Individually, each questline is magnificently told: the characters, even minor NPCs, are full of personality and history the plentiful dialogue is superbly written the storylines are captivating and never feel like busywork. With that comes a detrimental impact on pacing for the main narrative. ![]() To go back to that Fort Joy example, I spent hours bumbling around, just trying to keep track of who was who and what was what, and figure out how I could achieve the vague main quest goal of escaping the camp. The trade-off is that the sheer amount of choice can be overwhelming, and it’s easy to get lost in the detail without any clear way forward. You could play the game 100 different times and see things play out 100 different ways, even when the main plot beats remain the same. On top of that, there are the complexities of the different characters who can (optionally) join your party, and how they get along with you and with one another. On top of that, there are plenty of sidequests, many of which may or may not be available based on your previous decisions, or may change in some way. Such choices are available every step of the way through Divinity: Original Sin II. Help a certain someone in the prison camp, and they’ll clue you in on a secret passageway into the fort from there, you might let yourself out by lowering and crossing a drawbridge-something easier said than done. You might sneak in with the help of the very useful Teleportation Gloves, and then sneak out again (or fight your way out) by way of the fort’s docks. You might gain a key to the fort as a reward for helping a sympathetic Divine Order Magister find her father, and then fight your way out through the fort’s dungeons. ![]() That requires first breaking into the fort proper, and then safely getting out the other side-with some half-dozen means of achieving each goal. Sooner or later, you have to escape from the Fort Joy prison encampment in order to advance the main story (though you could spend more than a few hours completing all the quests within the camp, if you’re so inclined). The major plot points remain the same, but the range of options for getting from one to the next is extensive-before you even get to the layers that party composition. After an initial ship-board tutorial level, Divinity: Original Sin II leaves you stranded on the shores of Fort Joy, and from there it’s largely up to you how you make your way through the game. ![]() How you get there, though, is perhaps the far more interesting part. As is often the case for computer RPGs, Divinity: Original Sin II takes you on a twisting, turning journey through a fantasy world where good and evil are far from set in stone, and nobody is quite what it seems. In truth, the Divine Order has far more sinister plans, and so it is that you and a bunch of other Sourcerers find yourselves trapped on a ship, destined for the ironically-named island prison, Fort Joy.įrom there, things inevitably spiral out of control, as gods get involved and you’re revealed to be a chosen one-the “Godwoken”. Sourcerers are feared and maligned in the world of Rivellon as a result, and the ruling Divine Order makes a habit of capturing Sourcerers in an effort to “cure” them of their powers-thus the Source-muting collar around your neck. ![]() You’re a “Sourcerer”: a being able to wield powerful Source magic and, as a result, is a sort of magnet for monstrous “Voidwoken” creatures. The game begins with you-as either a character of your own creation, or one of a handful of pre-made ones with their own established backstories-trapped inside a ship, with a strange collar around your neck. I’m not convinced that it’s one of the greatest RPGs of all time, as many have suggested, but it delivers on an ambitious goal remarkably well: to create an open-ended but narratively rich role-playing experience, where there’s myriad paths before you yet each feels like it could be its own standalone game. Divinity: Original Sin II is a very good game.
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