Josh Sawyer is would have directed the already announced To fall Obsidian game. And even though we don’t know much about what New Vegas And Pillars of Eternity the director will do with the next film created by Obsidian To fall game, it is very likely that you will have to make difficult choices and that you cannot solve every problem with a punch or a lie.
In a new interview with The game examined, Sawyer explained how role-playing games are “at their best” and that players feel “at the center” of all their decisions when they “can control a lot of things”, but more importantly, “can’t control everything”.
“I think I’ve done that in a lot of games I’ve worked on, with varying levels of success or audience reception,” Sawyer admitted in the interview.
“In Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, notably, you can’t stop Eothas,” he said. “Like he’s just going to do what he’s going to do. And we’re kind of telling you point blank, and we’re also trying to tell you that it’s way beyond the physical capacity to do anything.
However, that didn’t stop some players from thinking they could still stop and defeat the powerful divine being. Sawyer says many RPGs have “conditioned” players to assume they can take down any big bad or solve every problem. So when players realize they can’t do that dead fire and can only help make the damage caused by Eothas less severe, some appreciated the limits of their ability to influence the situation, while others probably found it strange that simply defeating this enemy was beyond their abilities.
“Part of that idea was again going against the idea of ’I’m the protagonist, I can literally do anything,'” Sawyer said. “And I was like, well, in a role-playing game, a lot of what we’re good at is making the player sit down and face their choices, which often seem very flawed. That feeling of agony where you feel, I have two things to do that are right and wrong, and I have to decide which one is more important.”
“So many problems are just human problems. They’re part of the reality of life, of being a human being and living on this planet with other people right now. And even in a fantasy world, there will always be powers beyond you. There are things you can’t overwhelm.”
Sawyer pointed out a moment in Obsidian’s Penment and how players must accuse someone of murder. But the player can never truly understand who committed the crime.
“So you understand that this person is going to die and you have to choose someone,” Sawyer explained. “And so you kind of have to do your best. And again, that forces the player to question their own values and ask themselves: Is it most important for me to condemn the person who I think did it? Is it most important for me to condemn the person I don’t like? Is it most important for me to condemn the person who I think the city will miss the least, or love the least, and what is not easy.”
Once players have made this difficult choice, which involved forces beyond their control, Penment requires you to witness the execution, which can often be complicated and gruesome.
“And so a lot of players are like… ‘I wish I hadn’t done that.’ And they just say, “I don’t know if there was a better decision to make here, but I didn’t think it was going to turn out like this.” And it’s like, well, that’s how it happened,” Sawyer said with a smile.
Again, we have no idea what Sawyer reported To fall what the game will look like, when it will arrive, or what it will be about. Still, I think his thoughts on RPGs and the choices they offer are excellent.
Many RPGs, including Bethesda’s, allow you to unlock everything, complete every mission, and solve every problem or stop every bad guy. This can be fun, sure, but it also robs these RPGs of tension and often leads to games that feel devoid of memorable or meaningful moments. This is not the case in games like Pillars of Eternity Or New Vegas or other Obsidian games. In these RPGs, choices can often linger with players for years and years, spawning online debate over which choice was the right one and which was the wrong one. What if Obsidian is To fall the game has a lot of moments like this, I’ll be there from day one.
