As Baldur’s Gate 3 garners immense attention for its vast and immersive RPG experience, it raises the question: will its success prompt gamers to explore classic titles in the genre, like Pillars of Eternity?
On the platform X, which used to be Twitter, this topic did indeed spark curiosity among users. One particular post even caught the attention of Obsidian Entertainment’s Studio Design Director, Josh Sawyer, prompting him to humorously comment on the possibility of a big-budget third installment for the Pillars of Eternity series.
Will Pillars of Eternity 3 ever happen?
Felipe Pepe’s original post, as spotted by Windows Central, notes that friends of theirs who enjoyed Baldur’s Gate 3 would very much love to partake in the creative insanity that other CRPGs allow, but aren’t keen on doing so due to the “more old-school presentation” of many games such as Pillars of Eternity or Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.
“Waiting for Xbox to call and tell me they want Pillars 3 with a $120M budget,” Obsidian Entertainment’s Director Josh Sawyer replied. “Any day now, I’m sure.”
While this is very much said in jest, a high-budget third entry in the series is something many fans would love to see becoming reality at some point in the future.
In an older Tumblr post, Sawyer noted that if a Pillars of Eternity 3 were to happen, Obsidian would have “to re-examine the entire format of the game,” following the low sales of the Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire.
“I think that we need to believe that if we try to make a game in this style again, the existing fans will enjoy it, new players will enjoy it, and ex-fans who were disappointed by Pillars 1 and/or 2 will come back to it. On top of all that, we need to be excited about making it,” he wrote in a different older post.
“Even devs who really enjoy working in the Pillars universe were burned out after the end of Deadfire, especially if they went on to work on the DLCs. To put in all of that work and have the game limp over the finish line, sales-wise, doesn’t get people jazzed up about rolling on to a sequel.
A higher budget would very likely support a potential re-examination of the series’ format while helping address the presentation-related woes that might stop potential players from jumping in.
At this point in time, this unfortunately remains wishful thinking. While Xbox executives have stated they’re open to bringing back old IP, it’s questionable whether massive budgets would be given to a (potentially top-down, rules-heavy) RPG and if such an effort would result in satisfactory sales.
It’s unclear if we’ll ever get to revisit the world of Eora as part of the series that introduced it, but Obsidian Entertainment is preparing to let us explore it again in first-person RPG Avowed.
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