Any gamer of color or any culturally sensitive gamer for that matter who’s ever played Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity(2015) will know immediately what I mean from the title. The first game had us running through the Dyrwood across forest, ruins, and cities in order to find an old and deadly “ancient Engwithan Cult” and solve the dangerous “Hollowborn crisis”. In doing this we come to discover much about the mythology, Gods, and current problems of the world Eora. Now I am clear that the ancient Engwithan culture alluded to in the game is a stand in for real world westernized or English based culture and to make this story-line or allegory even more obvious the first game gives us a certain character who is from outside the Dyrwood but whose entire motive in coming there is to explore some ancient Engwithan technology and satisfy his infatuation with their legacy. Add in the old school rpg flavor, the European and Caucasian dominant motifs of chainmail, sword, and board and you get a very clean cut but totally European mythology and presentation for the first Pillars of Eternity game which is sustained in the story’s main villain, it origins, and its ending. I can recall more than a few down with Engwith jokes in one of the final dungeons which reminded me of so much of my own journeys through the halls of fantasy and science fiction.
So how does all this relate to Obsidian’s sequel? Well for good or bad the designers at Obsidian seem to have taken the juxtaposition of western culture and mythology vs non western culture and mythology and used it as the basis for the entire game. In the Deadfire Archipelago we find no large ruins, no redesigned old English words, no westernized cultural backgrounds for the people and populations that dominate the landscape, and an absence of European backgrounds in particular. You can even tell they went that extra mile by making the main people’s of the game brown skinned “Huana” who sail around in boats like pirates and have a society built on caste. Doesn’t stop there, the Huana’s territory is being carved up by powers outside their homeland as they race to rebuild and consolidate what remains of their people after the initial outsider invasions. And to top it off at some point the player character is told by the God’s of Eora like some absent and scheming patriarchal figure “well you’re on your own we’ll see how you do”. Whelp let’s get cracking shall we.
Outside the settings, culture, and mythology the gameplay is slightly improved though atypical of that classic style compared to the first game a day spent sailing around the Deadfire may not have the same “bread, hearth, and butter” as the meaningless days spent running around the Dyrwood. The story has its highs and lows and is a lot more open ended than that featured in the first game largely due their being no set ordering to quest sequence. The absence of a major traditional villain also gives a less urgent feel to the adventure which may be slightly anti-climatic. In the end I would have like to see the player character be able to have more say in deciding the fate of the Archipelago but all in all It’s actually quite inspiring. That the realms of fantasy can find inspiration in sources other than westernized ones is a good thing. Now all Obsidian needs to do is find a peaceful and economically viable way for us colored people to join Magran, Berath and company in using these “ancient machines.”