Pillars of Eternity: Turn-Based Mode Beta Announced

Ten years following its initial release, and eight months after the initial announcement, Obsidian Entertainment has disclosed further information about the forthcoming turn-based combat system for the acclaimed role-playing game, Pillars of Eternity. The studio has confirmed that a public beta for this highly anticipated feature will commence on Wednesday, November 5th. Josh Sawyer, the director of Pillars of Eternity, provided an in-depth explanation and introduction to the new gameplay mode in a recently published video.

While Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire previously introduced a turn-based option as a post-launch update, it presented some challenges, particularly by confining players to either turn-based or real-time with pause combat for an entire playthrough. This approach often led to rebalancing issues, where certain character builds became unexpectedly powerful or weak, necessitating a significant re-learning curve for players of an already intricate RPG. The upcoming turn-based mode for the first Pillars of Eternity addresses these concerns by promising \"significantly increased\" combat lethality, aiming to prevent the drawn-out battles that could occur in Deadfire's turn-based setting. Furthermore, features like \"Unbound Turns\" and \"Smarter Free Actions\" are expected to mitigate the balance discrepancies experienced in the sequel. Crucially, players will now have the freedom to seamlessly alternate between turn-based and real-time with pause combat at any point during their game, mirroring the flexibility offered in titles like Owlcat's Pathfinder series.

Obsidian's statement highlights that players can select the Turn-Based Mode when initiating a new game or effortlessly transition between Real-Time with Pause and Turn-Based Mode via the in-game options, with the potential addition of a direct HUD toggle for added convenience. This development reflects a growing trend and preference among many RPG enthusiasts, including industry professionals like Josh Sawyer, for turn-based combat systems. Sawyer previously noted that the original adoption of real-time with pause was partly a response to the perceived lack of tactical depth in many turn-based RPGs of that era, as well as the rising popularity of the RTS genre. However, with modern turn-based RPGs such as XCOM and Baldur's Gate 3 demonstrating both tactical richness and accessibility, the real-time with pause model now occupies a somewhat ambiguous position in the genre.