack of the game features a variety of instruments that allude to the feeling of being a pirate on the open seas. Composer Justin E. Bell’s did a fantastic job on the music in this game. When you visit a tavern, it sounds exactly like what I feel a tavern would be like, the sound design in this game is absolutely amazing.

Longevity

Fans of the classic RPG like Baldurs Gate and even new titles like Divinity: Original Sin will get hours upon hours of replayability as there are multiple ways to complete most quests and different ways to play your character in situations. Since the release of the base game, Obsidian has added 3 fully fledged expansions to the game adding hours of content for each one. I can see myself easily putting between 60-90 hours in a single play-through.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire is a really wonderful trip back to my youth playing the RPGs of yesteryear, and it has made me very pleased to know that this style of RPG has made a comeback in recent years.

I have thoroughly enjoyed playing through the two Pillars of Eternity games, and have high hopes for a third entry into the series, or even other RPGs in a similar vein.

I would score this game as a Gold, just narrowly missing out on the coveted Platinum Essential rating simply because it probably doesn’t have the mass appeal other genres of games might have.

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