Ladies and gents, welcome to beetle hell.
Obsidian were at the Paradox Gamescom show to demonstrate a half hour or so of gameplay from the Backer’s Beta version of Pillars of Eternity. Though the much-anticipated Infinity Engine style RPG was Kickstarted, Paradox will be handling distribution duties on the game.
Josh Sawyer is on narration duty in the video, while Adam Brennecke is controlling the protagonist and party. You’ll learn about the different character type options, from Human to the exotic-looking Godlike, and get a bit of an overview of the skills available to the Paladin class. Sawyer explains that all the stuff present in this demo (and therefore in the upcoming Backer’s Beta) is based around 3-5 hours worth of optional quests in the central portion of the game, so you won’t get any early game spoilers.
The pair weren’t joking around at the start of the presentation when they said that ‘Easy’ mode isn’t all that simple in Pillars of Eternity. Brennecke’s party struggle against stone beetles, but eventually get their teamwork together and manage to tackle a sheep-stealing Ogre. In typical Obsidian RPG style, Ogre diplomacy would be an option. But for this demo they just attack him.
You’ll also be able to play the game in Iron Man mode (one rolling save that vanishes if your party dies) and Expert mode. Expert removes some of the user interface prompts, like quest updates, for those who wish to play free of guidance.
Pillars of Eternity’s Backer Beta should be available to those who backed the game at the relevant tier from 18 August. Hey, that’s some time today.
