Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth

Reviewing (mostly) every game (or DLC) in my library, part 34:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/10

Light spoilers ahead!

Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth is a strikingly bold narrative experience—especially considering it’s based on an epic historical novel. If you're open to story-first games, it offers something rare: a medieval drama full of political intrigue, emotional depth, and slow-burning tension, told through point-and-click gameplay and gorgeous, hand-painted visuals.

The Pillars of the Earth is an unusual and rewarding game if you’re the kind of player who values atmosphere, character, and emotional storytelling above complex mechanics. It’s a mature, slow-burning tale about hope, cruelty, resilience, and faith, told with care and beauty.

If you treat it like an interactive historical drama, you’ll probably love it. But if you're in it for classic puzzles, fast pacing, or high interactivity, it might leave you cold.

🖼️ Pros:

• Beautiful art style. The 2D, painterly visuals are stunning—each scene looks like it was lifted from an illustrated manuscript. Characters, environments, and animations have a unique, soft look that perfectly captures the 12th-century setting.
  
  
• Emotionally rich story. The game closely follows the novel’s key plot points, but even for those unfamiliar (like I am), the story stands on its own. You play as multiple characters across different time periods, and their arcs are emotionally resonant—grief, ambition, love, and survival are all central themes.
  
  
• Great cast. First is Prior Philip—the idealist in a corrupt world. Philip is a devout monk who wants to bring order and peace to a chaotic world. His arc is quietly powerful—he starts as an outsider, full of faith and integrity, and over time is drawn deeper into the corruption of church and state.
  
  
• You see Philip struggle with compromise, often forced to choose between doing what’s right vs. what’s effective. His moral compass is strong, but the world is not kind to men like him. Still, he holds onto his principles, and it’s incredibly moving to see how he changes without breaking. His political battles with Bishop Waleran, one main antagonist, are full of tension and philosophical weight—faith as a weapon, faith as a guide, faith as a burden. Philip’s arc is about how faith is tested—not just spiritually, but practically. He is one of the most human depictions of a man of the cloth I’ve seen in games.
  
  
• Jack Jackson, the second main character, is the outsider and dreamer. Jack is a wild child at first, raised in the forest, an outsider with no real place in society. His arc is about finding purpose—through love, craftsmanship, and a deep yearning for beauty in a brutal world. He begins almost feral, curious and quiet, and evolves into a brilliant stonemason and builder. His dreams of architecture and design offer a softer, artistic counterbalance to the harsh medieval world. Jack’s desire to build something lasting—a cathedral—is both literal and symbolic. His arc is about how creation can be an act of resistance.
  
  
• Lastly is Aliena—the survivor. Aliena’s arc might be the most emotionally intense. She starts as a noblewoman, is brutally cast down by political betrayal, and has to survive in a world that has no mercy for women. Her story tackles class, gender, and power as she becomes a simple wool merchant, fights for her autonomy, and supports her brother’s dreams. You see her grieve, adapt, rebuild, all without losing her dignity. Aliena’s story is about reclaiming agency when the world has taken everything from you. Her resilience is remarkable.
  
  
• Emotional payoff. By the end of the game, you’ve seen years, if not decades, of struggle, quiet victories, deep losses, and political maneuvering. Watching the cathedral slowly rise and seeing how much the characters sacrificed to make it happen is unexpectedly cathartic. It’s not about glory—it’s about meaning.
  
  
• Excellent voice acting and music. The cast delivers convincing, heartfelt performances. Philip in particular feels like a real person grappling with his ideals. The orchestral score is deeply atmospheric, fitting both the meditative tone and the moments of high drama.
  
  
• Accessible gameplay with choices that natter emotionally. It’s more of a visual novel/interactive drama than a traditional point-and-click puzzle game. The choices aren’t about winning or losing, but about shaping character relationships and your sense of moral responsibility. It also avoids a lot of classic adventure game logic traps—progress is mostly intuitive.
  
  
• Rare setting and tone. There’s no magic, no fantasy, no fancy combat—just a grounded, politically fraught medieval world. The themes of faith, community-building, social injustice, and the struggle to build something lasting (like the titular cathedral) feel genuinely profound and grounded in history.
  
  
• Long! One playthrough was about 20 hours.
  

• Slow pacing. It’s deliberately paced and extremely slow to start. The first part, in particular, may test your patience. Players looking for action, puzzles, or lots of interactivity may feel bored or disengaged at times.
  
  
• Minimal interactivity. Most gameplay involves walking, talking, choosing dialogue options, and some very light inventory use. If you don’t love story-driven games, this might feel more like watching a TV series than playing a game.
  
  
[*] Some pacing and narrative wobble in Part 2. The structure is uneven across its 3-part format. Some chapters feel narratively tighter than others, and certain plotlines may lose momentum. There are a few abrupt time skips that might leave players a bit disoriented.

There are two monks that looked suspiciously like Beavis and Butthead. I'm sold.

Aside from that, I'm hardly a book person but now I wanna read the print series. Perfect blend of dread, hope, and medieval drama. I've played nearly every Telltale/Don'tNod/Square-Enix visual novel type game, but this one might be one of the best I ever tried. Every decision felt uneasy but I was elated to discover that sometimes even possibly poor decisions may actually lead to better outcomes. Very complicated, like life in general.

Seriously though, for $2 (on sale right now) you can't go wrong. Also, again, Beavis and Butthead monks.

God, what a story. God, what an art! Such a beautiful story wrapped into a crayon-like drawings that just suit the game so much!!! Thank you for an opportunity to get into this world, unforgettable experience.

awesome story

this game takes "visual novel" to a whole other level

masterpiece + loyal to the book!

The 2D illustration graphics are very interestingly alive and the story plot is also quite entertaining because I like historical stories from the past. Apart from that, I also learned about what happen with the church and common people situation at that time.

Even though this game is against my religion, but I love give it a try to any games. If you like games with graphics like this, you should try to play it.

Didn't know this was a adaptation of a book, so I don't know how faithful it is to the source material. The game however is beautiful it takes a little bit of time to get the ball rolling but once it does it is hard to put it down.

The art style is nice with some animations in between to show a major plot line , the soundtrack is wonderful too. Haven't played many visual novels but with this one it has piqued my interest in this genre.

I felt it does drag on fair bit in book 3 and time skips sometimes gets confusing to stitch together the events, and abruptly ends (although a satisfying end)

I would do a second run of this game with different choices but it took me 14 hrs to complete it with slow reading.

I would recommend this if you want to have a break from fast paced games, a warning though the game does get very slow paced at certain parts.

This game made me explore more of this genre

This game is lighter than the book, with fewer deaths and episodes of sexual assault. However it is every inch as good. Top-notch voice-acting, relaxing puzzles, a beautiful and sprawling narrative that immerses you into Medieval England... it's downright a masterpiece.

This game deserves the same recognition as the Telltale ones, narratively it is just as good.

All birds and men are sure to die, but songs may live forever.

The story and characters were truly amazing, they completely drew me in. I also really liked the visuals and animations. At the end of each episode, I could hardly stop myself from jumping straight into the next one. It's a perfect choice for players who are looking for a good story in a game.

Seems great but has a horrible save system.

Cool game

Tried really hard to like this game. Love the setting and it's very historically accurate...
But it's WAY too slow paced.

Every scene just drags on and on and on to the point I stop caring midway through. Most of the choices and dialogue don't mean or affect anything. And there's this 3 second delay between talking to someone, and them responding EVERY TIME YOU TALK TO SOMEONE.

Since you want to exhaust all dialogue so you don't miss anything potentially important, it makes talking to characters feel like a chore. And since 90% of this game is talking, you can imagine how it gets dull pretty fast.

A quite solid and entertaining game! The gameplay is very interactive, yet doesn't include any difficult puzzles or mechanics (with the exception of a few tricky QTEs), hence it's pretty chill altogether. I really like the medieval setting and find the world-building to be very well-done; it made it simple for me to get immersed in the setting.
The plot itself is certainly decent too, it includes a variety of story-aspects that get beautifully connected with each other. I especially loved the main reveal, as well as the epic & brutal moments and honestly wish that the game showed more of the horror and anguish. Meanwhile I perceived the less serious scenes to be frequently too long in comparison to scenes of high plot relevance, I still liked to get more insight into the daily life and such (though that whole romance arc was actually incredibly unnecessary, in my opinion).
Another thing I'd like to mention is that the game is straight-up hilarious like 80% of the time, I admittedly couldn't take plenty of scenes seriously because they got that hyperbolic drama element, however I was captivated by the story regardless, additionally the actual comedy scenes were simply extra funny to me.
Overall this was a very pleasant experience and I had plenty of fun exploring the worldsetting and watching the events unfold. I personally perceived some pacing issues, due to some events/chapters being either too brief or too extensive, but besides that the plot is great!

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This is the kind of game that makes me think that Steam reviews should have an option other than recommending or not.

So this game is actually an interactive visual novel. Based on a print novel, set in 12th century England. It tells a story of individuals caught in the wind of political storms and trying to survive, and you play from multiple view points, crossing sides. So narrative-wise, fine.

But as a game, meh. I'm yet to complete my playthrough but I have the sense that my choices don't really matter and I am basically just going through the story. If that's what you like, then I can recommend, yes. If you prefer print novels to interactive novels, or if you don't like novels, then not recommended.

I wanted to like this game, and I can see the appeal, but...it was just so...slow. The pace at which the characters talked and the amount of dialogue was not a good match for my brain. Got very bored and didn't finish it, and don't think I ever will. But it looked pretty, and if you're into a slow paced, narrative driven game, you might enjoy it!

Fantastic story, with beautiful stylistic visuals, high quality voice acting, and strong sound design.

I guess this is what inspired the choices driven story telling style in Witcher III. This is perhaps even better, sans the combat.

I want more high quality historical fiction games like this!

The story took a while to hook me, but once it did, it was super compelling. The visuals are really very pretty. The voice acting is superb.

meh

Good old visual novel.

The story is so, so spread over many years as you follow a small group of characters. The story feels a little contrived at times, but its OK overall.


The art is very nice though, specially the backgrounds.

There isn't much gameplay here but there are several 'choices' which only really add flavour the end is largely predetermined.

Its OK, but only really worth it on sale.

Build a cathedral, shape destinies, and survive medieval drama—until you realize you’re just moving rocks for hours. Gorgeous, gripping, but repetition creeps in fast. Still, who knew monk life was this dramatic? 8/10, would haul stone for glory again. ⛪📜🔥

Follow my curator page for more medieval mayhem, divine drama, and monks plotting harder than kings! ⛪📖✨
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42602807-Osiris-Reviews/

Awesome game!

Atmosphere and style is awesome
Very good one

this is a good game

Excellent game ⭐ 10 / 10 ⭐

I enjoyed the story.

This game had a really immersive and interesting story. The art is wonderful, and the characters were either likable or delightfully disgusting.

The only issue I encountered was the limited freedom and variety in the outcomes I experienced in the third book.

Besides that, it has inspired me to want to build a cathedral and maybe read the novel.

Really enjoyed this game. Has a great story and style.

Absolutely loved this game, it deserves to be played and it felt like the people who made it really cared. Great voice acting, which is something I can be picky about. Only ran into one minor bug towards the end where I couldn't select one of the dialogue options but it didn't really make a difference anyway. Story was interesting and gets more crazy and exciting as you progress. I actually hadn't read the book yet before I played this game, but I've heard people call it their favorite book.

This is a great game. Basically it's a point and click adventure, with a strong story narrative based on Ken Follets Book series of the same name. While adhering to the basically linear narrative of the Books, it can still branch in ways of the players' decisions that are made during the game.

Sufficed to say the Hardware Requirements set to run this game, are way out of touch. The game has a very small footprint in terms of Hardware resources and runs just fine, at approximately 30 fps, on an i5 Ivy Bridge with integrated HD 4000 graphics and 8 GB RAM, in Linux.

Great story amazing characters and great storytelling

The Pillars of the Earth is indeed a beautiful game with amazing visuals. The story is super engaging, with great character development and unexpected twists. That said, by Book 3, I felt like the choices I made didn’t matter as much. It was kind of a letdown after the earlier episodes where my decisions felt more impactful. Still, it's a solid game if you're into historical fiction and narrative-driven adventures.

Underrated Gem..💎

A beautiful visual novel. Based on an already well received book and I believe mini series (I swear I've seen the mini series of this) so the story is very solid and paced well throughout. Lovely music and graphics, great voice acting and a nice bit of interaction for you to keep you involved. I've always loved themes to do with this time period and religious stuff like the cathedral which is central to the plot.
Definitely a must have if you enjoy visual novels.

Recommended, with some caveats.

The tl;dr: if you're looking for a narrative driven game, and don't mind mostly watching events unfold, with some occasional decision making, this might be for you. The voice acting is great, the story engaging, and it's not a typical setting for a computer game. I have no idea how closely this game sticks to the story in the books, nor whether your actions have more than just cosmetic impact, but I don't expect much in the way of replayability. The game is not without flaws; there are numerous little bugs and spots where you can see corners were cut for budgetary reasons, but nothing that spoils the enjoyment. Perhaps not worth picking up at full price, but pick it up in a sale and you won't regret it.

The long and rambly, mostly dealing with the game's flaws:

The game is linear. Maybe choices you make have a real effect on how the story develops, but apart from some immediate failure states that produce a "game over" and force you to retry the last section, I don't think they do. There are numerous clues to that effect, e.g. failure to perform certain good deeds to curry favour with the monks having no effect on the outcome of the chapter meeting, or how it doesn't matter how good or bad of a midwife you are, the baby still gets born and the story still unfolds the same. You get a summary of your choices after each chapter, and they get mentioned later in the story, but have no impact beyond that. It feels more like watching an interactive movie, where you have to occasionally select which "alternative scene" plays before going back to the main track.

It's also very much an experience on rails; it may look like a point and click adventure, but it's a succession of scenes that each play out in a limited environment, with a clear goal, and very little in the way of actual puzzle work. You don't gradually open up more of the game world to roam freely from then on. It borrows some game mechanics from point n' click adventures, such as an inventory (so small it's not even a separate screen), left-click to walk or interact and right-click to describe things, the ability to use inventory items on things in the game world, but that's where the comparison ends.

There are some minor nitpicks w.r.t. the game design. For starters, while the game offers "documents" that offer insight into the happenings in the broader world, it completely lacks a story log. If you've been away from the game for a while, there's no convenient way to refresh your mind about what happened so far. You're not stuck, as your next objective is always displayed on screen, but it might make it harder to get back into the story. Then there's the overuse of the word "take". At regular intervals, the game offers you some insights into things, or questions, which get stored in your "clue inventory", and which you can use on people to talk about that subject. So it will display a text such as "Where is Jack?", and underneath there's a button labeled "take", as if it were an object you pick up that goes into your inventory. This may be a minor nitpick, but how exactly does one "take" a "where's jack"? Then there's some minor audio design issues. At the beginning of the game, you find yourself standing outside a door from which you hear a muffled sermon being delivered. When you open the door to enter, the sound of the sermon abruptly cuts off as soon as you touch the door handle, utter silence while the door opening animation plays, utter silence as the animation from inside the room with you walking in plays, and suddenly the sermon starts again while the camera pans over to the priest. This was the most jarring example, but it shows a lack of attention to detail. And some inconsistent interactions, e.g. when using an item on something where it's not applicable, sometimes you'll get a remark to that effect, sometimes you'll just initiate the default "left-click" interaction. And some things evoke a reaction when interacting with them, whereas others have you walk over and just stand there.

There's also the map. In this game, you can "collect" maps to areas you visit. This happens automatically. They probably meant to do something more substantial with it, but as far as I can tell, you only ever get to "collect" one map: that of Kingsbridge. It doesn't allow you to fast-travel, only to see where locations are in relation to the other locations. Given how small the town is, it's rather pointless. It looks as if this feature has been cut down for budgetary reasons, but instead of removing it altogether, they left it in in an unfinished state. Similar budget cuts are evident in the "cutscenes": they consist of minimally animated conversations, bookended by black screens where people enter/exit the room, to save on animation budget. There are also some typos and grammatical errors in the subtitles, and near the end, some instances where the subtitles don't match the spoken dialogue/narrative. Nothing serious, and it happened rarely, but shows limited testing budget.

But the worst offenders for me are the "challenges" and the stupid "bible mechanic". At random points in the game, you need to interact with something in a way that shows some prowess. E.g. using your hammer and chisel to chisel some stonework. Instead of just assuming that the person doing the work is indeed proficient with the tools he has been using for years, the game forces this stupid minigame on you where a white dot does the "knight rider" animation inside a rectangle, some parts of which are coloured green. And you have to click exactly when the dot is over the green areas, clearing them all out, while a timer counts down to put you under time pressure. This kind of minigame has absolutely no place in a narrative driven game like this. It's just busywork designed as gameplay, and shows an utter lack of understanding of what makes games fun. In a game like this, it only serves to break immersion. Similarly, the "bible mechanic". One of your characters carries a bible around. You can use it on people to discuss matters of faith, but also on objects to offer insight from a religious perspective. The game explicitly tells you this, so in the beginning you try this mechanism out on anything and anyone you meet. And it's just a third way of interacting with things. You have the left-click for direct interaction, but now the bible also serves a similar purpose when used on people. You have the right-click to describe things, but now you also have the bible to "describe from a religious perspective" when used on objects. And at no point is this mechanism actually useful. Except for one very specific scene, where you must use the bible on someone to lecture them, so you can convince them to do what you asked.

Finally, some minor bugs: when highlighting interactive objects and exits, the exits are not always marked. In the documents screen, the scrollwheel sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. The map of Kingsbridge becomes randomly inaccessible at times, only to show up again if you move to another screen. The interaction icons at the bottom randomly disappeared on me once, only to return after I moved one screen over and back again. The mouse "locks up" when the game is "busy". I had one lock-up when interacting with an object, forcing me to stop the game from the Steam client. But worst of all: the game minimises when it loses focus (e.g. when you move your mouse off-screen), and doesn't restore to the same screen in my multi monitor setup.

That last bug was quite annoying; the others are just things I noticed, but which weren't bad enough to ruin my fun. All in all, despite feeling somewhat "unfinished" and despite the bugs, the game had me coming back for more, to see how the story would unfold. If it hadn't been for the story, I probably would've been a lot less lenient in my review, but the story is what redeemed the game in my opinion.

Everything is stunning in this game from the art style, music, voice acting, and the deeply moving and engaging plot. This brought me to tears more than once, and I am already missing playing it for the first time.

This game is THE Must Have one, take this gem especially on sales! Great and heartbreaking story, easy gameplay. 10/10.

Interesting story line with your choices playing a vital part and a range of characters; can be a bit slow at times.

Wasn't able to finish the game, however, as unfortunately (seems to be a common bug) if your save game is over a couple weeks old, your progress is lost and you are sent back to the start of the book. I was into the last book and was sent to the start of book 2, which for me was to far back to have to replay.

If you like Pentiment and/or Disco Elysium, you'll vibe with this game.

The game has a rich story and a slow but absorbing pace. There isn't really anything in the way of puzzles, but this doesn't detract from it.

its so kino its so kino empress mathilda is my blorbo that made me happy i have been cathedral pilled by this game going to go 1 hour on the bus to go to the cathedral now

Not your usual point & click game, mostly cause the emphasis isn't really on the gameplay as there really isn't that much of it. There aren't any puzzles or elaborate combinations to figure out, it's all very straightforward.

I'd call this the walking simulator of point & click games, but one that has a very rich story that evolves very organically over time, depending on your choices. The voice acting, art style and music are all top notch, you'd be hard to find anything to complain about. Apart from maybe the very slow pace of the game.

All in all, I enjoyed this game very much. It's slow, very very slow but the story and characters are so good that I'm actually interested in reading the books, so well done Daedelic.

8/10

Some mature and violent themes, particularly dealing with loss of faith and the lives surrounding a cathedral, but Masterful storytelling, beautiful graphics. The Gameplay is very satisfying.

Amazing story, voice acting, atmosphere, graphics

Amazing game.

The Pillars of the Earth follows the book it is based on very well. Do note that this is quite linear, so if you do not like linear story telling, then this will not be the game for you.

Solid adventure game. It's based on the popular novel by Ken Kollet. That alone guarantees the story to be of high quality. Graphics, sound and voice acting are also ok.
This is basically a visual novel. The gameplay consists mostly of dialogue and various choices while at dialogue, and in between there are easy puzzles.
You can influence the story fairly well.
It does a good job at presenting the atmosphere and reality of the middle ages.

It has 3 "books", each with 7 chapters.
With that said, it's also true that some parts are more interesting then others. The interaction animations are slow, and also the story is sluggishly slow in some parts.
There are no subtitles.

Very good adaptation of a good series of books. The graphic art is gorgeous and works very well. And go read the books if you didn't already!

my heart ughhhhhhh yes I recommend