Pillars of Eternity

Because every system is interconnected, games are in a constant state of being broken until the very day they ship.

To illustrate this, Schreier points to Obsidian Entertainment and their game Pillars of Eternity.

In 2012, Obsidian was on the brink of total financial collapse.

A publisher had suddenly cancelled a massive, multi-million dollar project they had been working on for years, leaving Obsidian with no source of income and forcing them to lay off a significant portion of their staff.

There was no publisher to ask for an extension or extra funding.

The developers had to make painful compromises, cutting features and content just to ensure the game ran smoothly.

Ultimately, Pillars of Eternity launched to massive critical and commercial success, saving the studio from bankruptcy.

But the jury proved that even when developers win their independence, they must trade corporate oversight for the crushing weight of public accountability.

That might be a solution to it, but...

It makes me, again, also think about, you know, I think I mentioned to you, I spoke with Josh Sawyer recently, and we were talking a lot about Pillars of Eternity.

I always want to say Pillars of the Earth, you know, the Ken Follett books.

I have to pause when I say Pillars of Eternity.

And Pentament as well.

I think Pentament is such a brilliant example of a game that...

or in this case, if they can't make Fallout, then someone needs to make Fallout, but I guess Bethesda is making Fallout 5, but at the same time, Obsidian is not working on Avowed, because Avowed isn't a major IP for them.

Pillars of Eternity, which is the series that Avowed is part of, Has been a long-running series for Obsidian, but it definitely doesn't have the same cachet as a Fallout or a Halo or whatever.

So we got Halo Studios working on Halos.

We have Gear Studios working on Gears.

Path of Exile is the one by Obsidian though, right? No, no, no.

You're thinking of Pillars of Eternity.

Yeah, yeah.

Path of Exile is by I think it's a Tencent studio.

Well, just quickly, in the Steam sale, I picked up Avowed.

which was Obsidian's attempt to take one of their isometric RPG series, in this case it was the Pillars of Eternity series, and get the kind of Skyrim treatment they thought every cunt just wants, first-person action-adventure now.

And I don't know, it kind of never caught on.

There wasn't much fuss about this one.

I think they've got a decent wee combat system there.

The rammies were better to get into than they are in things like Skyrim.

And I've played a bit of Pillars of Eternity, so I enjoyed the story and the lore and stuff as well.

But the main thing about that is that half the back gate...

So they were hiring for ...

They were, at the time, looking for a contract writer to help with the first Pillars of Eternity game.

So, uh, I wrote in, I, you know, sent my resume, I sent a writing sample, which was a, a short story that I'd recently sold that was sort of, um, uh, a historically grounded, um, kind of, kind of dark fantasy piece.

Um, and so I, yeah, I, I, I sent all that in.

So you had the interview, and then what is the next, next step there? And who was it that you were sort of, um, you know, first immediately working alongside in those early days?

Yeah.

So, uh, I worked most with Eric Fenstermaker, who was the narrative lead on Pillars of Eternity 1.

Um, worked very closely with him.

That's the, that's the thing, is that, is that...

So, um, I don't know if you've played Pillars of Eternity.

So I appreciate every single piece of Pillars of Eternity and, and also bounced off of it really hard.

It is a...

To me, it feels like a very faithful spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate 2.

You know, it sold okay.

But it's...

Like when I say there were, there was maybe, maybe there was some evidence that, that, uh, Baldur's Gate 3 shouldn't have worked, I would put Pillars of Eternity in the evidence that it shouldn't have worked-

Welcome to the World of Aeora, a news and lore podcast about Pillars of Eternity and Avowed, as created by Obsidian Entertainment.

I'm your host, Eric, aka Gingerino.

Thank you all for listening.

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the World of Aeora.

I'm your host Eric, aka Gingerino.

Thanks everyone for joining me on another episode as we dive into the history, lore, and game mechanics for Pillars of Eternity 1, 2, and the game Avowed.

For those of you who are new here, welcome to the show.

If you're unsure why we're pairing all these games together, it's because they share the same fantasy setting known as Aeora.