4/5 ★ – EpicBox's review of Pillars of Eternity: Definitive Edition.

Played on PC This game really tested my patience. My total playtime listed on Epic launcher is 121 hours (although some of that was on pause). So that is officially my longest playtime on a single completion. PoE was on my list because I read that it's connected to the upcoming game Avowed, which I'm looking forward to. So when this popped up as a freebee on Epic, I had to grab it immediately. And this marks the first free giveaway from that platform that I've played and completed. (Here's hoping the next one doesn't take 5 entire days of my life.) This particular style of RPG is a little bit above my usual level of nerd, as I've never played Dungeons & Dragons that it draws inspiration from, and I don't usually go for isometric view gameplay as I prefer more intimate control of characters. And when I say it's nerdy, I mean it overwhelms you with lore from the moment you enter the character creator. I'm still not entirely sure I could tell you the difference between a Glanfathan and an Enthwigan. And when I was 90% through, I discovered that the game files include a guidebook and a novella in ebook and audiobook. (I listened to it - it was really boring.) I also downloaded the free short stories from the official website, and they were pretty good. It's a good thing the storyline of the game is really captivating. Pillars of Eternity is about a curse that has struck the land, which has caused children all over the place to be born without souls, and among all this your character becomes a Watcher who is able to see and interact with spirits. A lot of the conflict is based around the practice of animancy and whether it's ethical to perform magical experiments on souls. So a lot of time is spent raiding dungeons where mad scientists have been doing these kinds of experiments. Is animancy the cause of the curse, or potentially the solution to it? You have to weigh that up. I do wish the game featured more fully animated cutscenes rather than getting me to read so many descriptions. (Seriously, there's so much reading in this game.) But maybe that's me expecting too much from a Kickstarter project. Every party member has their own loyalty quest. There was one that I failed to complete (because I chose a dialogue option 40 hours too early) and it resulted in that character taking his own life in the ending narration. So that was frustrating. There's also a stronghold mechanic where you eventually take control of a castle, which becomes your main HQ and the place where you can rest for free and switch party members. I really liked the Game of Thrones style dispute over the stronghold's ownership, where I had to build alliances with different factions to take my side in a massive battle for the land. (And because I wasn't willing to ally with total arseholes, I had to do it with only one faction.) The White March expansion was truly excellent and really elevated the game, even though I didn't do much with the new party members outside it. Gameplay wise, I appreciated the fact that XP is only gained by progressing in quests and never from combat. So you are incentivised to avoid certain encounters or to negotiate for peace in conversations, especially because there is pretty much no way to heal except for resting, which consumes camping supplies. However, there's also the issue that certain character stats cannot be levelled up after character creation, nor boosted by having certain party members with you. So when I reached a point where I was locked out of all the good options on a quest decision, I did eventually get impatient and used console command cheats. (Don't judge me, I did the same on The Witcher 3 and I regret nothing.) I'm in no rush to go straight into the sequel. As it is, I need to take a gaming hiatus soon to get some real life projects done.