When Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire was announced a few days ago the internet was set ablaze with excitement. The long awaited sequel of the isometric RPG Pillars of Eternity was slowly teased on Obsidian Entertainment’s Twitter account. Several tweets over a period of 12 hours slowly revealed the game’s name. The final tweet also linked to a crowdfunding website, with the goal of $1,100,000.
Deadfire draws heavily on classic turn-based PC RPG’s like Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment. For this sequel, Obsidian hopes to translate the heaps of fan support into a “truly living” game world with new features and more freedom to explore or define your character’s role. The storyline will once again bring players to the world of Eora, as they hunt down a god in the uncharted Deadfire Archipelago, but certain narrative elements can react not only to the player’s decisions in the game but also to choices they made back in the original Pillars of Eternity.
That crowdfunding goal was smashed in less than 24 hours as fans flocked to the website to donate money towards the next step in the franchise. While the majority of fans opted for the $29 package that included a digital download of the game (when it becomes available in Q1 of 2018), a sizeable number of people went for more expensive donations.
The premium digital package was the second most purchased option and it included a Digital Copy of Pillars II, a Digital Guidebook Volume II, an In-Game Pet, a Special In-Game Item, another Special In-Game Item, the Digital Soundtrack and a Forum Badge. This package was worth $49.
Some players went above and beyond, donating $199 for the physical collector’s edition that came with a statue, with some dropping $50 more for the signed collector’s edition. The most expensive backing was a single users donation of $5000, which would allow that gamer to design a Tavern in the game in addition to getting all the previous rewards.
Pillars of Eternity II is expected to release in the first quarter of 2018 on GOG, Steam, Windows, Mac and Linux systems. However, one should remember that the original Pillars of Eternity was hit with a myriad of delays while in development.
