Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, as the RPG sickos on the PC Gamer staff are to be believed, is an RPG that never quite got its time in the sun. While we rated it pretty highly, giving it a solid 88 in our review back in the day, low sales caused Obsidian no shortage of existential angst, and the studio's only been flirting with the idea of a sequel ever since (it's okay, we still got Avowed).
Still. Let's say that sequel were to hypothetically exist, and let's also say the studio did do all of that re-evaluation in the year 2019. What would it do differently now? In an interview with Gamepressure, design director Josh Sawyer says he'd likely make the jump to 3D.
"I've said this before and some people are really, really bummed out about it," Sawyer says, likely referencing the deep and enduring nostalgia most people have for classic CRPGs: "But I think if we did go into a 3D environment, we could patch up one of the things that's really lacking.
"Because [PoE2] is isometric, there's no sense of height, and the environment can't be that dynamic. When you compare it to something like [Baldur's Gate 3], you realise it's such a huge part of the appeal. I think, at some point, I would like to see a game that used all those Deadfire mechanics, plus more environmental mechanics, elevation hazards, and dynamic terrain stuff. That could be super cool."
I'm with Sawyer on this one—it would be super cool. I haven't played PoE2, but I've spent a substantial amount of time on the original Pillars of Eternity. Both are bloody gorgeous games, and I'd miss their painterly presentation, but I kinda like Baldur's Gate 3's environments better.
Especially since an RPG designed by Obsidian could make better use of them. Larian added a lot of homebrew elements to D&D 5e's ruleset for Baldur's Gate 3—a plus or minus two bonus for high ground or low ground, for instance.
This messily grinds against the rest of the system, because 5e's whole bounded accuracy shtick isn't really built around it. It's not a particularly granular system with a lot of different modifiers, so the moment you get one of those, it can muck with the game balance. Pillars of Eternity, though? There's some crunch in that series, and you could have all sorts of neat interactions with elevation and cover.
Beyond my RPG sicko instincts, though, I do think having the option to pan the camera down and get a ground-level, horizontal view of an environment adds a lot to a game. I'm sure Obsidian'll be leveraging its gorgeous textual descriptions, certainly, but it also has some very talented artists on board. As the saying goes: Both, both is good.
"I think that a third game should be an isometric 3D with an environment more like Baldur’s Gate 3," Sawyer concludes. "It would work."
