14 DAY TRIAL // Developer Obsidian has released some new information and images pertaining to their upcoming old-school-inspired role-playing game Pillars of Eternity.
Pillars of Eternity will feature real-time gameplay and party-based tactical combat that allows pausing, a fixed isometric viewpoint and pre-rendered high-quality two-dimensional backgrounds, similar to how its spiritual ancestors Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale approached the matter.
The Obsidian dev update post shows an in-game shot of a location near the game's second big town, informing that the area designers are “fleshing out the end of the game right now,” then proceeds to show a comparison between the concept art and the final in-game rendering of one of the many enemies players will face, a Cean Gŵla, a sort of banshee.
Finally, it presents artwork representing the god Galawain and Woedica and perhaps the most interesting and informative item in the update, a UI shot showing a character sheet screen.
Inspired by old pen and paper tabletop role-playing games with deep character development and rich stories behind the monster-slaying, Pillars of Eternity's character sheet looks more like a short novella.
One of the released images shows what appear to be “basic stats” and party data records, detailing from the bonuses primary attributes offer to effects currently active on the character, continuing with reputation in various locales, time played and monsters slain statistics.
The most interesting fact about all this is that both tabs are scrollable, and seem to be rather lengthy, pointing to the fact that Obsidian really intends to deliver on the promise to offer an immersive and complex role-playing experience.
The character screen also contains a Detailed Stats tabs, as well as an Abilities tab, and also offers the option to export the character, but it is yet unknown how exactly that will work, whether there will be an option for players to import characters in-game or just to export a stat sheet to brag to their friends.
Pillars of Eternity is one of the anticipated classic-based role-playing games scheduled to show up some time during 2014.