finished playing: pillars of eternity 2 deadfire (2018)

i started this up a month ago with the naive hope of blazing through it to be ready for avowed but i pretty quickly realized this wasn’t something i wanted to speed through. i told myself avowed will be there for me when i’m ready to play it, so i savored pillars of eternity 2 deadfire and goddamn dude. god damn dude. some good fucking food!!

i loved the first one so i had no doubt i’d be into the sequel, but i just didn’t expect it to hit so much harder for me. it’s so narratively dense and rich without feeling impenetrable. the variety on display in character depth is masterful, i truly felt bad swapping some of my favorites out for certain quests because i would MISS them. and the game’s overarching philosophical and religious themes around mortal self-determination and agency, the gods’ duty to mortals, and what faith means in the light of this all is just brilliant.

something i found insanely compelling about deadfire was party composition. while i had my “main” crew, i would often swap certain people out based on the quests i was about to do (guided by the quest log suggesting i bring said character for story-related reasons). but aside from my personal attachment to characters, there were two other considerations to think about:

• the more obvious gameplay consideration of balance – i want to make sure i’ve got someone who can take hits, someone who can heal, etc. this is just basic RPG stuff, need a balanced party to stay alive.
• the less obvious narrative consideration of reputation – characters have their own beliefs driving an interpersonal reputation system and sometimes they clash with each other. your god-loving priest and your god-hating ex-paladin are guaranteed to cause friction. now, this isn’t gameplay-bad as (i think) they won’t ever actually leave your party or anything because of the other person, but it absolutely fucks with your headspace for them when you’re invested. i know xoti and pallegina are gonna hate each other, but i really want pallegina for this mission and xoti is core to my team. i’ll have to deal with their bickering and potentially avoid conversations with NPCs that deal the gods because someone will say something that the other is gonna hate. and to make it clear: this fucking rules. this is where RPGs thrive, when the possibility space they’ve created actually extends into your own imagination and you genuinely roleplay. make me make frustrating decisions! friction good! texture good!!

if you’re at all a fan of CRPGs, or maybe you haven’t played many but you liked baldur’s gate 3, absolutely do yourself a favor and pick up pillars of eternity 1 and 2 (and their DLCs) and just let yourself into them.

it might be a bit longer before i dig into avowed with some other stuff coming around the corner, but i remain excited as hell to finally play it and spent more time in eora, especially after the way deadfire ended.