Pillars of Eternity II - Carrie Patel Talks World Building

PC Gamer talked to Narrative co-lead Carrie Patel about lessons learned and world building in Pillars of Eternity 2.

“Story-wise, we wanted to get some of those conflicts and concerns in. We're always big on giving the player interesting choices that are not purely black and white. Letting the player choose how to resolve the tribe's concerns about the Adra and the possibility of Vailian colonization and showing two different viewpoints about what that might look like for them and letting the player decide.”

Whenever we're worldbuilding it can be useful to pull from real world influences but you never want to be like, ‘Oh, I'm just making a fantasy version of this existing culture.’
Carrie Patel

When it comes to the day-to-day work of building a place like Tikawara, Patel explains that Obsidian’s team of area designers and narrative designers are matched up to build the space both physically and culturally. “It's our job as narrative designers to come up with good stories and make sure those are expressed in the game, but it's also something the area designers are intimately involved with. They're designing the levels, the quests, and the gameplay so we sit down early on in the concept stage and hash out what the area's going to be, where it fits in with the game, what kind of gameplay they're trying to implement, what kind of story we want to bring in and how to marry those two interests.”

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