Confusion on a third POE?

[Jill7894]

Hi everyone,

So, I was looking up POE 1 information on another forum (I'm making another play through) and I came across this link from November 8th, 2019: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/188915786456/will-there-be-a-pillars-3-that-is-not-something where Josh Sawyer is essentially saying that POE 3 is not being made (right now at least, and the future for it seems grim). Yet, the other day I found this link from September 22nd, 2019: https://wccftech.com/greenberg-pleasantly-surprised-by-how-much-innovation-content-is-coming-from-the-new-studios/ where the "general manager of games marketing at XBOX" was talking about the newly acquired studios and how there's a team currently working on POE. I mean, honestly, I started up another playthrough of POE 1 because it was the first CRPG I ever played, in 2017, and I had no clue what I was doing. I figured that since, according to the September article, they're making POE 3, I might as well do another play through for both POE 1 and 2 so that when POE 3 comes out, they'll likely connect - like how your decisions in POE 1 have effects in POE 2...

What does everyone think of these seemingly conflicting statements?

[Boeroer]

One explanation could be that they are doing a Pillars game, but's it's not an isometric, party based RTwP-game that PoE3 would be.

Maybe a "Skyrim in Eora", maybe a "Battle Brothers of the Eastern Reach" - who knows. 

It is known that Feargus wanted to do a fantasy RPG in the style of Skyrim for some time now. Also, such a game would be better for consoles than PoE/Deadfire were. And given that Obsidian is now producing for Microsoft and Greenberg is the XBox guy...

Just wild guessing though. 

I would welcome that. I liked Skyrim a lot (on my departed PS4).

Edited November 10, 2019 by Boeroer

[Jill7894]

It'd be awesome to have a third person POE, but I would worry about the fate of Obsidian isometric RPGs in that case. I mean, there's other good isometric RPGs, of course, but none of the ones that I've found have either as big of a budget as POE, are turn based (which I hate), or don't have as serious of a tone/art style.

[Wormerine]

What @Boeroer said is very likely. 

Another thing might be, that Josh might simply not be telling all the truth. PoE3 hasn't been announced, and no individual will break the news before official announcement was made. Remember how Swen denied working on Baldur's Gate3, while someone pointed a finger at him? Turns out he wasn't truthful.

[Jill7894]

1 minute ago, Wormerine said:

What @Boeroer said is very likely. 

Another thing might be, that Josh might simply not be telling all the truth. PoE3 hasn't been announced, and no individual will break the news before official announcement was made. Remember how Swen denied working on Baldur's Gate3, while someone pointed a finger at him? Turns out he wasn't truthful.

Lol yeah, I've considered the possibility that the guy from the first article might have prematurely "spilled the beans."

[Boeroer]

I think he did spill some beans. When I (jokingly) advised our new community manager that she can totally tell us forumites what the new pillars game is all about the head of communications stepped in and said "Absolutely NOT!".  

[Wormerine]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

When I (jokingly) advised our new community manager that she can totally tell us forumites what the new pillars game is all about the head of communications stepped in and said "Absolutely NOT!".  

Always target the weakest link. Good try. 

[kanisatha]

Yeah I agree some sort of reboot of the franchise is the most likely outcome, where the new game is set in Eora but is completely separate and different from PoE1&2.

[thelee]

9 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I think he did spill some beans. When I (jokingly) advised our new community manager that she can totally tell us forumites what the new pillars game is all about the head of communications stepped in and said "Absolutely NOT!".  

I'm dubious that any beans were spilt. The quote from that article I've seen before, in an older context - I think they're referring to the skeleton dev team that Pillars had up until the "end of life" notice this past summer.

[Boeroer]

Our hopes and expectahahations: black holes and revelaaaaations...

[Wormerine]

4 hours ago, thelee said:

I'm dubious that any beans were spilt. The quote from that article I've seen before, in an older context - I think they're referring to the skeleton dev team that Pillars had up until the "end of life" notice this past summer.

Another article you mean? This one is from September 2019, while the development of PoE2 finished in May...

[IndiraLightfoot]

I expect PoE3 to have been in development for some time now, and it will prolly be semi-open and still chopped up in a few bigger areas, a bit like Outer Worlds, but larger and more ambitious in scope and choice.

[thelee]

55 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

Another article you mean? This one is from September 2019, while the development of PoE2 finished in May...

yeah, another article. it was from an article talking about the microsoft acquisition, which was nov 2018. it might even be a word-for-word requote, which is games "journalism" at its finest and really blurring the line of when it was talked about.

Edited November 11, 2019 by thelee

[thelee]

found the article from feb 2019: https://www.pcgamer.com/obsidian-has-three-ish-teams-working-on-different-projects/

'Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart had quite a bit to say in a new interview with Game Informer about The Outer Worlds, the Fallout-esque sci-fi RPG the studio is currently working on, and its recent acquisition by Microsoft. He also teased a couple of new things that the studio's "three-ish" development teams are working on, and hinted that even though The Outer Wilds doesn't have a release date yet, Obsidian already has its eyes on a sequel. 

"We have The Outer Worlds team, which is the majority of our development," Urquhart says in the video. "We saw the small group of people that are finishing up in Pillars of Eternity. And then we have two other teams that are starting things up."'

 

i don't expect anything has changed re: pillars dev since then.

Edited November 11, 2019 by thelee

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

It'd be surprising if Eora as an IP was completely abandoned, but it wouldn't surprise me if Deadfire was the end of PoE as an isometric RTwP RPG and new entries were stuff like Eternityrim or Pillars of Original Sin.

[Jill7894]

I doubt that they'd abandon the isometric aspect of it so quickly, as the isometric RPG genre seems to be making a comeback. I think that it's more likely that now that they have Microsoft backing them, the visibility of POEIII in terms of marketing will be substantially increased, they might switch away from the Watcher (which many have suggested and who's story, I think, definitely seems like it's been completed), have turn based (which I hate, but many seem to like for some reason (easier for casuals?)) as an option from the onset, and maybeee add some sort of multiplayer aspect, but Wasteland 3 doesn't seem to be doing the latter so Idk about that.

[Boeroer]

10 hours ago, thelee said:

found the article from feb 2019: https://www.pcgamer.com/obsidian-has-three-ish-teams-working-on-different-projects/

'Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart had quite a bit to say in a new interview with Game Informer about The Outer Worlds, the Fallout-esque sci-fi RPG the studio is currently working on, and its recent acquisition by Microsoft. He also teased a couple of new things that the studio's "three-ish" development teams are working on, and hinted that even though The Outer Wilds doesn't have a release date yet, Obsidian already has its eyes on a sequel. 

"We have The Outer Worlds team, which is the majority of our development," Urquhart says in the video. "We saw the small group of people that are finishing up in Pillars of Eternity. And then we have two other teams that are starting things up."'

i don't expect anything has changed re: pillars dev since then.

Yeah, but that was Feargus speaking half a year before. The interview with Aaron Greenberg is from August or September and issued for November 2019:

"At Obsidian, there's the team working on The Outer Worlds, a team that's working on Pillars, and a team working on another secret thing." 

It doesn't sound like a small team doing cleanup but like active development. Especially because he talked about "exiting new projects" before that.  I also don't think Greenberg would have mentioned it as an example if it wasn't something that's connected to XBox/Microsoft (Deadfire wasn't).

So while it may be that this was some rehashed statement or just confusion on Greenberg's part I doubt it.

Maybe we'll hear something new during X019 in London. It will start on Thursday and several members of Obsidian will attend, including Josh.  

Edited November 12, 2019 by Boeroer

[ABearIsHere]

The Sawyer post is worded vaguely enough that it doesn't explicitly deny that more games in the IP are in the works or that a Pillars of Eternity 3 as an isometric game will never be made.

[daven]

Let's have something new, put this series on the back burner. HARD SCI FI RPG!

Just keep dropping it in hopefully someone will read it and get inspired.

[Insolentius]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Maybe we'll hear something new during X019 in London. It will start on Thursday and several members of Obsidian will attend, including Josh.  

Was this confirmed somewhere?

[Boeroer]

Twitter. They are tweeting about their flights to London etc.