Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
* The sequel is officially Announced. It is Wrath of the Righteous.
* Given Oleg's discussion of Kickstarter
at Big Deal, it is likely that there will be another Kickstarter. It took half a year to go from absolute nothing to a vertical slice in Kingmaker's dev cycle. And another half a year to go from there to Kickstarter readiness. And then around half a year to get from there to Alpha 1. and 10 months in alpha to get to Beta. and 2 months to go from Beta to Full game. It seems likely, given that timeline, that we will get a Kickstarter soon; though no official word has been stated on this subject.
* Owlcat is now an Independent Studio, but received a $1 Mil investment from My.com to make the game.
* The official Website allows you to Sign up for a Mailing List and Get a Free digital Copy of the Kingmaker Artbook
So what do we know about Pathfinder: Wrath of The Righteous, the Computer Game?
The Overall Game:
* Wrath will be based off the same First Edition rules as Kingmaker, This will include Mythic Rules, though they seem to have been reworked a bit.
* The game will be on an Updated version of the Unity Engine, and Owlcat has cleared up a lot of technical debt, so it should be easier to program, with less bugs. It is my understanding that this new ease of programming should help carry over to the modding scene.
* No release Date has been Disclosed, but it seems likely that it's not coming out until 2020, at least.
The Source Material:
Wrath of the Righteous is an Adventure Path where the central Premise is that a Demon Lord is slowly invading the World of Golarion (the same world as Kingmaker) and is trying to make Golarion part of their Realm in the Abyss. Several Crusades have been launched to stop this, they all failed. Now, It's your turn, and if you don't succeed this time? The world is doomed. To Succeed, you need to lead a Crusade, murder a Demon Lord, and Close the Portal to the Abyss. Something happens early on, that gives you "Mythic Power" a Power way beyond that of your standard adventurer that lets you "Break the rules" of normal Pathfinder in specific fun ways. Of course, you aren't the only one with Mythic Power. Your Enemies have it too.
The Hook:
There are a couple of Possible Hooks for Wrath. The First and most obvious is Mythic Power. Mythic Power is a system with very loud Proponents and detractors in Tabletop, but the main gripe with it is that it's hard for a GM to balance properly, and it's really hard to run on tabletop. Neither should be an issue for a Computer RPG where the program manages your problems.
The second Possible Hook is Mass Combat. Mass Combat Appears in a total of 3 APs. It was Introduced in Kingmaker, It shows up in Wrath, and it shows up in Ironfang Invasion. Given that Mass Combat was one of the Goals that Owlcat Wanted to reach with Kingmaker? I'd lay good money down that we'll be seeing Mass Combat in Wrath.
Finally, Since the underlying engine is the same (if updated), it seems likely that we'll be seeing more of the Kingdom Building system. In Wrath you need to lead a Crusade. It probably wouldn't take all that much effort to adapt the kingdom management system to a "Crusade Management System."
As yet only Mythic Power has been confirmed. It seems to have been Adapted by Owlcat similarly to the Skill System in Kingmaker.
* "The Mythic] system will let you pick from several different Mythics, including a mischievous trickster, an immortal Lich, a celestial angel, and others."
* When Questioned devs said that they had reworked the Mythic system so that it was more powerful. Both why and how are unknown at this time.
The Mechanics:
The Game should play very similarly to Kingmaker, and will likely be Real Time With Pause unless something major happened that convinced the Owlcats that they should change the entire underlying system for their extremely well-selling game based on some vocal detractors.
* We're getting the Kingmaker classes, plus Witch and Oracle. "There will be new ones beyond those that appeared in Kingmaker, and there’s also going to be a new race and new archetypes to play with."
*There is a Mongrelman on the Key Art. Mongrelmen are a Friendly monster race in Wrath, so this may be a case like Goblins in Kingmaker, where you can have a Mongrelman companion but cannot be a mongrelman.
The Characters:
* Seelah, the Iconic Paladin, is a Companion as per the key Art revealed in the reveal campaign, and confirmed by Devs. She will be "The only Iconic in the party."
* There is a White Haired Gnome on the Box Art. She may or may not be a companion.
*The angel man on the revealed art is The Player Character.
* There is What looks like a Bleachling Gnome Hellknight on the Revealed art. He is a Companion. His name has been (jokingly) revealed as "Stabby McStabface". This is likely an alias.
* The Succubus Arueshalae is on the Revealed art. It is unknown as to what role she will play, but only Companions were on the Kingmaker Reveal art, so she is likely a Companion. In Tabletop, she was explicitly Romanceable, so she is likely a romance option.
* There is a Mongrelman on the reveal art. This is Lann, an important NPC from the first book of Wrath.
*Irabeth Tirabade and her wife Annevia are confirmed to be in the game. It is unknown in what capacity.
* Wrath has an Extremely large Cast of friendly NPC characters. It is likely that some of these will become Companions, and that some will get cut. We're probably also getting some Original companions.
*Characters from Kingmaker will make an appearance. No Word on what characters, or who, or how, or why.
Miscellaneous stuff:
*Alexander Mishulin, Owlcat's Creative Director, promised fewer bugs on release. He mentioned new Narrative Tools. These were revealed on Discord as being "Etudes" Instead of on/off variables in the narrative tree, Etudes apparently offer multi-set variables. This allows more freedom to make complicated choices without creating a terrifying tangle of code. Not being a Programmer, that's all I got out of the explanation.
* "Players of the original adventure path will encounter a lot of familiar faces and encounters, but [there] also will be new characters, twists, and stories"
*The game will be Darker in Visual Style and Tone.
* Chris Avellone is back on board lending a hand and supporting the narrative team as he did with Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
* Owlcat is working to make the game more User-Friendly for Players unfamiliar with the Pathfinder System.