Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

Obsidian Entertainment’s 2018 sequel moved the action from the landlocked Dyrwood to the Deadfire Archipelago, a chain of islands where colonial powers, pirates, native peoples, and trading companies clash over territory and divine catastrophe. Players reprise their role as the Watcher, pursuing a reawakened god across an open world that can be explored by ship in almost any order. Community reception has been broadly positive, with particular praise for its writing, faction design, and character building. Those same players are quick to note that the ocean between islands sometimes feels emptier than the story justifies.

Deadfire’s shift to an open-world structure changed the pacing fundamentally. Where the first game funneled players through a tight narrative, Deadfire lets you sail past entire questlines and stumble into faction conflicts long before you understand the politics behind them. That freedom is the game’s greatest strength and its most common point of contention, depending on whether players prefer authored pacing or self-directed exploration.

Multiclassing, Factions, and the Freedom to Chart Your Own Course

Multiclassing is the most celebrated mechanical addition. Combining any two of eleven classes produces distinct playstyles, and the sheer number of viable combinations has kept build theorycrafting alive in the community years after launch. A Wizard/Fighter hybrid plays nothing like a Cipher/Rogue, and the game gives each combination enough unique interactions to justify the experimentation. Single-class characters aren’t left behind either, gaining access to powerful high-tier abilities that multiclass builds sacrifice.

Faction design carries the story in ways that most RPGs talk about but rarely deliver. Four major factions compete for control of the Deadfire, each with believable motivations and internal contradictions. The game doesn’t designate a “good” faction. Siding with the trading company means accepting their colonial agenda. Supporting the native Huana means navigating a rigid caste system. Every alliance comes with compromises, and the game makes you live with them through companion reactions, quest availability, and the eventual endgame.

Companion characters are written with care and given enough personality to make party selection feel like a real choice. Each has opinions about your faction alliances, and pushing too far in a direction a companion opposes can lead to ultimatums and departures. Relationships between companions also evolve through banter and reactive dialogue, giving the party a lived-in quality that makes downtime between dungeons feel less like filler.

Obsidian’s writing is dense without being impenetrable. Obsidian’s worldbuilding rewards attention, layering religious philosophy, colonial history, and personal drama into conversations that can be as brief or as deep as the player wants. Full voice acting across the main cast brings the dialogue to life, and the quality holds up across the game’s substantial runtime.

Where the Open Sea Runs Shallow

Ship combat sits at the center of most criticism. The text-based naval encounters play out as a turn-based minigame where you manage distance, cannon angles, and crew assignments. While some players find it a welcome change of pace, the consensus leans toward it feeling disconnected from the rest of the game’s systems. Boarding actions that transition to standard party combat tend to be more satisfying, which raises the question of why the scripted naval phase exists at all.

Open ocean between islands can feel sparse. Sailing from point to point involves long stretches where random encounters and supply management are the only interactions, and these encounters repeat quickly. The archipelago setting is visually striking on the world map, but the moment-to-moment experience of crossing it doesn’t always match the promise of pirate-era exploration.

Some companion multiclass options feel restrictive. While the player character has full multiclass freedom, several companions are locked into specific multiclass pairings that may not align with the party composition you want. Hiring custom adventurers solves the mechanical problem but costs you the companion storylines that make the game’s narrative work.

Even the main story, despite strong individual moments, can feel like it takes a backseat to faction politics. The pursuit of the god Eothas sometimes loses urgency when players are deep in trade negotiations or pirate diplomacy, and the final confrontation has divided the community on whether it delivers a satisfying conclusion to the questions the game raises.

A Sequel That Chose Ambition Over Safety

Deadfire’s defining quality is that it refused to repeat the formula that made the first game successful. The shift to an open world, the multiclass system, the faction-driven narrative, and the naval layer all represent risks that don’t fully pay off in every case. But the risks that do land, particularly the faction system and character building, produce something that stands apart from both its predecessor and its CRPG contemporaries.

The game sold below Obsidian’s expectations at launch, which has become part of the community conversation around it. Players who stuck with it tend to consider it one of the best CRPGs of its era, even while acknowledging the rough spots.

Should You Set Sail for the Deadfire?

CRPG fans who value faction-driven storytelling, complex character builds, and worlds that react to player choice will find a game that delivers on all three. Players who enjoyed classic isometric RPGs will feel the DNA here, updated with modern production values and a willingness to experiment. The turn-based combat mode added post-launch also makes it more accessible to players who found real-time-with-pause overwhelming.

Skip it if you need tight narrative pacing or if open-world exploration without constant direction frustrates you. This is a game that assumes you want to get lost in its world, and it doesn’t apologize when the ocean between destinations stretches longer than expected.

The Verdict on Deadfire

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire is a richly crafted CRPG that trades the corridor structure of its predecessor for an open archipelago that rewards curiosity and faction diplomacy alike. The multiclass system opens up build experimentation on a scale few RPGs attempt, and the writing carries Obsidian’s trademark ability to make dialogue choices feel like they matter. Ship combat and some undercooked stretches of ocean exploration keep it from reaching the heights it clearly aimed for, but the freedom to chart your own path through warring factions and morally complex questlines makes this one of the stronger entries in the modern CRPG revival.