PC Gamer’s reviewer spent almost an hour on the character creation screen before he had played a minute of Pillars of Eternity, and took that as a good sign. Obsidian Entertainment had promised its backers a game like the ones its founders had made at Black Isle Studios fifteen years earlier, Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment, and in March 2015 it delivered one: a party of adventurers seen from above, fights that could be paused at any moment to give orders, and “page upon page of superbly written, vivid, descriptive text”. It was also a world of Obsidian’s own. Apart from the spy game Alpha Protocol, the studio had spent more than a decade making games in other people’s settings, from Star Wars and Dungeons & Dragons to Fallout.
Fast facts
- Developer: Obsidian Entertainment, Irvine, California.
- Publisher: Paradox Interactive.
- Director: Josh Sawyer (J. E. Sawyer), formerly lead designer of Black Isle’s Icewind Dale games.
- Kickstarter: September to October 2012, as Project Eternity; $3,986,929 from 73,986 backers against a $1.1 million goal, and $4,163,208 including PayPal pledges.
- Engine: built in Unity, with 3D characters over pre-rendered 2D backgrounds.
- Released: 26 March 2015 for Windows, OS X and Linux; on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in August 2017 and on Switch in August 2019.
- Expansion: The White March, in two parts (August 2015 and February 2016).
- Sequel: Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (2018).
The campaign
In September 2012 Obsidian asked players for $1.1 million to make Project Eternity, a game “inspired by Planescape: Torment, Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale”, as Eurogamer put it. Eurogamer noted that Alpha Protocol, the studio’s one attempt at a setting of its own, had been “overlooked”, and Edge saw the campaign as a chance “to build a world from scratch, without publisher input”. The Kickstarter closed in October 2012 with $3,986,929 from 73,986 backers, the most any video game had raised there at that time, and PayPal pledges took the total to $4,163,208.
The money bought more game. Eurogamer’s summary of what the final total had paid for listed eleven classes, six races, a stronghold for the player to run, and a dungeon of fifteen levels. That mega-dungeon, the Endless Paths of Od Nua beneath the stronghold, became one of the game’s attractions. Only its first level has to be explored; the rest is there for players who want more than the main quest. Obsidian also brought in a publisher late on: in March 2014 Paradox Interactive agreed to market and distribute the game.
The world
Sawyer explained the setting to PC World in 2013. The game is set in the Dyrwood, a former colony, “more like a United States/Canada type of environment”, whose settlers had “a rough past with the natives” and had recently won their independence. Its technology is “closer to the early Renaissance”, with matchlock guns alongside swords and bows. People in this world know that souls are reborn in new bodies, and the newly independent Dyrwood has started to study them in a science called animancy. “Animancers are like the biologists of the soul,” Sawyer said. Others think it is wrong, and that the gods will punish people for it.
When the player’s character arrives, a curse is causing babies to be born without souls, and animancers say they can cure it. A supernatural storm turns the hero into a Watcher, someone who can see into other people’s souls and past lives. In play, that power opens up short written vignettes of strangers’ earlier lives, which PC Gamer measured at around 500 words each.
How it plays
Characters come from six races, among them the small, furry orlans and the giant, semi-aquatic aumaua, and eleven classes. Two of the classes were unfamiliar: the cipher, who draws power from enemies’ souls, and the chanter, a bard who builds spells out of songs and stories. Combat is real-time with pause, as in Baldur’s Gate. “Think of the combat as like a real-time strategy game, but with the ability to pause at any time and plan your next move,” PC Gamer advised newcomers. Characters earn no experience for killing monsters, only for finishing quests, exploring and actions such as disarming traps, so a party that sneaks or talks its way past a fight loses nothing by it. PC Gamer called that “a bold, brilliant idea” and noted that it was “already dividing the community”.
Reception
PC Gamer gave it 92 and called it “the most captivating, rewarding RPG I’ve played on a PC in years”. Its reviewer took eleven hours to reach the first city, Defiance Bay, and another thirty to reach the second, and said Obsidian had made “not only their best game to date, but one of the best RPGs on PC”. Obsidian and Paradox reported 500,000 copies sold by October 2015, and Rock Paper Shotgun reported more than 700,000 by February 2016, when the second part of the expansion came out.
The series
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (2018) was crowdfunded too, raising about $4.4 million on Fig in 2017. In November 2018 Microsoft bought Obsidian, and in February 2025 the studio released Avowed, a first-person role-playing game set in the same world. The CRPG Renaissance entry places Pillars among the crowdfunded games that brought the party-based role-playing game back.
Sources
- Andy Kelly, “Pillars of Eternity review”, PC Gamer, 26 March 2015 (web, secondary): the hour at character creation; races and classes; the cipher and chanter; animancy and the soulless babies; the Watcher and the 500-word vignettes; “page upon page”; the real-time-with-pause comparison; no experience for kills; eleven hours to Defiance Bay and thirty more to Twin Elms; the stronghold and the 15-level Endless Paths of Od Nua; 92. https://www.pcgamer.com/pillars-of-eternity-review/
- Hayden Dingman, “Deep dive with Pillars of Eternity project lead Josh Sawyer: The full interview”, PC World, 10 December 2013 (web, secondary): the colonial setting, the early Renaissance technology and matchlocks, animancy, “biologists of the soul”. https://www.pcworld.com/article/2071423/deep-dive-with-pillars-of-eternity-project-lead-josh-sawyer-the-full-interview.html
- Robert Purchese, “A Project Eternity recap: what $4 million has funded”, Eurogamer, 17 October 2012 (web, secondary): the grand total of $4,163,208 (Kickstarter $3,986,929, PayPal $176,279); “15 mega dungeon levels confirmed”; the $1.1 million goal; Unity with pre-rendered 2D backgrounds; souls and reincarnation; real-time with pause; classes, races and the stronghold. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-17-a-project-eternity-recap-what-USD4-million-has-funded
- Edge issue 247, December 2012, p. 69: Project Eternity preview (“without publisher input”).
- Wlad Marhulets, 100 Video Game Design Tips & Tricks (Unfold Games, 2020), p. 55: the Endless Paths of Od Nua, a 15-level dungeon of which only the first level must be explored.
- The Obsidian Entertainment and CRPG Renaissance entries and their sources: the Kickstarter dates, total and backers, the record, Alpha Protocol, Fig and Deadfire’s $4.4 million, Microsoft’s purchase and Avowed. The Black Isle Studios entry: J. E. Sawyer’s work on the Icewind Dale games.
- Alice O’Connor, “Pillars Of Eternity Expansion Out, More Pillars Coming”, Rock Paper Shotgun, 16 February 2016 (web, secondary): The White March Part II and “sold over 700,000 copies”. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/pillars-of-eternity-white-march-part-2-released
- Wikipedia, “Pillars of Eternity” (accessed October 2026) (web, secondary): Josh Sawyer as director; Paradox’s role announced in March 2014; release dates for Windows, OS X and Linux (26 March 2015), PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (29 August 2017) and Switch (8 August 2019); The White March dates; 500,000 copies by October 2015, citing GameSpot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillars_of_Eternity