Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

I did enjoy this one more than the first. Party size is down from 6 to 5 which is annoying to me considering they added way more characters. I also really didn't finish any of DLCs in this game. They are for end game characters but after 50 hours of play time I don't want to trip over 30 more hours of traps, death sigils, and tanky long fights. Also when they say a certain party member is recommeded half the time it is for 1 dialogue sentence and nothing else (looking at you winter DLC). I do not want to spend 15 minutes hoofing it back to an inn or the boat to hear 1 sentence of dialogue from the recommended character. Also do not expect BG3 romance with your party, the dialogue after you commit to one (at least with Maia) isn't great and the ending with her at the end of the game isn't satisfying IMO. The characters are good and dialogue is good between party members. The story and world of this game is really cool, if there are books of this world I would read them!

Sequel to a modern classic. Story isn't as great, but the gameplay is even better.

Slightly underwhelming experience compared to the first game. In my mind, it became so open-ended that it lost a bit of direction. I also found that the companion interactivity system was fluff and did not add much of anything; to be honest, most companions aside from Eder and Aloth were either "meh" (Tekehu) or "cringe" (Xoti). The graphics and gameplay are a great improvement over the first and provide some of the best combat ever seen in a CRPG. However, I just wasn't super gripped by the story despite a LOT of effort to get myself into it. I read all the lore, read all the dialogue, really tried to immerse myself in the setting. Just didn't care all too much, and I think that's particularly because of the open-endedness. I think if the main story and the faction quests had been somewhat interwoven better, I would have enjoyed the game more. But as of now, it's presented as a personal story with a faction conflict as the backdrop and the game does not fully commit to either. I care about the Watcher and Co., not the Deadfire Archipelago, and you failed to give me a reason to care.

However, this game is one of the best CRPGs out there - no doubt. Far superior to Kingmaker (imo) and only falters to Wrath of the Righteous and Baldur's Gate 3 (if you consider the latter a CRPG). And the one DLC I played (Beast of Winter) is one of the best story DLCs I've ever played for a game. However, I kind of got sick of the game (as it is a little repetitive) so I did not bother playing Slayer, Seeker, Survivor or Forgotten Sanctum, despite being a huge fan of Llengrath[/spoiler and all those wizard guys.

Would highly recommend.

best multi-class system

Good story line and plenty of figurin' for those who ioke that.

Second greatest game I've ever played, first one being Pillars of Eternity 1.

good story telling with challenging encounters

An excellent CRPG in the classic style. Music, combat, exploration and dialogue are all really well done. If you liked Baldur's Gate and are looking for a new RPG, give this a try.

Still haven't beaten POE 2 but then again mabe that's my fault for spending so much time being a pirate.

I hope you like boats. and boat combat. and boat cargo and crew management. and boat navigation. and boat equipment and upgrading. If so, it's the game for you!

It also includes a land-based crpg loosely based on Pillars of Eternity with some meh characterization and mediocre plotting.

Another masterpiece... unfortunately, I feel like they don't make games like this anymore. This was the last great game by Obsidian... and here's hoping AVOWED will also be a masterpiece too.

Fun game so far. I wish the game allow seamless switch between Pause and Turn base. But other than that, good writing and fun quests so far

Fun game! Great RPG. The combat is intimidating, play realtime though its much more fun and saves alot of time. Not super difficult and the RPG aspects are top tier!

The music that plays during ship combat so good that I've literally been going around bopping slaver ships just to listen to it

Also, they added TURN-BASED MODE. Praise be, Obsidian, my beloved! Like yes it's a great video game but come on, did you need a Steam reviewer to tell you that? It's a choices matter RPG by Obsidian. *Obsidian.* I genuinely don't think these guys have ever missed.

A fun, vibrant, choice-driven RPG. In many aspects this is the sequel to New Vegas - the factions are outstanding and the consequences for the world are major and directly visible. You will miss context playing this without having played the first game previously, but if you bounced off that give this one a go.

In Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, the fun greatly outweighs the suck. This inspirational game is one of my favorites. I remember playing Baldur's Gate 2 back in the day, and thinking that it was fun, but that it could use some work because there was a fair amount of suck. As it turns out, Obsidian Entertainment did that work. As a result, Deadfire is the perfection of the tabletop-like rpg genre. It takes all the best from that genre, and leaves out the suck. This game is a lot of fun to play.

its great, if you like crpgs = must play, tb mode is weak, other than that - very very good, better than 1st one even

Just not very good. Clunky mechanics, ship combat is terrible (all dialogue), skills and skill checks are random and don't use party skills at critical times. Romance and relationships with party seem very shallow and not well developed.

love the game but every time I look up something I get Path of Exile vs this game.... also someone taking the 3rd game hostage because BG3......

Unlike its predecessor, POE II Deadfire is rather weak in all aspects: combat, world travel, story. I cannot recommend this game, but do try the first game which is great and has a great antagonist. The worst part is the ship travel and managements. Ship battles are utterly horrible.

Incredible sequel to PoE. Compelling world-building and storytelling, well thought-through combat system and skill tree, and an interesting relationship and personality system. Can't wait for Avowed.

I absolutely adored Pillars of Eternity 1 because I found the story to be exceptional and the gameplay to be solid. Pillars of Eternity 2, in my opinion, offers an upgrade on gameplay in exchange for a weaker plot. I had a lot more fun building characters and engaging in combat this time around, and even though I didn't find the story to be as riveting as the prequel, I still thoroughly enjoyed it!

I'm running with Ryzen 3600, 5700XT. I basically can't play this game because of how bad the performance is. It crashes all the time. My settings are turned way down; I installed a mod to deal with known issue of CPU cores - none of these work. I'm just outside of Port Maje, and it crashes on every battle encounter. Deeply disappointed and pissed off.

This is one of the best RPGs of all time. Incredible lore and universe, a unique and challenging combat system, great companions, and a really vibrant and beautiful art style. Tons of hours of content, cool fights, funny interactions, and meaningful choices.
Compared to Pillars 1, it makes some pretty substantial changes to the combat system while still being part of the same overall design, and changes up the way map traversal works, where you walking on a 2d map or sailing the seas in your ship. This ended up being pretty fun, but I'm not sure if it's a huge improvement in any way. I liked it more and more as time went on though, and eventually I stopped trying to have ship-to-ship battles, and instead just boarded the enemy ships, wiping them out in standard combat, and farming their loot.
Sadly their will never be a CRPG in the world of Eora again, but i'm hoping that the upcoming 1st person RPG Avowed adds meaningfully to the world Obsidian has created. Check this one, and really take some time to learn the systems, and this might just become your favourite CRPG ever.

From the beginning, the game is impressive like its predecessor. From the clear difference in the graphics to the new mechanics, the essence of the series has been well preserved and improved in many ways.

The story makes you question even your decisions in the past game. At the beginning you have the choice to be exactly like you were in the other game, it reminded me a lot of Mass Effect or The Witcher in that sense. It makes me see how important my choices were.

The main quest is presented in a cool and inspiring way, however I didn't find it very long, depending on the difficulty you're playing I imagine it's possible to finish the game very quickly.

But as this is not a game to play in a hurry, many complementary quests and side stories were very well implemented. Mainly that of each of his companions.

All of this with many dialogues being narrated perfectly. Compared to the other game, this one has a lot more voice acting.

The soundtrack and the arts that tell the story are perfectly put together in a brilliant way. Simple but brilliant.

Real-time combat with pause was something new to me when I played the first game. It took me a while to understand how to come up with strategies and use my characters in the most effective way possible. I didn't get to test combat per turn precisely because I was addicted to the other one. My only disappointment was having the number of companions in the party reduced. For me, six was perfect. But five isn't much of a difference.

The system of equippable items on characters is very well balanced, but for someone who is playing something like this for the first time it is a little difficult to follow a build. All dialogue and combat is often affected by how you balance your party.

But after a curious introduction, the main quest takes you to explore an archipelago full of things to discover. A ship to look after and use as a base was a very well thought out idea. I didn't really like the naval battle, but I've never been forced to defeat an enemy like that. Not even in side quests.

Clearly the game's developers have extensive experience in putting together scenarios like this. Where you make choices and give you the freedom to play how you want.

After doing two of the Dlcs and many quests from the base game I reached the maximum level with all the companions and I thought the level cap could be higher. This made me want to finish the main story straight away, as leveling up in this game is very satisfying.

Now after many hours of playing I feel like I took the opportunity to test several different things and reached a simply perfect ending. Without following any guide or anything like that. The game makes sure you never get frustrated.

For me, these two games will always be one of the most complete and refined works in CRPGS. I highly recommend it to anyone who played the first game or had good experience with RPGs of this style.

An amazing game made even better with the turn based mode! Supreme excellence! Such good writing!

Though the game is beautiful, music is great, story telling fantastic, there are WAY to many character and game mechanic things to consider, mega management. learning the game IMO is a massive investment in time and learning, trying out different class combinations, and reloading save games. The turn based mode is awkward at best, shoe horned in from a RT game design. For example trying to cast AOE spells so they land in the right place is difficult because by the time you cast the targets have moved and the game wasn't designed for this kind of turn based targeting. so.... you have to edu-guess where to place targets. often times spells just miss. Class trees and multi-classing is even more crazy detailed. for building your characters, It is hard to really understand what stats to use and specialize in. Stats and ability stats can stack from other players, and combat resolution is a combination of many calculations of additions and subtractions from many sources. IMO to many calculations. Another micro management complaint, is that healing during camping after gaining afflictions from traps requires you assign food/drink to each character. Again to much micro management, do I really need to think about what food to use, and who to use it on. no thanks.

This game can be brutal in regards to the player making a mouse click or action mistake, give an action that is not what you intended and there is no way to back out. whoops I went to look at my weapon sets, game reads the action as switch weapon to the same weapon, that characters combat turn is over . :| , lol. because of these challenges, IMO there should be an undo, or option to undo a player action. Let players govern, fair play. Possibly make it a setting if need be.

A game like Solasta does turn based game mechanics better. It has got depth and detail, but knows when to smooth out play mechanics and trim the noise and micromanagement. Additionally, because Solasta was designed with turned based mechanics in mind targeting works in this game much better.

POE2 is a pass for me at this time.

A-Grade CRPG, Great sequel to first one, some in game changes but they are not negative ones, really nice enviroments, maybe more big dungeons what i miss, but the world and things are very fine still. Great game specially if you love the first one or you love original Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 (Including EE.editions), then this game is must have!

I really wish that we see another Pillars of eternity game, made same way like these two, not like BS BG3. For me that is just divinity like wise game, which missing the Legendary Baldur's Gate feeling, style and art.
Even though divinitys are not bad games. it is just me i love the old BG art style and style.

Both Pillars of eternity's shines in it's art visuals, i love way these games look, they are just timeless art, like those old BG's. Combat is very nice, Story, Music, Humor, just a great pack(s)!

This is the best pirate cRPG you're gonna find. It may also be the only one, but I doubt a better one will come along soon.

The beginning of the game throws a lot of lore at you from the first game. If you didn't play it (or like myself, didn't finish it) you will need to read quite a lot of tooltips in the first few hours of gameplay before you get your bearings in the setting.

However, if you just go with it and be patient, you'll be rewarded with a really fun RPG, an outstanding pirate game, and a compelling fantasy story, all rolled into one.

My only criticism is that if you're only interested in having a fantasy adventure and are not interested in really getting into the role of a salty mariner, there will still be a lot of pirating to do that you probably won't be very engaged with and will have to either ignore or endure.

I highly recommend it to anyone who is itching for a fun pirate adventure and managed to miss this one.

both poe1 and poe2 are some of the best written role playing games ive ever played, not one choice is right or wrong so it brings many moral and political questions for you to ask. theres so many ways to play the game through combat and choices which make you really feel like you are doing things that influence the whole of eora.

Made a lot of great QoL improvements and generally just more fun than the first game. The main story is quite fascinating and fills in something that the first game left open. All in all, I had a great time with PoE2.

I decided to try turn based mode because I really like turn based games, however, I feel the implementation here is only so-so. Casting most spells doesn't cast on your turn, but rather after a delay that varies by spell and caster, which is a big gotcha. Though one that I thought kinda worked better in turn based mode in some ways, as you can see the turn order and thus know if an enemy will be able to move out of an AoE. However, one thing that annoyed me is that many effects felt like they were designed only for real time with pause mode. e.g., increasing a buff's duration by 10% is meaningless when it only lasts 3 turns. I never tried RTwP in this one, but suspect it's probably the better one to go with.

The time that the game takes is a little all over the place. I put in well over 100 hours on a single completionist-ish playthrough. Some content felt really dense and interesting, but there was also a lot of content that wasn't really using my time effectively. Particularly, the game sends you all over for bounties and it's hard to not wanna explore the whole map. But not all of the locations are interesting and uncovering the whole map is time consuming (it's quite large, especially when starting out).

The only content I purposefully did not do were the superbosses. I thought I'd like them as I was able to defeat all the optional bosses in the first game, but they are way overtuned here. They are more like puzzles with a single specific solution. I considered that to be not-fun.

Finally, one thing that took some wind out of my sails was that a choice you make mid game causes the final boss to be skipped. It made the final dungeon even more lackluster (it's extremely short and straightforward). If you care about this (mild spoilers, trying to be vague to minimize spoilers) don't free what you find under the water shaper's temple.

Very good game: I feel like in technical terms it was a huge upgrade from the first: best RtwP combat in any of the games I have played, good graphics, really pretty art direction, fantastic music. Worldbuilding is always good. I do still prefer turn-based to RtWP, so the gameplay did start to wear on me after 200 hours (Pillars of Eternity I was 100 hours, this was another 80), but this was definitely the best version of it I have seen besides maybe Dragon Age.

The story kind of had its ups and downs. After the first act it kind of started to drag, but there were some really cool moments later on. The companions also started to wear on me after a while: after a bit they just kind of became carictures of themselves it felt like. The ones from the first game especially feel like almost gag characters.

I can definitely see why people didn't like it as much as the first though: I don't think any of the quests really holds up to the highlights of the first game.

Overall, this was a really good playthrough, and I am excited to check out Avowed next year

Nice have have a lot fun to play the game

A great cRPG with tons of viable builds and roleplaying options. Definitely worth playign for any fans of role-playing games

Nice dungeon crawl.

Had to run using proton 9. Without proton 9 the game never started and the screen rapidly flipped between Steam and the game.

The game is not bad, but I also did not have fun and/or got into it.

Simply the best CRPG ever made in my honest opinion. The gameplay here is SUPERB. Combat feels impactful and tactile. The side missions are a whole new level of standard, and the reactivity for your actions are felt everywhere. The visuals exceed any expectation I have, except if you zoom into character models. The main story suffers from focus and is very short, but the rest of the world easily distracts you and give you plenty of reason to sail into the Deadfire looking for adventure. A MUST-OWN if you are a CRPG fan.

god i really want to love this game because it's so good but it runs like ass and my computer specs are current.

maybe it's my cpu?? idk. either way i recommend anybody with similar specs to mine stay away

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060ti
AMD Ryzen 3600 6-core
40gb Ram

An all time great RPG.
More people should play this.
The only issue I have is the naval combat system is underbaked; I tended to just rush to board vessels and do the normal combat encounter instead

Best setting and story of any of the crpgs I have played sofar, my only issue was the performance was kind of shite and made me want to reach the ending faster as a result.

this game actually has good writing and voice acting. cool systems. good theme

Great game its streamlined to let you play however you want with out things like carry weight or the feat system from DnD clones.

Just a pleasure to play 10/10 wish i could play the story again for the first time :D

Brilliant CRPG that tells a thoughtful and philosophical story while maintaining a deep yet accessible system which creates a gripping and mechanically challenging but rewarding experience. The game offers so many options in terms of building your character and the rest of the party that makes this an endlessly replayable game.

Didn't grab, or keep, my attention like the first game did, but still a nice world to explore and interact with.

Highly underrated game. A lot of options in terms of gameplay RTwP and TB, the story is really engaging and well written and the mechanics for the most part are great.

The good:
Beautiful graphics and art direction
Solid voice acting
Approachable lore
fun combat mechanics
awesome party characters


The bad:
Ship combat is undercooked and often confusing
somewhat limited customisation options

The rich do not need to exist. Organize with your friends, family, and coworkers to publicly demand the destruction of the ruling class. Be loud, spread awareness. Make it known. Demand the return of democracy to your country. Never forget FDR's Second Bill of Rights. Never forget the Business Plot of 1933. The rich never gave up, they just played the long game. And they won. But real life isn't a game. Winning doesn't mean it's over.

Deadfire is super great though. Improved on the first game in every way, tbh. Everyone's complaining about the overworld but I enjoy it tbh. Ship combat is kinda lame though, ngl. It's fun in a Pathfinder kinda way, but not immersive at all. Still, 9.5/10 game.

Wait I still haven't reviewed PoE II: Deadfire?!

My apologies Obsidian. Of course you get a recommendation. Where do I start?

This is one of those fixed top down perspective fantasy RPGs with real-time-with-pause combat in the vein of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Tyranny. If you haven't played PoE 1, it has a better system, optional turn based, better encounters (less trash mobs) and everything is just tuned a bit better. The vibe is completely different though. Where the first game was bleak and contemplative, this one is piratey and joyful, almost silly at times. There are some serious moments but to be honest it doesn't really draw me in as the first one, which had a habit of making you think a bit more.

Then again you trade that one thing for a much improved character building system (now with multiclassing), improved game systems, better designed encounters and overall a game that has much better gameplay because it is just tuned to perfection this time. I'm not kidding, there are plenty of viable choices and so few trap choices that I feel this is masterclass of game system design. If you're into character builds at all, hours of fun await.

Deadfire is a game that embeds all the gameplay moments in a story that feels better paced than the previous game, which had plenty of dull moments and slow main quest progression, only to rush it at the end. Some folks view the main story as putting much perceived time pressure on you, I personally did not have this problem but I can understand how the different priorities might clash if you're really into the mindset of your character. That said I feel like Deadfire makes it easier to be motivated about quests, most of them have something more to them than 'do it because you help everyone for no reason'.

Indeed, what shines here is the side quest design. Most are interesting for valid character reasons and are really nicely interwoven with the main factions. There are so many approaches and angles that turn out to touch the same sets of quests that replayability is very high. In the big city, you might be tasked by one faction to investigate a smuggling operation only to discover a certain political situation and to address it you have several options of intermediate quests to resolve part of the situation. You could also start this completely differently, trying to rescue someone from the underbelly of the city, only to stumble upon the same content by exploring, possible fulfilling certain requirements to solve the big quest in a different way.

It feels like there are many ways to act as different characters, and approach the same content from completely different angles because of it. The only thing that I think could be improved is to have the skill system be a bigger part of it. Often skills only play into dialogue options, and there are often ways around the skill checks. This makes the skill system feel like a bit of a side thing that can help sometimes, but nothing really vital to build around. That is to say that in the different approaches to quests, they are usually not a result of the usage of skills, but just what choices you make in where to go and what you say in conversations. In turn that makes the character building focused around combat. A missed opportunity if you ask me, but it's not like the spiritual predecessors were any different.

The itemisation, unique loot and how it interacts with characters are like the first game well done, and finding some special new gear always feels good. The whole ship management part of it is a bit less well done, there are noticeably fewer items for ships and few ship types, ship crew don't have many options and don't have much impact, and that makes the whole ship part a bit one-dimensional. That's not a bad thing because the ship combat is best skipped in favour of boarding. I won't give it any minus points because they made it easy to skip, but don't play this game for the ship to ship combat.

There is a turn based mode for those who really hate real time with pause, it works well but you need to understand the system so you can avoid the few things that really don't work in that mode. The real time combat is really well designed and it has a superb AI editor to take away the repetitive micromanagement so you can focus on the big impact spells or tactical choices.

Together with the tightly designed character system it makes the real time combat surprisingly smooth and responsive, with a strong emphasis on positioning, spells synergy to exploit weaknesses, per encounter resource management and interesting interactions between actions, concentration and interrupts (for making units lose actions!) as well as certain buffs and debuffs being able to cancel each other. There is usually something fun to do and several options available for every character regardless of how you build them.

Beware though, by default difficulty is heavily front-loaded. I can imagine this puts off a lot of newcomers. There are some good mods that address this issue, making the starter island less of a nightmare and the endgame less of a cakewalk. There are a few bugs with the difficulty scaling. Just remember that it's ok to use sneaking, diplomacy or avoiding certain fights until you get your ship back. Otherwise I really recommend to get at least 1 mercenary before you do the main fights - a druid with charm/hold beasts really helps.

One of the best games i've ever played, i have been introduced to crpg's with divinity original sin 2 back in early 2020, and since then i've played pathfinder kingmaker, pathfinder wrath of the righteous and about a year ago i have played pillars of eternity 1, just after i finished baldur's gate 3, so in comparison to pillars of eternity, this game has much improved combat, and quality of life and the story continues and expand it self from it's predecessor, although the main story pacing is bit stretched out and far between the side quests that you do for the other factions is really interesting, and most of the companions are great, some of them even make a comeback from the first game, and depends on your choices and if u choose to import choices from the first game, you will have some consequences to whatever happens in deadfire.

Overall i would give this game 9/10, a must play if you are a fan of great RPG / story telling games

Another fun Pillars of Eternity -- this time, it's nautical! The second entry is still largely about souls, the Wheel of death and rebirth, the gods, and the things revealed in the first game. The combat (and other gameplay honestly) is (IMO) vastly improved from PoE1.

The main story has more politics and factions, in a good way. 2/4 of the factions are colonizers, each using different methods and justifications. None of the factions are at all perfect; the native Huana have a strict caste system in which the poorest struggle to survive on the leftovers and garbage of the higher castes, and the Principi are thugs with panache.

There are supremely annoying traps that are immune to various types of damage, so those "wardstone" consumables are valuable and you should get them. I wish I could find a mod to remove them; you cannot ignore them.

Pillaging ships is astonishingly engaging IMO. Hit 'em with grapeshot in the naval battle, then board and fight the surviving crew. Most of the value in loot is in the crew's weapons and you don't get cannonballs this way, but you find some and they're not expensive.

Amazing game. Beautiful. Complex original system, not too hard to manage on a basic level but with more depth to master than any other RPG I've encountered. A playthrough at normal difficulty is not too complex unless you try to hunt down obviously difficult enemies, but higher difficulties requires ever-increasing number crunching. I enjoy this slow calculating stuff immensely, but not everyone does.