Obsidian Entertainment has confirmed that the first major expansion for their upcoming crowdfunded RPG, Pillars of Eternity, is already in development.
Pillars of Eternity isn’t out until next week, following a lengthy beta campaign on Steam Early Access - but the studio responsible for Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout: New Vegas and Planescape: Torment (mostly, under the name of Black Isle) has already confirmed that a major expansion is already being worked on.
The expansion is being worked on by a small team at Obsidian, but is described as being comparable in size to 1998’s Tales of the Sword Cost expansion to the original Baldur’s Gate, which added around 20 hours of additional gameplay.
“We are looking at doing an expansion that’s about the same size (area wise) of Tales of the Sword Coast,” Obsidian Executivfe Producer Adam Brennecke revealed during a Reddit AMA. “I won’t reveal much about it since it’s early in development, but we’ve already have a small team working on areas and environments while the rest of the team focus on shipping the game. We will announcing more things about it over the next few months.”
Obsidian broke records back in 2012 with what was then known only as Project Eternity, billed as a spiritual successor to the studio’s experience making classic games in the late 90s - when their founding members were part of Interplay’s legendary Black Isle Studios. Although the indie developer - which has struggled in recent years - asked for over $1 million in funding, it soon raked it many times more than its initial goal, with their Kickstarter campaign finishing with just shy of a cool $4 million donated. Since then, Obsidian has continued to attract backers thanks to its ongoing promotional efforts - so it’s possible that the game has since raise many times more than its original Kickstarter campaign.
While Pillars of Eternity has been in development for what now feels like an age (an Eternity?), the game is finally due for release next week after a last-minute delay earlier this year saw its launch pushed back slightly.
Still, for fans of the classic Black Isle D&D games and who fondly remember the hundreds of hours spent in Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment, a small delay is unlikely to have dampened their enthusiasm : they’ve waited for close to two decades to a spiritual sequel to what are widely regarded as some of the best role-playing games ever crafted - and based on what we’ve seen so far, Obsidian is unlikely to disappoint.
Pillars of Eternity is due to be released on March 26th on Windows PC, Mac OS and Linux.
Dale Morgan
@spamdangled
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