You don’t have to stick with Pillars of Eternity’s real-time with pause option anymore, as Obsidian has released the turn-based mode to the RPG.
When Pillars of Eternity turned 10 last year, developer Obsidian Entertainment surprised fans with a brand-new update to the classic role-playing game. This included a large number of fixes and enhancements to the experience. However, the studio wasn’t finished with the title, as it promised a new way to play the RPG was in development.
Today, the studio announced that the update is now live for all players. This means that in addition to the real-time with pause combat mode, the RPG now offers a complete turn-based combat mode, much like other popular RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3.
“This new feature lets you experience Pillars 1 in a whole new way, with combat fully reimagined around turn-based pacing and flexibility,” explained Obsidian today. “If you enjoyed experimenting with the system in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, we hope you’ll find this version both familiar and improved so please let us know what you think.”
The last update to this endeavor arrived in November of last year, with a public beta launching for fans to try out the new features. The studio also said it had learned a lot from Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire’s own turn-based mode and has changed up the implementation to be better. This included unbounded turns based on character speed, faster pacing, a toggle to easily swap between the turn-based and real-time-with-pause modes, and more.
Obsidian added today that despite the long beta period, there may still be bugs on the launch version of the new combat mode. It added that it will “continue to release patches for this feature for a short while longer” following launch based on feedback.
Find the complete change log for the Pillars of Eternity turn-based mode update over here.
The update is only available for PC users. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the turn-based mode or the latest changes are coming to the console editions. Obsidian Entertainment has confirmed that it doesn’t currently have the ability to update the game on consoles, as the studio did not develop those ports internally. Paradox Arctic was the developer behind the Xbox and PlayStation editions.
