The upcoming role-playing game Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire will let you helm your very own seafaring vessel, and seeing it in action makes me want to quit my job and take to the high seas. Sorry, Stephen. I’m a pirate now.
After 2015's solid Pillars of Eternity, I’ve been eager to see what the folks at Obsidian will come up with for the sequel, which comes out April 3 for PC, Mac, and Linux. In a video update published this weekend, the developers showed off how the ship mechanics will work. You’ll get to recruit crew members from different cities, assign them to tasks like cooking and navigation, and try to keep them happy to prevent mutinies. As you’re sailing, you’ll have random encounters with pirates, storms, and experience all sorts of other adventures, most of which unfold in the style of a storybook, like in the first Pillars.
Obsidian director Josh Sawyer and producer Katrina Garsten talked about the feature in this video. Also for some reason they’re puppets.
The only real downside for Pillars of Eternity II is that it will inevitably be compared (by me) to last fall’s Divinity: Original Sin 2, an isometric computer role-playing game that also happens to be one of the best RPGs ever made. Still, I can’t wait to see what Obsidian’s got in store for us this time, and I really can’t wait to get scurvy.