While Obsidian Entertainment continues to work on Avowed ahead of its launch next year, studio design director Josh Sawyer has revealed that some members of the team have expressed interest in creating a Pillars of Eternity tactics game.
The director behind projects like Pentiment, Fallout: New Vegas, and Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire spoke about the studio’s desires behind the scenes during an interview with Limit Break Network. When asked about Obsidian’s interest in creating more stories set in Eora, he mentioned that a more tactical experience is one idea that at least a few members of the team have brought to the table.
“There have been a number of people, actually, at the studio who have floated the idea of a Pillars tactics game,” Sawyer teased. “Tactics games are very interesting to me, and they occupy a really interesting space in the marketplace because the audience for them is not huge, typically, but very passionate.”
It’s an admission that may have some Pillars of Eternity fans frothing at the mouth, but this doesn’t mean a tactical experience set in that universe is in the works. Sawyer touches on why it might be difficult to pull a game like this together, explaining that, while big-name series like Fire Emblem have managed to draw attention for decades, it’s tough for many tactics games to reach that same level of success. Still, he says there are “a lot of people at the studio” who would like to see a Pillars of Eternity tactics game come to be.
“It’s something that a number of people have talked about and thought about,” Sawyer continues. “It’s a hard one to make a case for. Like, how big should it be? What should the size of the team be? Every once in a while, we’ll bring it up and be like, ‘Oh, we could, maybe. I don’t know. We could, maybe…’ I will say, not just for myself, but there are a lot of people at the studio who have pitched their own versions of a Pillars tactics game. So, who knows? Maybe someday.”
Whether a Pillars of Eternity tactics game will come to be remains to be seen. In the meantime, Obsidian is still hard at work on its Xbox and PC fantasy RPG, Avowed. Set in the Pillars universe, the studio has told fans to expect an experience that falls more in line with something like its past game, The Outer Worlds, than The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. Following a delay, Avowed is now set to launch February 18, 2025.
While we know Obsidian plans to eventually release The Outer Worlds 2, its other plans for the future remain a mystery. Last year, studio CEO Feargus Urquhart teased he would like to make at least one more Fallout game before he retires, though no such project has been announced by Obsidian yet. While a potential Pillars of Eternity 3 has also not be confirmed, Sawyer did say last year that he would make a third game so long as his team got a Baldur’s Gate 3-sized budget.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
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