Earlier this month, Obsidian's veteran game designer Josh Sawyer jokingly said he was waiting for Microsoft to give the green light on a $120 million budget to make Pillars of Eternity 3.
Sawyer has now returned to the subject in a much more detailed and in-depth fashion. Speaking in a lengthy interview with Touch Arcade, when asked which game he'd make between PoE 3, Pentiment 2, and Fallout: New Vegas 2, he said he'd choose the first one if he had Baldur's Gate 3's budget. Sawyer also said he'd focus more on turn-based combat, which was an afterthought in Pillars of Eternity 2.
I don’t think I would make Pentiment 2. I really do feel very satisfied with that game. It’s not like I don’t wanna return to it ever, but I just did it, so I’d probably wait a little bit. I think if it truly was an unlimited budget, I think I would try Pillars of Eternity 3 because I know what the budget was for Deadfire, which was not a whole lot and I have heard from multiple people what the budget was for Baldur’s Gate 3, and I’m not gonna talk about numbers, but if I got that budget, sure, I’ll make Pillars of Eternity 3.
I think that would be a lot of fun to do, to do like a high production value party based fantasy RPG. I’m pretty happy with Pillars and Deadfire, but I do think that if it were not crowdfunded, I would probably make it turn based. I’m not saying to not have a real time with pause system, but I do think that the Deadfire turn based system which I can’t take credit for, that Nick Carver and Brian MacIntosh did, was really cool. But, the game wasn’t designed for it, so actually designing the game for turn based, fewer encounters, smaller encounters, but much more tactical, I think that would be a lot of fun, and having awesome cinematics and all that stuff. That would be great.
Later in the interview, Sayer explained he prefers turn-based combat personally, believing it's easier to design intricate combat encounters compared to real time with pause. He then offered some critique of Baldur's Gate 3's camera and interface.
While the budget of Larian's cRPG masterpiece was never officially revealed, it is believed to be around $100 million. Would Microsoft agree to provide a similar budget for Pillars of Eternity 3? There's definitely a chance, following the massive success achieved by Baldur's Gate 3.
However, Obsidian is currently very busy with Avowed, a first-person action RPG set in the same world as PoE, and The Outer Worlds 2. With Avowed due at some point in 2024, work on a potential Pillars of Eternity 3 wouldn't be able to start until 2025 at least. Considering the average development time of a triple-A game, it'd be a project for the next generation of consoles, which should launch in late 2028.
Still, would you like to see it happening? Let us know in the comments below.
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