Obsidian isn't Sure How to Make Pillars of Eternity 3, if at All

With the release of The Outer Worlds, Obsidian has pretty much cemented itself as the new king of RPGs, surpassing Bethesda and Bioware as the best source for story-heavy gameplay that’s just as much reading comprehension as it is bashing up bad guys. But while they probably deserve a few victory laps, one thing that’s on everyone’s mind is if Obsidian will be using this new success to revisit many of their other famous RPG series – specifically for the purpose of this story, Pillars of Eternity.

Josh Sawyer, a designer for Obsidian who worked on Neverwinter Nights and directed Fallout: New Vegas and the Pillars of Eternity series, was recently asked that question on his Tumblr. The answer, it seems, is complicated.

“That is not something that I get to decide, but I do think that the relatively low sales of Deadfire mean that if we consider making another Pillars game in this style, we’re going to have to re-examine the entire format of the game.

It is difficult to know exactly why a sequel sells worse than its predecessor if both games review relatively well. Is it because the first game satisfied the existing need and the audience just wasn’t interested in the second? Is it because awareness was lower for the sequel? Is it because despite the strong reviews and the strong sales for the first game, people didn’t “really” like it? Maybe it’s a combination of all of these things.

The problem is that without really understanding the reason(s), it’s hard to know how to move forward.”

It’s not often you see developers talking so frankly about the decision-making behind why certain games get sequels and some don’t. I can’t say it’s exactly surprising that “sales” is the reason, but “we can’t figure out why sales weren’t as great for the second one” is more specific and equally interesting.

The Outer Worlds, meanwhile, almost definitely has a sequel in the works.