Pillars of Eternity is Obsidian's throwback game. It takes all of the classic isometric RPG PC game features that we love and weaves them into a new adventure that is blowing reviewers out of the water.
The game's style certainly isn't for everyone. It is not a Diablo-style isometric, it's a Baldur's Gate-style isometric — that is a very, very important thing to recognize before you check out the reviews and ultimately find yourself wanting the game.
This round-up will get updated when more reviews are available:
PC Gamer
Obsidian have always been bound to other peoples’ worlds—Fallout, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, South Park—but in creating their own from scratch, they’ve made not only their best game to date, but one of the best RPGs on PC.
Escapist
Bottom Line: It's the best new, isometric RPG to come out in years.
Recommendation: While Pillars of Eternity is certainly banking on a nostalgic fan base, it's still an excellent RPG in its own right. It's a game rich with player agency, giving you tons of control to craft your story or explore different solutions to the presented problems. You know, actual roleplaying not simply a game with a leveling and stat system stapled on.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
It’s a triumph. A wonderful, enormous and spellbinding RPG, gloriously created in the image of BioWare’s Infinity classics, but distinctly its own. A classic in every sense.
Eurogamer
It's an RPG with design firmly rooted in nostalgia, but one that absolutely doesn't rely on it to be enjoyable today. Instead, it's both a great reminder of why those games worked so well, and a brand new adventure well worth the hours upon hours (upon hours upon hours) that it takes to pick away at its secrets and its world.
Game Informer
Along with recent success stories like Divinity: Original Sin and Shadowrun Returns, Pillars of Eternity represents a return to a style of PC RPG that has been long absent. In short, I’m loving the game so far, and have every reason to believe Obsidian’s ambition and enthusiasm for the genre will make this one of the deepest and most engaging role-playing games of 2015.
