If you’re interested in some behind the scenes details about Obsidian prior to, during, and after their Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter in 2012, the ‘Road to Eternity’ documentary has plenty. Part one appeared last week, and part two is now available to watch.
I’ve included both below, in case you fancy watching from the very start.
Effectively, Obsidian were not in a great financial state in 2012. They’d had a ‘next gen’ project cancelled, were forced into laying off staff, and (in the words of Obsidian’s Adam Brennecke in Part Two) were “treading water.”
This second part is generally more cheerful though, because it has a lot of the main Pillars of Eternity writers and designers expressing their delight at watching the Kickstarter money rolling in. According to Brennecke, the feeling was very much that this had “saved the company.”
The game is doing pretty well on the Steam charts at present (and doesn’t even come out until 26 March this week,) so that’s a sign that people outside of Kickstarter backers are purchasing the title too.
I’ve been fortunate enough to get the game a little early, and can say that it feels like Obsidian have created pretty much exactly what was promised by the Kickstarter: a party-based RPG in the spiritual style of the Infinity Engine games. There’ll be more in-depth Pillars of Eternity stuff from me later in the week. It’s probably also worth mentioning that I was one of the Kickstarter backers.
Here are parts one and two of ‘Road to Eternity.’
