Pillars of Eternity

Pillars of Eternity is Obsidian Entertainment's love letter to the late-90s isometric RPG era, designed by veterans of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale and funded by one of the highest-profile Kickstarter campaigns of its time. The pitch — and the delivery — was a return to the deep, choice-driven, party-based fantasy adventure that the industry had largely moved away from, rebuilt with modern technology and modern writing.

Character creation runs across six playable races (Human, Aumaua, Dwarf, Elf, Godlike, Orlan) and eleven classes (Barbarian, Chanter, Cipher, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Priest, Ranger, Rogue, Wizard), each with their own distinctive role and skill toolkit. Five core skills — Stealth, Athletics, Lore, Mechanics, Survival — handle the non-combat side, with the dialogue system regularly opening or closing options based on what your character can actually do. A reputation system tracks how factions and individual towns respond to your behavior, and consequences propagate across the entire campaign in ways that genuinely shape the late game.

The pre-rendered isometric environments are the game's other signature. Each location is hand-painted as a static image with characters and effects layered on top, which gave the game an art-direction ceiling much higher than real-time 3D could have reached at its budget. Combat originally launched as real-time-with-pause, with a turn-based mode added later that you can swap between freely during a playthrough — giving full control over how tactical any given encounter feels. The writing covers heavy themes — souls, gods, identity — with the seriousness the genre traditionally rewards.