That's not an easy choice either - here are eleven classes to choose from. For the purpose of my preview session the game's producer Brandon Adler chooses the barbarian, a close-quarters fighter who sacrifices defence for damage. “They're pretty good at doing burst damage,” explains project lead Josh Sawyer, “and at dealing with mobs in general. They're pretty fun to play.” Next he picks a natty moustache, a regional homeland and a thematic background. The former two change the cosmetic look of your avatar, the latter provides a little personalisation to the beginning of the game – characters might treat a noble rather differently than a former slave. According to Sawyer this is largely just to make the first few hours feel different for each fresh start; once you start blowing up dragons and meddling in global politics people will be more worried about your tendency to crush heads like overripe melons than where you grew up.
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| Characters strap their secondary weapon sets to their back, a simple touch which goes a long way towards making them look like the badass wandering adventurers they are |
One thing I really like about character generation is that every statistic will benefit every class. This means that you can opt for a brawny, meat-headed wizard (something approximating a D&D sorcerer?) rather than a bookish Gandalf-wannabe in a pointy hat. The 'might' statistic, for example, isn't a straight swap for the more specific 'strength', instead it indicates the level of raw power - magical or physical – that the character possesses. Mighty characters, whether druids, fighters or rogues, will simply do more direct, single damage with their attacks. More wily heroes, meanwhile, will opt instead to raise 'intellect', increasing the duration of all their abilities - spells, attacks or buffs.
It's a neat system that means new players unfamiliar with the intricacies of CRPG's or tabletop gaming won't cripple themselves with a single error during character creation, but it also avoids some typical genre stereotypes – the big dumb brawler, the bookish mage, the cunning rogue. Build your character the way you want to, not the way the games forces you to. “If you want to build a super genius barbarian,” says Sawyer, “that is actually a viable character build that is better at doing his job through those different means.” Combined with the omission of specific conversation skills (which fighty types in D&D typically lack) it means that you'll never be forced into one way of dealing with problems.
Your character kicks off his or her legendary journey in a charmingly traditional way; as part of a caravan crossing the dangerous frontier territory of the Eastern Reach. The caravan master decides to stop right next to some mysterious ruins (good job mate) and you head off into the woods to check on one of your travelling companions. He's sort of hampered by the great big arrow stuck in his back, courtesy of a Glanfathan (nomadic elves and halfling-like orlans who aren't much for outsiders) barbarian tribesman who's not too happy about your choice of rest stop.
Dialogue options are labelled with a particular stance – diplomatic, rational, aggressive and so on – and the game will tot these up to work out how reviled or idolised you are in every area of the game. Start too many fights and your reputation as an impudent hothead will spread. “Different characters will respond to that, positively or negatively, throughout the game,” says Sawyer. “We want to make you feel like the choices you make add up, as opposed to having an alignment. It's your reputation as being a certain sort of person.”
The sheer number of dialogue options is impressive, and refreshingly none of them are simple 'win buttons'. You might be the most intimidating person in the world, but if you threaten the wrong person at the wrong time you're going to get yourself in very hot water. “Just because you see that you qualify for something, like 'Oh I have a high intellect or a high might', that doesn't mean that it's going to be a good choice,” Sawyer points out. “In some of our other RPG's that's become the 'win button'. Not so in this.” To illustrate his point Adler decides to try and intimidate an enemy chief backed up by basically his entire warband. It doesn't go very well.
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| The game doesn't always stand out in screenshots – in action it's often beautiful |
Which leads us nicely into combat. It certainly looks solid, although without getting my hands on the game directly it's hard to tell too much. It's real-time with pause, in classic isometric CRPG tradition, the interface is crisp and clean, animations and effects are impressive and protracted battles just look great against those hand-drawn backgrounds. Playing a front-line fighter or barbarian seems to be much more entertaining in Pillars of Eternity than it ever was in Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale – there's a much greater variety of actions and skills to play with, which means you're not just forced to simply stand there belting away with a greatsword.
Melee classes will also feel very different from each other, down to their basic moves in battle. Barbarians, for example, get several tricks that fighters don't; they're much more manoeuvrable for one, with a combat charge move that can let them close right in on an unlucky wizard much faster than a regular fighter could, and they love taking on large groups of enemies. “Those numbers there came up because you're doing AOE damage,” Sawyer points out as our bearded hero minces another poor Glanfathan into quarters with his dual axes. “Whenever you get a big group of enemies bunched up, that's when the barbarian shines. They don't necessarily do as much damage to a single target, but when you get a group they can hit all of them, which is very handy.”
While Pillars is a combat-heavy game, it's got a lot more meat to its bones than a simple hack-and-slasher like Icewind Dale 2. Aside from map exploration and battle encounters, chapters are occasionally book-ended by choose-your-own-adventure style illustrated segments. “They're what we call Scripted Interactions,” Sawyer explains. “We use these scenes throughout the game for cool storytelling elements.” It's intended to give players a bit more of that D&D campaign feel, a way of fleshing out the story with events that would otherwise fit awkwardly into the isometric engine.
Early on you start climbing a cliff to escape a deadly soulstorm (quite literally a storm that sucks the soul right out of your goddamn body). Halfway up one of your travelling buddies is grabbed from below by a tribesman that survived your little skirmish earlier. Without your help your ally is pretty screwed. Option time! Do you shrug and keep climbing, or do you try and help out by hurling an axe at the barbarian?
These options have consequences. Chucking your axe means, unsurprisingly, that you start the next map minus your main weapon. Your buddy's alive, but you can't dual-wield any more and have to settle for a single dismal shortsword. Alternatively, by choosing the second option you've retained one shiny new axe, but now you're missing an ally that could potentially have disarmed those nasty-looking floor traps for you. Think about that while the acid dart you just tripped is slowly dissolving your sternum. Carrying different equipment, or possessing different skills, might give you unique options in these adventure segments, which again encourages you to consider stocking up on more than just potions and sharp objects when you next head into town.
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| Illustrated sections allow Obsidian to flesh out your story beyond the looting and slaying |
Brandon leads our preview character into the ruins, which are a lovingly detailed place to explore. Before us there's a series of trap panels blocking our progress. Because our character chose to save the caravan master, he can use his roguish skills to disable a few of them, but the rest we have to get rid of the hard way. Just as we head further into the ruins, however... my allotted preview session ends. Damn it.
Even now Pillars of Eternity looks like the real deal, though Sawyer assures me that there's still work to be done getting it ready for a planned launch sometime late this year. Still, what I saw was enough to leave me with a big smile on my face. Obsidian don't want a simple retread of past glories, instead they're taking a beloved genre and looking closely at what it did well and what its weaknesses were. The result is a title that strips away some of the niggly little rules and quirks of both the Infinity Engine itself and the D&D systems those classic games were based on, much of which translated poorly to a video game. It's still got everything a good CRPG needs - customisation options, fun combat, lots of choices and consequences, but you'll no longer have to deal with awkward mechanics presented only because the tabletop rule-set says they have to be. If the story can match up to what I've seen from the gameplay and visuals, this could be something very special indeed. Roll on Winter 2014.
Most anticipated feature: Spending a solid week getting my first character just right. Then starting again a few hours in because I want to try something else.
