Pillars of Eternity II - Sidekicks and Neketaka

The latest update for Pillars of Eternity 2 explains the thinking behind the city of Neketaka and introduces the next stretch goal of sidekicks.

Neketaka

Bobby Null, the lead designer of Deadfire, is excited to introduce our big city, Neketaka:

Allo, pals! It's time for a new update and what better topic to discuss than cities? Now, if you're anything like me, a good city is a wondrous thing in an RPG. What better way to meet new and interesting people... and kill them? Well, maybe not always that last part, right... right? As inPoE1, if that's the way you roll, we're not judging, but there will be many other ways to deal with the population of the Deadfire Archipelago's big city, Neketaka.

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The one and only metropolis in the Deadfire is Neketaka. You may ask yourself, why only one big city this time around? While having two big cities in the first game was an awesome experience, looking back, the team felt splitting them into two made neither one as amazing as it could have been. This time around we wanted to make a bigger city than Defiance Bay or Twin Elms, but smaller than the two combined. Coupled with some awesome new features and overall direction, Neketaka should feel like the fantasy city you've always wanted to explore. Below I'll list some goals we had and how we plan on achieving them.

Goal: Build a city that feels different from anything in Pillars I and/or other Infinity Engine games, while not being so different as to feel alien.

Solution(s):

Build a city vertically. The district structure you expect in this type of game still exists, but some of these districts are organized vertically as shown in the video.
Add parallax features. To really sell the idea of a mountainous island, we've added multiple parallax layers to the art scenes for some spectacular views.
Architecture varies based on the cultures that dominate the districts. Vailian buildings and locations are distinct from Huana and Rautai locations.

Goal: Create a city that feels more alive than our previous work. Retain and reinforce the "fantasy scale" of a massive city.

Solution(s):

The new city map and encounters- This map shows the size of a truly impressive city without the need to model every home, alley and citizen. We're creating interstitial content when traversing districts on the map. These take the form of special combat and narrative encounters, as well as randomized events. Meet a strange fortune teller that may reveal cryptic prophecies about your future. Cross paths with a drunken noble with a large coin purse lost in the dangerous back-alleys of Neketaka. These encounters take place in scripted interactions as well as on all-new, city street scenes. It is important to note that many of these encounters still include choice & consequence and none are of the "fight x generic enemies" variety.

The time of day matters. Ambient NPCs use schedules to live their lives in Neketaka, but so do many of the quest NPCs. This allows us to add creative, and sometimes hidden, ways for players to solve problems/quests. Wait for an NPC to go outside and take a smoke break before picking his pocket for that key you need. Follow an NPC to the bathhouse and eavesdrop on a conversation to gain some juicy information. Infiltrate a location in the dead of night to avoid any unwanted civilian casualties.

That's all we've got for you this time. Stay tuned for more updates. We're heading into the final week and the fan support has been amazing. We love you all and can't wait to see how far we can push this budget.The more funds we raise, the better of a game we can make for you! Blog, tweet,tell a friend, sell a kidney... well, maybe don't do that.

-B