This spring, Obsidian Entertainment celebrated the 10th anniversary of the original Pillars of Eternity by announcing a turn-based mode. Six months later, the developers revealed that public beta testing will begin on November 5 on PC (Steam) and Xbox.
In a fresh video, game designer and PoE universe creator Josh Sawyer personally detailed the core elements of the new combat system:
- All character actions are influenced by their overall speed, which increases the value of attributes. Specifically, the number of actions per round depends not only on speed but also on recovery.
- Free actions, such as weapon switching and potion consumption, can be used at any point during combat. However, to maintain balance, developers introduced a limitation — each type of free action can only be used once per turn.
- Turn-based mode significantly increases combat lethality for both enemies and playable characters. This design choice prevents battles from dragging on for extended periods.
- Players can freely switch between turn-based mode and real-time with pause combat systems. In the beta version, this is done through settings, but developers promise to add a dedicated button to the interface in the future.
Sawyer didn't announce a full release date for turn-based mode. Currently, the team aims to gather player feedback for final balance adjustments.
Pillars of Eternity is available on PC (Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
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