Please let Pillars Of Eternity's surprise turn-based mode spark a wave of turn-based updates for all other games
Obsidian are seeking playtesters for it in the "near future"
Pillars Of Eternity turns 10 years old this week, and developers Obsidian are celebrating with a patch that "addresses a wide range of fixes and improvements across visuals, combat, quests, and more". Oh, and they've also announced plans to give the real-time-with-pausing RPG a turn-based combat mode, much as they did for the sequel Pillars Of Eternity 2: Deadfire in 2019.
What did you get for your 10th birthday? If it wasn't a turn-based combat mode, then your parents officially love you less than Obsidian does Pillars Of Eternity. You might want to bring that up at the next family gathering. I'm already texting my dad.
The forum post revealing all this shares little about how the new turn-based system will work, but I think we can all agree that developers should capriciously add turn-based modes to games more often. I, for one, hope to see more development teams digging up ancient real-time games and sadistically grafting on initiative stats and order bars, like Frankenstein wannabes going through a Clockwork phase.
Imagine if instead of a bunch of cannabis-skinned AK47s and seemingly AI-generated anime women, the next Call Of Duty content plop transformed Warzone into Final Fantasy Tactics. Imagine if Street Fighter had a dual-turn system derived from deckbuilders, with players queuing up attacks simultaneously. (This has been done, yes? Surely it's been done. One of the Puzzle Fighter variants, perhaps.)
With hand on heart, I cannot think of a real-time game I wouldn't love to rediscover as a turn-based game - it worked out wonderfully for Gears Of War. Admittedly, this is partly because I am very elderly for a games journalist and now fear and despise any game that expects me to outmaneouvre anything faster than a soap bubble.
The other positive here, I guess, is that it's a smidgeon of reassurance for people who worry that the Pillars universe will be first-person real-time from here on out, given the apparent success of Avowed. Perhaps Avowed will get a turn-based mode next? Something in the vein of Sega's Valkyria Chronicles, perhaps? Anyway, Obsidian will be soliciting playtesters for their new mode "in the near future". As for that new patch, the full changelog is here.