The last time we checked in with Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, Obsidian's upcoming fantasy role-player teased barfing pirates and animancy cats. Its latest trailer adopts a more combative stance—with bloody showdowns, magic firefights, and rampaging golems.

Look, see:

When not showcasing war and death, the above briefly teases the game's off-land world map interface and lazy seaside towns. And it looks like we'll be doing our fair share of dimension hopping this time round, too.

Alongside the trailer, Obsidian and publisher Versus Evil have kicked off PoE 2's closed beta—available to those who pledged to the appropriate tier during the game's successful Fig crowdfunding campaign.

If that's you, expect to explore an archipelago village named Tikawara with a crew that doesn't resemble the finished article's companions. Voice lines are still being recorded, says Obsidian's Josh Sawyer below, and the dev doesn't want to spoil any of their stories ahead of time.

The beta includes a number of features that will appear in the final release, though, such as its character creation suite, multiclassing and the game's overhauled combat system. Here's Sawyer and game producer Katrina Garsten on what the closed beta is all about:

Most interestingly, Sawyer says there that while he and his team have a roadmap of sorts regarding feature implementation in the backer beta, they aim to be as flexible as they can.

"Based on player feedback, we might roll out some features sooner than others," he says. "And there's at least one really big feature that's really complicated, and we need to put some time into it before players look at it—but it's a very cool feature."

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is due at some stage next year. More information can be found via the game's website, or its newly launched Steam page. Details on how to join the closed beta can be found over here.