Several outlets have published their Pillars of Eternity reviews early this morning, and things are looking mighty positive so far! The game unlocks for the rest of us in a few hours, but thankfully media outlets were given access plenty early so they had time to get through the game.

The review I actually recommend reading is by John Walker over at RockPaperShotgun. He is quite considerate about spoilers and giving too much away in general, but he sums up his 60+ hours with the game as, "...a triumph. A wonderful, enormous and spellbinding RPG, gloriously created in the image of BioWare’s Infinity classics, but distinctly its own. A classic in every sense."

PC Gamer - 92/100 (Warning contains possible spoilers)

"A deep, rich, and wonderfully written RPG that lives up to the towering legacy of the games that inspired it."

Eurogamer - Recommended

"Pillars of Eternity is the Baldur's Gate 3 we never got, returning to the Infinity Engine style of role-playing with flair."

The Escapist - 5/5

"It's the best new, isometric RPG to come out in years."

Gamewatcher - 9.0/10

"All you really need to know though, is this; Pillars of Eternity is a triumph."

Yay!

2.38 more hours...

I'm very glad to hear it! I probably won't have the extra cash to buy this at full price anytime soon but it's awesome to know that this has massive promise for when I can make a purchase happen. I'm going to play it someday and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a blast. Hopefully the plot is a little closer to oldschool Black Isle than Bioware but the promise of an unflinching CRPG that is the logical next step for Infinity Engine games alone is so very thrilling.

The bits and pieces I've seen so far look excellent. Now I'll have to muster all my willpower to not spoil myself in the weeks or month to come until I can manage to see everything for myself. Obsidian is probably the most deserving developer out of the Kickstarter wave. And it looks like they took their pitch and ran with it!

Exactly. Just enough time to pick at the character creator before work and then wait to dig in after for me.

Yay another one of my favorite types of games that I no longer have time to play!

Still have barely touched Divinity, Dragonfall or Wasteland 2 :'(

Man I was almost ready to cry with joy after watching the QL, yesterday. Glad to hear it's really as good as it looked. I hope it pays off for all the developers favoring substance over style in role-playing.

Nice to see that the first reviews are so positive!

Fuck now i just need to chainsmoke till they let me click play on my steam client :D

If that button isn't ready to go by 12:01 there is going to be so much salt, most of it coming from me. If there's anything of a delay I'll be dragging a cup across my cell bars.

salt everywhere for me over here

I got to a point where I realized I might not like the rest of Wasteland 2, but I haven't really played much Divinity yet so I'll probably give that some more time before I check out this game. From what I've seen it is very much Infinity style but modernized and polished up more.

I am all aboard for this one. I have cleared the decks and set aside a chunk of time to put into this. Hyped.

I can't believe how universally positive the reviews and writeups on Pillars are so far! Obsidian looks like they have really knocked it out of the park with this one, I can't wait to dive in later tonight.

Sorry in advance for off-topic but I'm not sure what the ettiquette is regarding starting new threads yet.

I'm having a hard time finding out if you gain more attribute points through leveling up, or if the allocation in the character creator is a one-off time to do it and I should be really careful about what I do.

@honkalot: Go ahead and start one dude, just drop it into the Pillars of Eternity forum. I'm sure someone knows.

If you can't get an answer here, another good resource is the Pillars of Eternity subreddit at reddit.com/r/projecteternity. Lots of knowledgeable folks there that played through the beta and what not.

That is pretty sweet to hear.

Divinity isn't very much in the infinity style, it's more of a homage to the Black Isle games like Arcanum, Lionheart and Fallout. Some people, like me, prefer that over the infinity engine stuff, but I wouldn't say it's more modernized. It's pretty much using the exact same UI and gameplay as Arcanum and Lionheart did, so saying they did more to update the concepts than Obsidian did is a bit unfair, since they're just going after different kinds of CRPG's from the same era.

Just like back in 1999 it's coming down to taste rather than which is more polished, I think.

Just stated myself and so far- It's so fuckin gooooooood, ghaaaaaaa! I get excited just thinking of playing some more of it. Been a long time since a game incubated such a feeling in me.

Whats the difference in this and games like Divinity and Wasteland 2 i have both them but have not started them.

I didn't really write those sentences very well. I was trying to say that Pillars of Eternity looks like its Infinity style but modernized a bit. Divinity isn't really anything like the Infinity Engine games.

It has come to my attention that the PC Gamer review has some pretty bad unmarked main story spoilers. I removed the link to the review from my initial post so no one clicks on it by mistake. It's easy to find if you want to read it.

Very curious about this game. Its been in the back of my mind since I saw screenshots from the kickstarter forever ago. Never played any of these Baulder's Gate games before but I think I might like this.

Still doing Bloodborne though so bah..

Edit: Ah someone mentioned Arcanum.. I remember getting that and playing like 2 seconds of it and being like "uhh I dont know.. this is scary complicated?.." and never playing it again. I was 14 ish at the time. I think I still have the complete box still. So yea, I'm curious to see if I can handle something like this these days. Wasteland 2 was awesome and hooked me hard.. but these aren't quite the same things. And the interface and everything looked complicated in the QL lol

Early impressions and all; but for me personally this game is just head and shoulders above something like Divinity:OS or Wasteland 2, even comparing it to them feels a bit unfair as it is on a whole other level of quality, in terms of almost everything: story, art, gameplay. Again, early thoughts, I liked Divinity:OS at the outset a bunch too as it made a great first impression but I kind of became disillusioned with it as the game went along.

@tennmuerti: Oh yes, that is what I really wanted to hear! Hopefully the game holds up. I'm still on Hotline Miami 2 anyway.

I look forward to playing it, it looks absolutely beautiful. My only caveat is that its not based on the forgotten realms but its own new universe. Its always been my problem with the likes of dragon age and other newly created fantasy worlds. Its impossible for them to feel as fleshed out when they were created in 4 years compared to one that has been developed over 30 or god knows how long.

Still its a minor thing and I might be really into the new setting.

Seconded. As someone who bought Divinity hoping for that old school CRPG fix, it never did anything for me.

I've always been a massive Baldur's Gate fan, I even replayed the first one a year or so ago (using the BG Tutu mod). This feels like the true successor to Baldur's Gate 2. I've only played four hours or so yet, but the sense of quality and polish is just far beyond what Divinity and Wasteland managed. The writing alone is fantastic, specially the conversations and the "soul readings". What I'm saying is: I can't wait to get home so I can keep playing.

Same here. On paper, Divinity has everything I like but it never really clicked. PoE, very early on, gave me this " im gonna play this for a long time " feeling which is always good when you start to play a lengthy rpg like that.

What took me by surprise though is the quality of the music. I expected "kickstarter" level of quality but this, to me, feels much more rich than that. The writing is also very inspired. A lot of love went into this game, it shows so far. I kickstarted that game on the first few hours of the campaign on blind trust alone and they delivered! Hell I even paid for the expansion already!