Pillars of Eternity Director Wants Next Mainline Game in Franchise to Have Fully 3D World

While first-person RPG Avowed isn’t exactly a direct sequel to the Pillars of Eternity series of RPGs, the game does place in the same universe, and helps quite a bit in fleshing out the setting of Pillars of Eternity. In an interview with Gamepressure, Pillars of Eternity project director Josh Sawyer has spoken about how Pillars of Eternity could continue as a franchise going forward.

One of the biggest things that would make a Pillars of Eternity 3 interesting, he noted would be the addition of a full 3D world. Sawyer believes that the next Pillars of Eternity game should feature one such world where players get even greater interactivity with their environments.

“I’ve said this before and some people are really, really bummed out about it, but I think if we did go into a 3D environment, we could patch up one of the things that’s really lacking,” he said.

Sawyer also brings up the other most obvious game comparison – Baldur’s Gate 3. He believes that a fully 3D world was a big part of the critically-acclaimed RPG’s popularity, and notes that seeing a game with that kind of world with all the interactivity it would bring with it, but with the gameplay mechanics of Pillars of Eternity 2, would be “super-cool”.

“Because it is isometric, there’s no sense of height, and the environment can’t be that dynamic,” said Sawyer. “When you compare it to something like BG3, you realise it’s such a huge part of the appeal. I think, at some point, I would like to see a game that used all those Deadfire mechanics, plus more environmental mechanics, elevation hazards, and dynamic terrain stuff. That could be super-cool.”

“Our team did an incredible job on Deadfire, for a number of reasons,” he continued. “I think that a third game should be an isometric 3D with an environment more like Baldur’s Gate 3; it would work. And I think that could be really awesome. It would be easier for us to make the art and be a lot more dynamic. I’ve said this before, so hopefully nobody will get mad [laughs]. I think there’s a lot of cool stuff that we could do with it.”

Technically speaking, the last game to come out that takes place in the Pillars of Eternity universe was Avowed, which, while not a direct sequel, did help in fleshing out the world of the RPG franchise. The last mainline title in the series was 2018’s Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, which picked things up shortly after the events of the original Pillars of Eternity, with the player character hot on the heels of the same antagonist.

The first Pillars of Eternity, released back in 2015, was the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign. Both it, as well as its sequel, were released on PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. In the meantime, check out our review of this year’s addition to the franchise – Avowed – which is available on PC and Xbox Series X/S.