Obsidian Entertainment confirms Pillars of Eternity II is in development

Obsidian Entertainment’s Pillars of Eternity has gone from a Kickstarter darling to an established franchise.

In an interview with Gamepressure.com, Obsidian chief executive officer Feargus Urquhart confirmed that while the studio has yet to announce a sequel to the 2015 role-playing game hit, it is in active development. Obsidian confirmed this on Twitter as well as in a retweet from a PC Gamer story. The original Pillars of Eternity (one of GamesBeat’s best games of 2015) brought in $3,986,929 on Kickstarter, well over its $1.1 million goal, and it remains the fourth highest campaign for a video game on the crowdfunding site. This announcement also shows that good Kickstarter projects can also have staying power in the $99 billion global gaming market.

Truth! #Here2Eternity https://t.co/V5fl32t1Fh

— Obsidian (@Obsidian) May 17, 2016

GamesBeat contacted an Obsidian spokesperson to ask if lead designer Josh Sawyer is returning to the same role for the project. Pillars of Eternity helped bring back a style of RPG development from the late 1990s, with the top-down “isometric” approach, but it also provided a few innovations, such as how it treats health and armor.

Obsidian is one of the top game studios in role-playing game design circles. It earned its reputation for titles like Fallout: New Vegas, and it also has a second project in the works for publisher Paradox Interactive: Tyranny, which turns the idea of heroes in RPGs in a new direction.

The studio has gone back to Kickstarter for the Pillars of Eternity card game, which raised $239,178 on a campaign with a $30,000 goal.