RPG players are conditioned to think they’re ‘built different’, says Josh Sawyer, so some of them hate it when games like Pillars of Eternity tell them they can’t do something

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is the current #40 on the PC Gamer Top 100 and one of my personal favourite RPGs of all time. Somehow, though, it does have its detractors. Most notably, a vocal contingent who felt that the game’s ending didn’t live up to their expectations (spoilers for Deadfire follow).

Deadfire’s plot revolves around the reawakening of the only-mostly-dead god Eothas and your quest to stop him from doing whatever mad, damaging, irreversible thing it is he’s set his mind on doing. But bad luck, because he’s a god and you’re just a (admittedly powerful) guy. When it comes time for the showdown, you realise you never had a chance of even hindering Eothas, let alone stopping him. To a lot of players, that was an unsatisfying resolution.

In a recent chat with The Examined Game, Deadfire director Josh Sawyer reflected a little on what he was going for with Eothas’ story in the game, and on players’ responses to it. “You can’t stop Eothas,” said Sawyer. “You’re kind of told that point blank, and we also try to telegraph that he’s way beyond the ability to physically do anything to, but players are very conditioned by a lot of RPGs to expect, like ‘Yeah, but I’m built different'”.

But that expectation runs into the rocks in Deadfire. “You can help ameliorate damage, and you can make a bunch of very important decisions that have truly huge impacts, but you can’t stop him.

“Part of that idea was going against this idea of ‘I’m the protagonist, I can literally do anything.’ But also, within the world of Pillars of Eternity, the gods are really, really selfish even when they’re being altruistic… they manipulate mortals so much, and I was going for this idea of ‘Well, [Eothas] does it to you too!’

“You’re very powerful and you can do all these cool things, [but] the gods are still not going to listen to you.” And boy, ain’t that the truth. You spend most of Deadfire being buffeted by the demands of gods who could not care less about you. This is one of the reasons it’s an all-timer.

Sawyer and the Deadfire team weren’t just doing this to screw with players, mind you. The idea was to explore types of power and the limitations of power. “You shoot lasers out of your eyes and you’re bulletproof, but mass starvation is not a thing you can punch your way out of,” said Sawyer. “So many problems are just human problems. They’re part of the reality of life and being a human being and living on this planet with other people… even in a fantastic world, there are still going to be powers that are beyond you.”

For some players, that attitude made Deadfire’s ending a tad disappointing. For me, it made it one of my favourite games of all time.

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