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Pillars Of Eternity: Complete Edition Coming To PS4/XB1, Launching August 29

Loudninja

Member
Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJBhF5Q4foI

It's been an exciting year for Obsidian Entertainment. With Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire on the way, and new DLC for Tyranny coming later this year, the developers behind some rather dense isometric RPG games are cranking out some quality games that you can really sink your teeth into. But now, we can expect another title from Obsidian and Paradox Interactive ready for release this year. The publisher has just announced that the original Pillars of Eternity will be making its way to Xbox One and PS4 on August 29 with Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition.

In the Complete Edition, players who missed out on the original PC release will be able to experience the entirety of Pillars Of Eternity, including all expansions and updates--such as level cap increases, new difficulty modes, and balance tweaks. Ported over to consoles by Paradox Arctic, the developers and publisher worked closely with Obsidian to ensure that the move to consoles retained many of the core elements of the original game, which had to go through some changes to fit the new platforms.

Its publisher, Paradox Interactive, states that a lot of work went into the creation of this port, and that it was all designed to ensure for comfort and accessibility.

"Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition goes beyond just offering everything together. Paradox Arctic has thoroughly updated the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the award-winning RPG for play with a controller, and have entirely redesigned the UI for easy viewing on televisions. Players will be able to easily navigate the game's detailed character creation, real-time-with-pause combat, and party management from their couches thanks to new TV-friendly menus and controls."

Set for launch on August 29 for $50, Paradox and Obsidian are ready to keep the CRPG titles coming--and with a new audience for the game, there's definitely looking to be an influx of new players ready to explore the world of Eora very soon.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/pillars-of-eternity-complete-edition-coming-to-con/1100-6451064/

PS blog
Our team at Paradox was incredibly proud to get to work with the master storytellers and designers at Obsidian Entertainment when we shared Pillars of Eternity with fans on PC. It was a passionate project for us — quite a few people within our company had been Kickstarter backers! When the game finally did release, and we began to hear back from players who had explored the world of Eora for themselves, we knew we had a truly unmissable experience on our hands.

That's why today, together with our friends at Obsidian, we are thrilled to announce that this once-in-a-lifetime RPG is ready for PlayStation fans everywhere, in Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition. And we do mean ”complete" — not only will you get to experience the original Pillars of Eternity on PS4, but you'll also visit the expanded world and new characters from The White March: Parts I & II, the two expansions that arrived alongside the core game. You'll have the full experience in your hands on August 29th, 2017, available at PlayStation Store and in game stores everywhere!
https://blog.us.playstation.com/201...mplete-edition-makes-its-ps4-debut-august-29/

Hands On
On consoles, all movement is controlled by the left stick, while actions and other context sensitive options are on the shoulder and face buttons. A new radial menu is also available for players, which covers much of your needs while on your adventure. Despite these changes to the UI and control scheme, many of the more obscure PC features still remain. For instance, disabling companion AI is still available, giving players complete control over all party members' moves. Moreover, cursor control is still possible, and with a quick button press, players can still use the CRPG staple to engage objects and examine the environment.

The control setup is largely similar to how Torment: Tides Of Numenera's console port turned out, which is very much a good thing. Playability is important in CRPG titles such as this, which is very much akin to bundling up with a good book when you get into it, so it's refreshing to see that the changes make for a pleasant experience on controllers. Despite the switch to a different platform, Pillars still retains its PC roots, which is very much what Pillars of Eternity was all about. Speaking with the folks from Paradox, they stated that many of these were a necessity, given the obvious change to platform. The primary goal they wanted to achieve was the ease of use and comfort. An Isometric CRPG title on consoles are few and far between, mostly on account of how niche the genre is, but also due to the fact that redesigning the game to work on controllers is something of a huge undertaking.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/hands-on-with-pillars-of-eternity-complete-edition/1100-6451040/
 

FGMPR

Banned
Nice. I hope it works out well for them, as personally, I loved the game and poured almost 100 hours into it.
 

Lifeline

Member
Never finished this on my PC, I hope it has a demo to test out the controls so I can decide where to start my next attempt.
 

Lister

Banned
They don't show the UI at all in the trailer which would be the most fascinating thing to see.

If they pulled it off in some way, this is nothign short of a monumental achivement. I personally didn't think it could be done, and said so many times.
 

Aeana

Member
Good luck with those controls ...

Otherwise this is the best W-RPG since Baldur's Gate Saga. Truly amazing game.

It's a rtwp game, something that's been solved on consoles many times over.

People say "it can't be done" every time, and then it's done, and done fairly well. At some point, people need to give it up.
 

Mivey

Member
Looking forward to their idea for the UI. Divinity OS made rather good job, but that was also a turn-based game. Can't imagine what this would look like.
Hope they port the gamepad controls to PC, wanna see how weird it feels.
 
Worth every penny. This is a fantastic RPG with a lot of narrative agency, and tons and tons fo content.

No argument there, I got it day 1 on PC so it's not for me anyway. Just hoping that the relatively high price isn't gonna bite them in the arse. Having decent sales from console audience is only a good thing for the future of this type of RPG's, especially if they can figure out how to make them work well on the console without the PC version feeling compromised.
 

OVDRobo

Member
Seems interesting. I can't commit fully yet since I sometimes find games like this a bit flat and the seeing the console implementation in action is incredibly important, but if this seems decent I'll give it a purchase just to support the initiative of bringing such PC-focused games to consoles.

It worked great for Diablo and Divinity was pretty good, even if I ended up disliking the game.
 

xuchu

Member
Oh wow, wasn't expecting this. Divinity:OS console port worked amazingly well but that was also turn based combat. Will be interested to see how RTwP works with this port.
 

Lister

Banned
It's a rtwp game, something that's been solved on consoles many times over.

People say "it can't be done" every time, and then it's done, and done fairly well. At some point, people need to give it up.

"solved" Like RTS's are "solved"?

EDIT: Lol, I see someone else was thinking along the same lines.

I don't think they went and made the kind of changes needed to really make a game like Pillars feel fluid to play with a gamepad in terms of game mechanics.

Whatever they did, they did purely to the UI.
 

Ushay

Member
Holy shit this is amazing news, so happy this is being ported over to Xbox.

I'm curious how the controls will handle. It is technically a pause and play game, however Divinity OS worked super.

Day 1 for me, very happy to support Obsidian.
 

Anno

Member
I'm happy for anything that provides further sales to Obsidian for what is a great game. And hopefully some more discussion here on GAF!
 
What was the overall consensus on this in the end? I got the vibe that it was a little disappointing after all. Have held off buying as a result.

Edit: I'm a dumbass, I'm thinking of tides of numenera. PoE was lots of fun.
 

Aeana

Member
"solved" Like RTS's are "solved"?

I didn't mention RTS anywhere. But if we want to talk about other genres of games, let's look at:

MMO on a controller? Impossible! -> FF14 cross hotbar is incredible
Diablo on a controller? Impossible! -> Diablo 3 on consoles works great
XCOM on a controller? Impossible! -> XCOM works fine on a controller

People were even skeptical about Divinity: Original Sin, and that turned out extremely well on consoles too.

I think RTS specifically is a special case because it's real-time and requires micromanagement. But that doesn't apply to RTWP -- it doesn't have the real time constraint.
 
Holy shit this is amazing news, so happy this is being ported over to Xbox.

I'm curious how the controls will handle. It is technically a pause and play game, however Divinity OS worked super.
Divinity OS is turn-based. That's not the same. Turn-based stuff works fine with a gamepad, Realtime (even with pause) with lots of clicking, selecting skills, areas of effect rarely works well on a gamepad. Doesn't help that you have a six person strong party.
 

Lister

Banned
I'm happy for anything that provides further sales to Obsidian for what is a great game. And hopefully some more discussion here on GAF!

That's my hope and worry. Traditionally I don't think these games do veyr well on consoles. And on consoles you need to ship retail, which is expensive. So it's an investment tha tI hope pays off for them.

I'm guessing they're trying to widen the market share of the IP, planting the seed for whatever comes after Pillars 2.

I wish them luck. Love the series so far.
 

Mivey

Member
Wonder if this has the shorter loading times from Pillars of Eternity 2? It's not done by Obsidian, after all. If not, than you should probably expect waiting about 5 seconds between all map transitions.
 

Durante

Member
It's a rtwp game, something that's been solved on consoles many times over.

People say "it can't be done" every time, and then it's done, and done fairly well. At some point, people need to give it up.
Has it been done well?

I mean, of course it can be done to some extent -- in the extremity you can just move a pointer using a thumbstick -- but can it be done while keeping the gameplay flowing well?

In the instances I am aware of where a RTWP game went console the console version either had its encounters cut down (e.g. Dragon Age Origins), or the battle system was gradually changed to be more action- and less strategy/positioning-focused (e.g. later Dragon Ages), or it wasn't all-in 6 party characters + large-scale encounters like PoE is in the first place.

If anyone can do it Obsidian can (they made the excellent NWN2 interface after all), but I still think it's too early to call it a solved problem.
 

Tohsaka

Member
Nice, didn't buy on PC since I hate playing RPGs with keyboard and mouse. I'll probably pick this up at some point this year.
 

Famassu

Member
Good luck with those controls ...

Otherwise this is the best W-RPG since Baldur's Gate Saga. Truly amazing game.
Nothing really stopping the controls of this kind of WRPG from working on controllers, as long as they go far enough to tailor the controls to console controllers. It might be a bit more clunky than m+kb but nothing that isn't manageable.
 

Hektor

Member
What was the overall consensus on this in the end? I got the vibe that it was a little disappointing after all. Have held off buying as a result.

It's a very God CRPG with some issues, that isn't quite the masterpiece some people hoped for. If you're interested in proper CRPGs you should definitely give it a try tho
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
I'm always surprised that no one ever uses the PS4 touch pad for games like RTWP. It would solve so many issues combined with the analog sticks and other buttons on the PS4 controller.
 

Lister

Banned
I didn't mention RTS anywhere. But if we want to talk about other genres of games, let's look at:

MMO on a controller? Impossible! -> FF14 cross hotbar is incredible
Diablo on a controller? Impossible! -> Diablo 3 on consoles works great
XCOM on a controller? Impossible! -> XCOM works fine on a controller

People were even skeptical about Divinity: Original Sin, and that turned out extremely well on consoles too.

I think RTS specifically is a special case because it's real-time and requires micromanagement. But that doesn't apply to RTWP -- it doesn't have the real time constraint.

Some fo your examples required reworking the game mechanics. Look at Diablo 3 vs Diablo 2 for example.

But yes. I sometimes forget that cunkiness is ok so long as the overall experience doesn't suffer too much. Divinity is clunky, when dealing with anythign other than moving around with a gamepad vs mouse and keyboard, but it's pretty ok otherwise.

My suspision is that it will be the same with Pillars.
 

Lister

Banned
I'm always surprised that no one ever uses the PS4 touch pad for games like RTWP. It would solve so many issues combined with the analog sticks and other buttons on the PS4 controller.

Have you used the touch pad? It's not liek the one on the Stema controller: placed on the right and accessible and with haptic feedback. It's out fo the way and provides no feedback for improved accuracy.

Anyway, we don't know if it's being used by PIllars. Maybe they use it for inventory management? It's still awkward ot use, IMHO.
 
Yeah, PC crowd was very adamant on this is not portable to consoles. I didn't like it as much as GAF did.

I'm with you. I found it a bit dull, but it seemed to achieve what it set out to do, so that's on me. I never got around to completing it even though I've put a lot of hours into that game. It just goes on and on.
 

Durante

Member
Some fo your examples required reworking the game mechanics. Look at Diablo 3 vs Diablo 2 for example.
Yeah, people often point to Diablo 3 porting to consoles easily, but I think that needs to be qualified to consider that it was very clearly designed to do so from the start.

I predicted that the game was going to consoles long before that was announced (and before it was even out on PC) purely based on the limited (purely directional rather positional) design of the vast majority of its skills compared to Diablo 2. The posts are on GAF.
 

Sou Da

Member
Yeah, people often point to Diablo 3 porting to consoles easily, but I think that needs to be qualified to consider that it was very clearly designed to do so from the start.

I predicted that the game was going to consoles long before that was announced (and before it was even out on PC) purely based on the limited (purely directional rather positional) design of the vast majority of its skills compared to Diablo 2. The posts are on GAF.

I mean most people called that. I personally don't think this is gonna play well on controller.
 

Grimsen

Member
I have it on PC but have barely scratched the surface.

My only control option is a wireless keyboard with trackpad, so I'm curious to see how the controller mapping will be implemented. I might double dip if it's well done.
 

Caronte

Member
Really curious to see how they've made it work with a controller. Pillars of Eternity is much, much harder than something like Dragon Age, and I find myself pausing and repositioning characters constantly. I can't imagine how that would work with a controller.
 

JP

Member
Holy fuck, I can't explain how happy I am to see this happening. I know it isn't the same thing but I've been annoying everybody since long before Torment: Tides of Nomenera was released on the PS4 that I want more RPGs of this type on the system.

I hope it performs better than Torment did at launch, Wasteland 2 is probably a more apt comparison and although it wasn't as smooth as it should have been at launch, I have no issues playing it how it is now.

Weird, all the news from E3 and this is the gaming news that's made me happiest. :)
 
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