Larian has announced they are developing Divinity: Original Sin 2. Link.
For a very long time we’ve dreamed of making a certain type of RPG. Something even bigger, better, and more engaging than Divinity: Original Sin. Now it might finally be within our reach. But we can’t reach that dream without your help.
A Kickstarter begins on August 26th, and there will be a playable prototype at PAX Prime.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 builds further on the foundations we’ve been laying with Divinity: Original Sin (D: OS), and Divinity: Original Sin – Enhanced Edition (D: OS EE). For us, this allows for an unprecedented focus on the gameplay. We won’t be “losing time” building the elementary systems that typically take up more than 60% of our development time. Instead, we can start building the world immediately and try out all kinds of things… Put simply, if you were to compare what we’re doing to what Bioware did back in the day with Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2, D:OS 2 is to be our Baldur’s Gate 2 — building further on our equivalent of Baldur’s Gate; D:OS.
I think, given the quote you include, Sven makes it pretty clear that they’re keeping all the base systems. Between that and calling it their BGII, I’m pretty sure it’ll stay turn-based.
I skipped the first KS with some hemming and hawing. I’ll be in on this one day one.
I liked the combat system but not necessarily the content they created for the system, so while I backed the first one I think I’ll wait and see on this one.
I hope they make the game a little less lighthearted this time around, and perhaps with less focus on the spell combos which I felt somewhat forced to use in DOS because the damage just wasn’t there otherwise.
Agree about the tone of the story and perhaps even how it was told. It was a little too light for me and I think that’s why I was easily distracted by other games (like Wasteland 2) when they came along. I’ve never gotten back to D:OS to finish it, now onto TW3, and part of the reason is that even with the amount of time I put into D:OS, I don’t remember the plot at all. Unusual for me for that to be the case.
I didn’t back the original, but bought it for nearly full price on GoG well after it was out. I’m not sure I’ll back the second; not because the first wasn’t good (it was), but because I have KS fatigue.
I had a lot of fun with the first one, I don’t see them bumbling up a sequel…unless they consolize the GUI and controls and and… but they won’t, I’m positive.
Are gamers that are attracted to TBS games really demanding these games on consoles? I am just curious; I would have thought the major audience would be PC.
Very small sample, butI know quite a few (6-7) players myself who don’t game on their PC anymore / at all (PC is too old, office not comfy, …) But love those games.
At the very least, it opens a whole new market of potential buyers for the price of a port.
See also MMO’s like Neverwinter or ESO. Or Elite. Console players have no less varied tastes for traditionally PC bound franchises. It seems to pay for devs to open to those millions of players.
From what i saw, this is one of those games where it isn’t really designed for co-op but they tacked it on anyway at the last minute. Tacked on is precisely the right term too (at least for when i played it). They spared every effort when tacking on the co-op mode.
I don’t feel that co-op makes a ton of sense in a party based, turn based rpg. When you add players, you’re literally lowering the actions you as the player take since you’re giving up 50% of your units. The dialog system is also really clunky with multiple actual players. Many times i’d be selling items or exploring and my friend would be talking through the main quest without my knowledge.
A lot of the combat is based on chaining effects. This becomes a pain in the ass when you’re playing with your buddy online because you both have your own plans. Again, playing with a friend does not expand your options, it limits them unless you work together perfectly.
Playing local co-op might mitigate some of these problems though. Divinity is likely never going to be a game that feels like it just has natural co-op. VERY few games are though. Most are just like divinity in that it is tacked on, but generally the genre fits co-op more.
Anyway, playing co-op with a good friend is generally fun, even if the game isn’t well designed for it. I just wish there were more good co-op games.
Co-op is how I played this game to completion, and it was one of the most engaging and enjoyable RPG experiences of all time. If I’d played it just as a straight single-player RPG it wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable (and I DID play that way for several hours until we started over with co-op). Playing, fighting, dueling verbally when one person wants to take the story a different direction (role-playing!), the puzzle solving, it was all WAY more fun and engaging with a buddy.
Own the first but haven’t beaten it. Got distracted by other games as well and now I’m waiting for the directors or whatever version of the game that they are supposedly working on.
I don’t feel that co-op makes a ton of sense in a party based, turn based rpg. When you add players, you’re literally lowering the actions you as the player take since you’re giving up 50% of your units. The dialog system is also really clunky with multiple actual players. Many times i’d be selling items or exploring and my friend would be talking through the main quest without my knowledge.
A lot of the combat is based on chaining effects. This becomes a pain in the ass when you’re playing with your buddy online because you both have your own plans. Again, playing with a friend does not expand your options, it limits them unless you work together perfectly.
When my brother and I first started playing the game in co-op, I was skeptical. In the end, though, we really enjoyed it and completed the entire game together. The difficulty was great for us, because we had many tough fights in which we really had to coordinate our actions. I definitely recommend voice-chat for this, as it made the required planning perfectly viable for us. So I strongly disagree with respect to the combat.
Story and dialogue are a different matter, though. If you really want to keep track of everything that’s going on, you’re better off playing this alone. Personally, I didn’t really mind and was happy to embrace the chaos. We’d frequently mess up the recommended order of areas/quests, which was one of the reasons why some of our fights were really hard. Also, for the life of me, I couldn’t really tell you who betrayed whom over the course of the somewhat convoluted plot. In terms of the writing, I feel this game is no Shadowrun Dragonfall or Witcher 3, so I think it’s perfectly excusable to ignore some of it. That being said, there were numerous quests and characters that really amused us. The game world is definitely full of ideas and atmosphere, and, as a whole, doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Overall, this game is probably one of my favorite co-op games ever! :-)
