Obsidian Entertainment has revealed that the majority of Pillars of Eternity's content will be "completely optional".

Lead designer Josh Sawyer said the role-playing game, which was funded through Kickstarter back in 2012, will strike a better balance of critical and side content than Infinity Engine games such as Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate.

Obsidian Entertainment



"I'd say about two thirds to three quarters of the game's content is completely optional," he told Digital Spy and other journalists at this year's Paradox Convention.

"It's very important, I think, for the sense of exploration that you feel you do not have to go to that many places. There are lots of places you can go to whenever you want, at your own pace."

Sawyer showcased several optional areas that players are free to encounter. One is Raedric's Hold, a gothic fortress that can be completed in a number of ways, whether it's direct confrontation in combat, talking your way through the front gate or sneaking inside.

"You can encounter this early, and it's a big challenge early in the game," Sawyer explained.

Paradox Interactive



"You can try to tackle it [early] - some people can overcome it, some people come back to it later - as we don't do any level scaling. Again, for the traditional feel, we feel it's important for people to feel like they can tackle things at whatever level they are, and the game doesn't try to adjust based on that."

Optional areas are designed to be more challenging than the critical path, Sawyer said, where you will "find the really nasty, challenging stuff". But it is also home to many of the game's unique items.

One such example was within an area named Pearlwood Bluff, a wilderness area overlooking an ocean that's populated with powerful drakes and wind elementals.

Beneath it was a cavern home to a group of tough skeleton enemies, which when defeated, would reward the player with a unique item named the Ring of Wizardary, bestowing the party with bonus spells.

Obsidian Entertainment





Obsidian Entertainment



Another area shown was The Endless Paths of Od Nua - a 15-level "mega dungeon" that was a stretch goal during the game's Kickstarter campaign - which features multiple exits and entrances, and is designed for the player to tackle over the course of multiple sessions.

Obsidian also discussed the size of Pillars of Eternity and how its density of side content compared to other Infinity Engine games.

Pillars of Eternity will be made of around 150 maps, compared to 70-80 in the original Icewind Dale which had "very little optional content".

The original Baldur's Gate had 110 maps which was "extremely open" with a ton of wilderness maps but the "content density wasn't very high". Its sequel was the opposite, Sawyer said, with a high density of content but "exploration was de-emphasised".

Paradox Interactive



"So we've tried to strike a nice middle ground [in Pillars of Eternity], where it didn't feel like we had maps for the sake of having them," Sawyer explained.

"We have a lot of cool exploration in there, but there's a good content density so you don't feel like, 'I spent 10 minutes wandering all of this map and I didn't mind s**t'."

He added: "It's a very long game. Even if you play just the critical path, you'll be playing it for quite a while.

"But it has a lot of optional content in it. Whatever pace you want to play it at, there's a lot stuff that you can do."

The game's level cap, meanwhile, will only be reached for those who invest their time in side-content.

Obsidian Entertainment





Obsidian Entertainment



Hands-on with Pillars of Eternity and the return of a classic genre

"The level cap is designed more for completionists," Sawyer explained. "If you do just the critical path you will likely wind up about eighth level by the end of the game, and the level cap is 12.

"If you do the majority of content in the game you will get 12 and you will find all of these crazy items."

Last year the game was given a beta for crowd-funding backers, as well as news that the game would be pushed into 2015 to give the game more time.

Pillars of Eternity, which will see part of its publishing duties handled by Paradox Interactive, will be available on PC, Mac and Linux from March 26 worldwide.

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