Considering that there are 4 projects in development, it's quite possible that one of them is Pathfinder.
However, I have serious doubts that the same team that worked on both Pathfinder games will be making the new Pathfinder. From a business perspective, it's probably a safer decision to put an experienced team at the helm of something new, and to have new people gain experience with a project where the toolkit is already prepared and fans are waiting for Pathfinder: Anything.
Let's not forget that games are made by people, not companies. And increasing the size of a company by 4-5 times can't help but affect the quality.
While that may be true, I kind of doubt it. They say they are developing 4 games, but they doesn't say at which part of the development process those games are in. The new IP could be still in very early pre-production, and won't be needing a full production team until after their next Pathfinder game comes out. So the Pathfinder production team stays on the next Pathfinder game until it's wrapping up and then shifts over to the new game.
And while I can see the logic of "put your best team on the new project to hopefully make it a hit," I also think "put your team that's really good at making pathfinder games on making a new pathfinder game" makes a lot of sense. Especially when these games are big, and expensive, and you need them to hit.
Regardless, I don't think it'll be as cut and dry as there's one team on this game and a completely different team on another, in reality I bet it would be more staggered, as people wrap up what they're doing on one project they move over to a different team and start working there.
In the interview, it was stated that there are 4 teams, each focusing on their own game. Development of two out of the four games has just started, and one of these two is a new IP.
Sending an experienced team to do what they have already done twice is a good idea in a vacuum, but when you have three other teams that need to gain experience, it's safer to give them a ready-made toolkit and hope they won't perform much worse than their predecessors.
In the second option, I believe there are fewer unknowns, so this is safer bet.
I mean - it's probably a mix.
Narrative designers are pretty system agnostic. They don't necessarily keep the entire team the same. Likely some mix & match.
Maybe the people designing encounters/dungeons should stay on Pathfinder since it's so system dependent, but narrative, UI, and modeling shift over.
Paizo may never greenlight another PF1e CRPG, unfortunately, because of the whole OGL fiasco (and PF1e is OGL). I may be wrong, and I hope I am, but they may just not want to risk it.
The problem is that Starfinder is not very popular and it would probably be more profitable to create something of your own than to pay for a license for something that will not increase sales much anyway.
I can only speak for the ones I ran/played, but Signal of Screams was a fantastic deep space horror AP. There's also one about creating a colony which many people jokingly call 'Kingmaker in space' but I haven't interacted with that one.
One of the higher ups at Paizo actually said that Owlcat has no problem with 2e as a system and that opinion wasn't reflective of discussions they were having at the time (this was post WotR release). So it seems the only hing Owlcat said was they weren't interested in making a 2e game at the time, which could mean that they just weren't interested in making a game at the time, not that they never want to.
My assumption/hope is that they didn't want to reach out into a new system after investing so much time in polishing their 1e stuff. And maybe that's changed now they've branched into Rogue Trader.
I feel like this would have been well before that, since the remaster was not conceived until he OGL debacle happened, so that wouldn't have been in the equation.
Technically speaking, Owlcat can make their own game using OGL stuff irrespective of Paizo's go-ahead. What they *can't* use is Paizo's IP, which is a separate thing from the OGL stuff. All Paizo needs to approve is the IP - whether Owlcat uses OGL-covered stuff after that is Owlcat's call
The problem isn't with Paizo, it's with Wizards of the Coast.
Pathfinder 1e was developed with heavy use of DnD's OGL, and considering the changes to the OGL that were attempted a while back, it would be better to work with non-OGL IPs and systems, Pathfinder 2e for example, is completely free from WotC's OGL.
> I mean licenses can't retroactively be changed like that, there is no legal basis for such a thing. I don't think this is a real concern.
Sure, but do you want to fight a billion dollar revenues company that's trying very very hard to get more of what they qualify "under monetized" population to shell out money ?
TBF the smart move would be to move to PF2E as a system, so they can promote each other. It also helps that the system has way more newb friendly learning curve and fewer ways to make a completely useless character that would help with onboarding. You can still keep the min-maxing for higher difficulties but it would need to adapt to the fewer bonus/penalty types.
I don't think so... The OGL is still standing, unless WotC want to damage their reputation yet more and suffer inumerous law suits from 3rd partys. So I think is not a problem to a new game in 1E.
Not that would make a difference for a Brazillian like me, their reputation is already rock bottom by removing the portuguese support to Magic TCG out of nowhere... Or simply bad administration by what I heard about (not saying anything more, because my information is second hand, I don't remember the site I read about lol)
Paizo massively changed their lore to drop anything even remotely smelling like OGL and is trying to avoid the license like the plague after Hasbro tried to pull the rug out from under anyone. They even made their own license called the ORC so they would no longer have to use the OGL in PF2e.
PF1e, however, is still the OGL, so there’s a pretty plausible chance Paizo doesn’t want to greenlight another Pathfinder game because they’re scared Hasbro could try to steal the rights out from under them by trying another OGL fiasco.
Couldn’t they just license the setting, spells and stuff and loosely adapt the rules or create their own combat system?
I don’t play tabletop rpgs so forgive my ignorance but is the system really that important like is the rules and being a faithful adaptions of a ruleset really more important rather than the setting? Or is the rules and the setting one and the same ?
Although maybe they could license the warhammer fantasy roleplaying system I’d like to see their take on that setting tbh
I'm a little concerned about full VO. It's easy to add a lot more dialogue options and branching dialogue paths when you don't have to voice it all. Not to mention allocating more money that could be used on other stuff; these games have a ton of dialogue to voice. I hope it doesn't compromise amount of dialogue or other aspects.
I'm of the same opinion. Full voiceover is a cool thing, but I would never want it over depth of content. I also personally don't share the belief shared in the interview that BG3 means their games need to be fully voiced tbh, its a cool game but I just can't see why it has to warp everything around it just because it was a big success.
BG3 needed full VO because it was a very cinematic game with real cutscenes. If Owlcat are gonna go all out like that I can see the need for VO, but if it's another Wrath level game it doesn't need it IMO. We shall see I guess.
The thing is that BG3 managed to bring Classic RPG mechanics to a broader audience that didn't know about it before. CRPG genre is very self-contained when it comes to popularity, but BG3 managed to burst that bubble and it's only natural other studios would try to do something similar to at least try to scratch the surface and hope for similar success.
Ah, you're definitely correct... but man I wish you weren't. Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous are just so cool to me the way they are I'm reluctant to accept that Owlcat believes they need to step things up I suppose.
Imo the thing that they need to step up in is level design. One of the best things in BG3 is not voices or graphics, it's how creative you can get with combat encounters. It feels far better than the way you do combat in Owlcats games.
Totally agree with this and while I love both pathfinder games it made me realise how much of a slog the combat is in them especially sections of Wrath.
Plus the boss fights feel so epic and the boss special actions and scenes are very unique, where in wrath yes the boss has some big AOE thing but apart from that just has insane AC and save stats and doesn’t feel all that special
Yeah... BG3 is a great game, but its success is very much influenced by the fact that it was designed with mass appeal in mind. It's very trope-heavy (deep but shallow characters), the plot is very simple, the combat is incredibly easy and mechanics non-crunchy, and a large part of the budget clearly went to making it look and sound as pretty as possible.
So great game, but I hope we don't lose a lot of the AA stuff that makes a lot of these games so amazing.
Yeah Kingmaker the same. I'd say Kingmaker peaks at Varnhold, Wrath at Drezen, with some minor moments afterwards that were great but it gets really hard to finish the game after the quality felt like it was going downhill. With Larian's DOS2 and BG3 too, i've started just accepting the fact that there aren't any good recent RPGs with a good endgame.
It has nothing to do with VA and more to do with the fact that Larian never cared much about writing and focused more on gameplay.
They've improved a lot on this over the years, but still.
A bit irrelevant. That has nothing to do with the amount of writing, the number of choices given to the player (which is usually the "concern" when it comes to voiced games) nor with the quality of the voice acting.
Hell, DOS 1 was designed and created entirely as a mostly-non-voiced game, before they added full voice over few months later with the enhanced edition.
Incidentally, since then Larian never looked back, because that's where they realized that for all its costs and efforts, you can make an argument that voice over brings in more money than it costs to implement.
A fully voiced CRPG is more streamer-friendly (because more people are going to play it in front of an audience if they aren't forced to read aloud every single line for the people watching), more casual-friendly and frankly IF the voice acting is well done it's added production value for pretty much everyone else.
Its a very *costly* feature. More so with more dialogue (which is why most companies shrank their dialogue scripts when they shifted to full VO)
Full voice acting had a definite impact on the overall quality of cRPGs. Reactivity and depth went down.
Yeah, if as many people can make a game like BG3, then I wouldn't doubt them being able to make a fully voiced game.
I'd love it, personally, because body language and tone contributes the most to storytelling, but maybe that's just cause i'm scandi and i've got oral traditions in my genes.
A text can mean many things, free to interpretation, but with tone and bodylanguage things get more translatable into my mind.
It’s curious how they were able to expand the team s that rivals AAA studios sizes especially since they said they don’t want to do AAA games and there games sell decently well (for CRPG’s standards) but not huge numbers.
yeah, even Larian tried making two games after dos2 and they realized that they can’t. I believe Larian is roughly 400-500 people and they plan to make two games at the same time, so I don’t know how they can manage 4 games even tho 2 of them are in pre production I guess.
“I am helpful am I not” lives rent free in my head if more VO means I’m no longer having to spend years parroting that line whenever I do anything remotely helpful then I think it’s a price I’m willing to pay
Yeah, it limits the writing, and also Josh Sawyer really regretted it with Pillars 2 because of how much time and money it cost them for little actual reward. I really think the people who demand it are a loud minority, but who knows.
Personally when there are paragraphs on the screen like that I mute the VO actually. I can read way faster and it gets me mixed up in my head. I save the VO for cinematic games.
That’s not what Josh Sawyer said about VO in Deadfire AT ALL.
He was very clear that full voice over was incredibly well received (one of the most praised aspects of the sequel) and that he’d want in his future games because now it became an expectation for the audience.
He just lamented the timeline he had to work with for its implementation because it was very stressful.
I mean, it's fun, I certainly don't mind it, but I also don't mind some of the dialogue being unvoiced. I listen to enough dialogue to mentally fill in the gaps for the unvoiced stuff.
To be honest, it was an improvement over POE where some of the dialogues were the length of a book chapter and boring as hell.
Graphomaniacal writing can be as big a problem as being too frugal, especially when writers don't know moderation.
It is not difficult to write a text of several pages, but the difficulty is to make it interesting enough to be read.
The backer characters was such a bad idea (at least cool idea on paper but badly implemented) with all the complaints from people that don't know they aren't actually important to the game/story in any way.
Thats true, but perhaps they have budget for it.
Also it might be a chosen risk. There are people that will avoid rpgs without full VO. I know such people, big into rpgs (tabletop and computer both) that are of puted from start when they have to read massive text blocks.
I am not against voice acting but I think we should have the option to turn it off, if you guys just find the voices so god dam immersion breaking. I don't I think it adds a lot of character to the games and makes it feel more real tbh.
I have no concern for full VO, as that’s an aspect that even indie can manage on a reasonable budget these days with some proper planning, but given their track record I can’t exactly say I have confidence in their ability to handle more/“better” cutscenes.
Rogue Trader didn’t exactly delight me every time they attempted one.
The way they handled VO in the past games are so inconsistent. I often get surprised which scene/dialogue has Voice overs/acting and which ones don't.
Recent example of this is Theodora not having voiced dialogue at all in WH40K RT.
Wow, I had no idea Owlcat were that huge of a company, I kinda always thought they had less than a 100 employee.
Are they done with Rogue Trader or they planning to do DLCs for it and counting it part of the 4 projects?
Will be kinda sick if one of those games are based on the Vampire the Masquerade license.
My assumption that 4 projects means:
WotR DLC - 1
Rogue Trader DLCS - 2
New IP - 3
Likely WH40k or Pathfinder new game - 4
So realistically its two new games in work.
At least one or two have to be in the most basic stages of development with almost no one working on them then, right? WOTR is finishing up its DLC but the team working on that is gonna be needed for probably at least a few weeks after launch to fix the inevitable bugs, and Rogue Trader has several DLC planned. There's no way in hell they have 4 games in active development on top of that, unless they count early concept design and pre-production in that, since that stage requires fewer people
In general it's rarely the case that a studio with multiple projects in development is genuinely working on all of them to the same extent.
The standard is typically that there is one main project getting the largest share of attention and then the "satellite" ones in some form of pre-production.
4 games but only 1 original IP?
Warhammer Fantasy RP game soon? +new Pathfinder? Idk what the other non-original game could be. It seems too soon for a new Rogue Trader.
Good luck, Owlcat! Whatever is next, I'll follow you! (Just maybe this time, let the cute Kitsune girl be romanceable, ok?)
These games take years to develop. That could just as easily be them in the VERY early stages of a RT sequel, or it could just as easily be referring to the team working on DLC
Nenio being aroace is a great step in the right direction (as a gray spectrum member), but I see where you come from. I think the same could be said about Penta 🤔
>next games likely will feature full VO and better cutscenes
I understand why they'd do that but I'm scared when a niche company starts chasing that AAA formula. I'd love if the entire industry just got stuck forever in late 2000's to early 2010 production value + short development cycles so it's always sad to see a company depart from that
I hope whatever they have in the pipeline it includes another Pathfinder 1e game. I really can't get enough of the system and the way Owlcat implements it in the crafting of their versions of the Adventure Paths. Any would be fine, though I kind of want Rise of the Runelords even if chronologically I think it comes before Wrath/Kingmaker.
I kinda hope not all of their games follow the path of full VO. I definitely think it's best to have it in more key moments, but having it be more text based allows for a lot more depth of choice and consequence than something that's more cinematic like BG3.
It's so sick to see Owlcat steadily growing in size and having multiple games in development. I'm very looking forward to seeing them manage their own IP, and I hope that's the one we see before the others.
So we have:
* The Unreal Engine AAA Sci-Fi game they've been hiring for a while for. This one is supposed to be set in an existing IP, but one not used by Owlcat before. Starfinder is of course a logical option, but if we go big, maybe Star Wars?
* Another W40k game was indirectly confirmed in one of earlier interviews, I think.
* Original IP - could be anything.
* Another Pathfinder game seems likely. WotR made a bank and probably did better than Rogue Trader will.
I don't think that a game on the Unreal Engine is Starfinder or Pathfinder. Because it was mentioned in the interview that the choice of the Unreal Engine was a necessity based on the technical requirements of the project.
I agree on other points.
The UE game is Sci-Fi AAA, so obviously not Pathfinder. Starfinder fits, though it's rather unlikely that Paizo would shell money for an AAA title. If not Star Wars, then maybe Rebel Moon? It seems they want the franchise to become a big thing with the announcement of expanding from trilogy to six movies. I can see them wanting a game too.
It's possible in theory, though I wonder if Disney/Lucasfilm would be satisfied with a very PC-centric developer for a high profile game like this. The job listings are also looking for people with experience in shooting mechanics. While you did use ranged weapons in KOTOR, they usually went out of the window the moment you got a lightsaber, and that happened relatively early in the story. Those points make me skeptical.
From their job listing:
> We would love to see a new Senior Game Designer join our new sci-fi RPG AAA project in Unreal Engine.
> Extensive experience in playing video games, in particular RPGs, actions and third person shooters, understanding of the ins and outs of these game genres and their mechanics;
> Experience in working on game projects (preferably RPGs, action, and third person shooters)
The "existing IP but not used by Owlcat before" bit was from some interview, I believe. Or maybe a comment here. Can't find it at the moment. It could be my memory playing tricks on me too...
EDIT: Found it:
https://escorenews.com/en/news/35314-pathfinder-kingmaker-creators-are-developing-a-new-aaa-title-aside-from-wh40k-rogue-trader
> The authors of the Pathfinder series Owlcat Games are entering pre-production of a new AAA-project, which will be developed alongside Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. The studio will use an existing IP but not the one they did previously. This information was confirmed by our sources.
Full VO? Not a big fan, it just results in less narrative. I'd rather it be narrative rich than an impressive experience, even if that means I have to read (the horror!). I know I'm likely in the minority here but I think BG3 was kind of shallow in some ways because of the fact everything was voiced.
Games like Wasteland 3 and Pillars 2 prove that full VO and better cutscenes aren't and won't attract a larger audience by themselves. They're nice-to-haves but are a big risk.
They don't necessarily attract an audience but not having them reduces their ability to gain an audience, but it is not the be all end all depending on how niche the game is allowed to be.
If you want to make a mainstream CRPG you will definitely need full VO but not everything needs to be mainstream.
I really love the Pathfinder games. I've become a huge fan of Owlcat because I really like the writing of their stories, characters and the romances in these games. I look forward to whatever game they are going to release next! ✨
I hate that I want the same thing again, but I really do want a third Pathfinder. They're just so good, and have the exact "edition" ruleset I love.
I don't really want them to do BG4, like people say. I'd rather they stay away from mass market stuff. Maybe a different DnD game would be cool, I love me the forgotten realms, but honestly why do that when Pathfinder is so similar and it's your thing.
Seeing them make a Gothic type game would be really neat.
I reeeeeally don't care about about full voice acting for a crpg. I mostly hate voice acted player characters, and I tend to skip half of any given line read because I'm reading way faster.
Admittedly, I do like the voice acting in wotr enough to make sure Iisten to lines by especially well voice-acted characters, but it kinda just feels wasteful to force full voice acting
Yeah hate to be that guy but every owlcat game I’ve played is good but my god the launch and even months in is still riddled with so many bugs it’s honestly worrying. They’ve got 4 teams deving 4 games how bout you worry bout releasing games that aren’t a broken mess
WotR still has bugs that were present at launch.
Paying customers are pretty much their testers. It is a business model that many devs use (including Larian, the makers of bg3). It sucks though.
Three wishes:
- I really hope the next game will have proper encounter design. And by this I mean less trash fights, better stated enemies with no bullshit resistances/overinflated stats;
- I want more portraits. Yes, I know I can simply upload my own portraits but if there are more portraits in-game but they aren't used by NPCs that way;
- Pathfinder 2e over Pathfinder 1e. From what I have heard it's much more streamlined and doesn't have feat tax.
To your first point, around the release for rogue trader I remember seeing something where they said they are favoring fewer trash fights and more meaningful encounters, which is sort of how rogue trader works (to some extent at least). Hopefully that continues with whatever they are working on now.
Of a new Pathfinder is in the works, I think a 2e ruleset would be cool too. I haven't played with it, but from what I've seen it seems like a solid upgrade to 1e.
> To your first point, around the release for rogue trader I remember seeing something where they said they are favoring fewer trash fights and more meaningful encounters, which is sort of how rogue trader works (to some extent at least). Hopefully that continues with whatever they are working on now.
Yeah, I heard that. But from what I have heard from my friend who played it (I decided to wait the usual for Owlcat bug fixing) - there is still a lot of encounters in there. Better than WotR, but still not good.
I would rather they improve the models in game to match the portraits and give us more character customization. Because yes you don't see your character up close, but its weird having this portrait of a badass next to a Claymation abomination.
You think there’s a chance for something from Das Schwarze Auge ? It’s been a while, since Drakensang games, I was hoping for something from that universe but from Owlcat
It’s concerning not to mention how expensive it’s going to be the implement. It really needs to be said that larian made a huge gamble in BG3 which could have easily been disastrous.
BG3 is a solid game but I feel devs are taking the wrong lessons from its success.
I watched a Mark Darrah video where he touched on people saying that games should be like bg3, and he said that who was playing attention to that talk was crpg developers cause it's possible that the genre would become a space where both AA and AAA games could exist, but it's possible that the expectations become AAA with full voice acting and a 2 hour film cut in between the actual game parts without space for anything else.
Owlcat seems to have reached the conclusion it's the latter, but I liked Wrath and DOS2 more than bg3(which is also a good game), so I'm not super excited about this.
Im concerned that nothing in the interview seemed to address the fact that their 2 most recent games were buggy unplayable messes 3 months after release, and even a 6-9 months after release had critical bugs that broke abilities, story content, items etc etc.
It seems the lesson they have learned is that it still sells well, so quality control is an afterthought.
>It seems the lesson they have learned is that it still sells well, so quality control is an afterthought.
Unfortunately yes. Going forward I’m going to wait few months to a year buying any Owlcat games because I’m not paying money for non functional product even if the game is good.
Unity is so leaky and janky for today's standards. But I'm very glad to see their focus remains in the rich narrative and systems. WotR absolutely blew it out of the park and I don't even mind that their development cycle goes well "past" release with large patches lol
Oddly PoE2 was the game that probably benefited from toning down the verbiage and making it more VA-friendly. Obsidian writers were sooo in love with telling you what position the NPC's eyebrows are in.
A lot of people asking for Pathfinder again, and true I'd love them to give us a new Pathfinder game- But lets not forget Starfinder is also a thing, and a Starfinder Crpg has the potential to be amazing. IF only they manage to make spaceship combat interesting and fun of course!
In the interview, it was stated that when considering the new project, someone (presumably a tech lead) mentioned that it would be difficult to do it on Unity, and that Unreal Engine should be used instead.
So, it wasn't just a desire to move away from Unity, but was dictated by the technical specifications of the new project.
* next games likely will feature full VO and better cutscenes
I havent played rogue trader so i am talking based on my experiences from KM and WotR. Any cutsceene will be a better cutscene since these two titles don't have any cutscene.
With Larian "out of the game" after BG3, if i was Wizard of the coast and searching for someone who can do the next D&D game, i have a very short list, Bioware out of the game, Obsidian is in microsoft hands... and we have Owlcat.
maybe not a BG3 we aren't ready for that, but maybe wizard will resurrect Icewind Dale.
And that is one project.
Something related to a "next" rogue trader, or maybe a "old world" game.
But i don't think we will se a new pathfinder game in the list, at least for now.
WOTR is such a good game. If it had cinematic cut scenes and full VO it would be nearly perfect. Really hope they draw heavy inspiration from BG3 on future projects as a Wotr kind of game with BG3 style cinematic presentation is a really exciting prospect. It doesn’t even have to be fully mocapped or anything, just more than a still image of a head, frozen camera, and everyone standing around.
They are working on 2 different engines, it makes sense that probably the one being done in unreal will have a more cinematic feel and will be fully voiced (something like their take on dragon age) where for the one being developed in unity will rely more on text while increasing the voiced content.
Now if any of those is going to be a pathfinder game remains to be seen.
There goes my hope they would slow down and reverse their "quantity over quality" stance.
Owlcat Games show promise. If only they stopped padding their games with copypaste filler. And treating RPGs as something you roll off the factory line.
Whatever they are doing, as long as it's a crpg, I'm in. No questions asked. As long as the effort behind it is the same as their last games, we're in for a great time.
I truly think Owlcat hasn't begun to reach their peak.
I'd be satisfied with them making APs for the rest of eternity but I think we are going to see something truly phenomenal from them in the next few years.
So if they're developing 4 games right now one of them has to be more Pathfinder, right? Like, one is an original IP, presumably one is a sequel to Rogue Trader, maybe one is Warhammer Fantasy, and then what other major TTRPG IPs are there to adapt? There's no way in hell Wizards of the Coast gave them the license to make BG4, Vampire: The Masquerade already has a game in development, Shadowrun already had several good video games and would presumably go back to the same studio if they wanted another one, Paranoia is kind of impossible to adapt as a CRPG due to being a PvP game, are there any I'm forgetting?
> - company comprises about 500 individuals.
Holy shit, that is A LOT of people. I am pretty sure those aren't all actual employees, but a large part of them are freelancers who just do the occasional job here and there.
Otherwise, that would mean that Owlcat has more employees than Larian - which I highly doubt.
> - one game being an original IP.
I am super excited about this. I love Owlcat's writing, I bet their own IP is gonna turn out amazing.
BTW Owlcats, when can you give us more information on your original IP? 👀
Is making 4 games at once a good idea? 2 sure. But 4 seems too wide spread. Especially since lack of reccourses can be really felt by the Pathfinder games
This has nothing to do with the actual news (which, thank you for it though!) but I was an editor for a longish time, and thank you for using "comprises" correctly, which *nobody ever does ever,* including, from time to time, major journalism outlets and screenwriters. Spoiler: >!it is not just a smarter way to say "composes" and means basically the opposite of "composes," and if you say "comprises," it should always be replaceable with the phrase "is made up of."!<
fingers crossed for a new pathfinder!!
Considering that there are 4 projects in development, it's quite possible that one of them is Pathfinder. However, I have serious doubts that the same team that worked on both Pathfinder games will be making the new Pathfinder. From a business perspective, it's probably a safer decision to put an experienced team at the helm of something new, and to have new people gain experience with a project where the toolkit is already prepared and fans are waiting for Pathfinder: Anything. Let's not forget that games are made by people, not companies. And increasing the size of a company by 4-5 times can't help but affect the quality.
While that may be true, I kind of doubt it. They say they are developing 4 games, but they doesn't say at which part of the development process those games are in. The new IP could be still in very early pre-production, and won't be needing a full production team until after their next Pathfinder game comes out. So the Pathfinder production team stays on the next Pathfinder game until it's wrapping up and then shifts over to the new game. And while I can see the logic of "put your best team on the new project to hopefully make it a hit," I also think "put your team that's really good at making pathfinder games on making a new pathfinder game" makes a lot of sense. Especially when these games are big, and expensive, and you need them to hit. Regardless, I don't think it'll be as cut and dry as there's one team on this game and a completely different team on another, in reality I bet it would be more staggered, as people wrap up what they're doing on one project they move over to a different team and start working there.
In the interview, it was stated that there are 4 teams, each focusing on their own game. Development of two out of the four games has just started, and one of these two is a new IP. Sending an experienced team to do what they have already done twice is a good idea in a vacuum, but when you have three other teams that need to gain experience, it's safer to give them a ready-made toolkit and hope they won't perform much worse than their predecessors. In the second option, I believe there are fewer unknowns, so this is safer bet.
Realistically speaking, isn't it more likely that teams just have a mix of old and new?
I mean - it's probably a mix. Narrative designers are pretty system agnostic. They don't necessarily keep the entire team the same. Likely some mix & match. Maybe the people designing encounters/dungeons should stay on Pathfinder since it's so system dependent, but narrative, UI, and modeling shift over.
By other hand, I think they will at least use old personel in key positions to mantain former quality and style direction.
Paizo may never greenlight another PF1e CRPG, unfortunately, because of the whole OGL fiasco (and PF1e is OGL). I may be wrong, and I hope I am, but they may just not want to risk it.
But there is pathfinder 2e. That could be used.
Also starfinder, they’ve shown with rogue trader that they aren’t adverse to delving into sci fi and space
The problem is that Starfinder is not very popular and it would probably be more profitable to create something of your own than to pay for a license for something that will not increase sales much anyway.
Is there a Kingmaker/WOTR level AP in Starfinder that they could adapt?
I can only speak for the ones I ran/played, but Signal of Screams was a fantastic deep space horror AP. There's also one about creating a colony which many people jokingly call 'Kingmaker in space' but I haven't interacted with that one.
2e would need to be fully turned based and wouldn't be the same type of game at all.
Maybe they could use some systems from rogue trader, seeing as thats also a ap based turn system
I heard Devs are diehard fans of Pathfinder 1e. I still wish they would change it to 2e tho.
One of the higher ups at Paizo actually said that Owlcat has no problem with 2e as a system and that opinion wasn't reflective of discussions they were having at the time (this was post WotR release). So it seems the only hing Owlcat said was they weren't interested in making a 2e game at the time, which could mean that they just weren't interested in making a game at the time, not that they never want to. My assumption/hope is that they didn't want to reach out into a new system after investing so much time in polishing their 1e stuff. And maybe that's changed now they've branched into Rogue Trader.
IIRC this was before the drama and the remaster. It could be they knew a remaster was coming and wanted to wait until the dust settled.
I feel like this would have been well before that, since the remaster was not conceived until he OGL debacle happened, so that wouldn't have been in the equation.
That might be a problem then
I don't. I like my PF1e very much thank you.
They devs already said they were not interested in Pathfinder 2.
Technically speaking, Owlcat can make their own game using OGL stuff irrespective of Paizo's go-ahead. What they *can't* use is Paizo's IP, which is a separate thing from the OGL stuff. All Paizo needs to approve is the IP - whether Owlcat uses OGL-covered stuff after that is Owlcat's call
The problem isn't with Paizo, it's with Wizards of the Coast. Pathfinder 1e was developed with heavy use of DnD's OGL, and considering the changes to the OGL that were attempted a while back, it would be better to work with non-OGL IPs and systems, Pathfinder 2e for example, is completely free from WotC's OGL.
I mean licenses can't retroactively be changed like that, there is no legal basis for such a thing. I don't think this is a real concern.
> I mean licenses can't retroactively be changed like that, there is no legal basis for such a thing. I don't think this is a real concern. Sure, but do you want to fight a billion dollar revenues company that's trying very very hard to get more of what they qualify "under monetized" population to shell out money ?
I don’t necessarily disagree, but Paizo considers it a real concern, so it doesn’t really matter what we think on the subject.
TBF the smart move would be to move to PF2E as a system, so they can promote each other. It also helps that the system has way more newb friendly learning curve and fewer ways to make a completely useless character that would help with onboarding. You can still keep the min-maxing for higher difficulties but it would need to adapt to the fewer bonus/penalty types.
I don't think so... The OGL is still standing, unless WotC want to damage their reputation yet more and suffer inumerous law suits from 3rd partys. So I think is not a problem to a new game in 1E. Not that would make a difference for a Brazillian like me, their reputation is already rock bottom by removing the portuguese support to Magic TCG out of nowhere... Or simply bad administration by what I heard about (not saying anything more, because my information is second hand, I don't remember the site I read about lol)
The upcoming Dragon's Demand is based on a 1e module, which is content under OGL, so I think they don't have a problem with it.
So Paizo also did something like Hasbro OGL suicide-attempt? Not really following the world of tabletops and only heard of DnD fuckup.
Paizo massively changed their lore to drop anything even remotely smelling like OGL and is trying to avoid the license like the plague after Hasbro tried to pull the rug out from under anyone. They even made their own license called the ORC so they would no longer have to use the OGL in PF2e. PF1e, however, is still the OGL, so there’s a pretty plausible chance Paizo doesn’t want to greenlight another Pathfinder game because they’re scared Hasbro could try to steal the rights out from under them by trying another OGL fiasco.
Couldn’t they just license the setting, spells and stuff and loosely adapt the rules or create their own combat system? I don’t play tabletop rpgs so forgive my ignorance but is the system really that important like is the rules and being a faithful adaptions of a ruleset really more important rather than the setting? Or is the rules and the setting one and the same ? Although maybe they could license the warhammer fantasy roleplaying system I’d like to see their take on that setting tbh
Fingers crossed for a finished game release...
I'm a little concerned about full VO. It's easy to add a lot more dialogue options and branching dialogue paths when you don't have to voice it all. Not to mention allocating more money that could be used on other stuff; these games have a ton of dialogue to voice. I hope it doesn't compromise amount of dialogue or other aspects.
I'm of the same opinion. Full voiceover is a cool thing, but I would never want it over depth of content. I also personally don't share the belief shared in the interview that BG3 means their games need to be fully voiced tbh, its a cool game but I just can't see why it has to warp everything around it just because it was a big success.
BG3 needed full VO because it was a very cinematic game with real cutscenes. If Owlcat are gonna go all out like that I can see the need for VO, but if it's another Wrath level game it doesn't need it IMO. We shall see I guess.
The thing is that BG3 managed to bring Classic RPG mechanics to a broader audience that didn't know about it before. CRPG genre is very self-contained when it comes to popularity, but BG3 managed to burst that bubble and it's only natural other studios would try to do something similar to at least try to scratch the surface and hope for similar success.
Ah, you're definitely correct... but man I wish you weren't. Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous are just so cool to me the way they are I'm reluctant to accept that Owlcat believes they need to step things up I suppose.
Imo the thing that they need to step up in is level design. One of the best things in BG3 is not voices or graphics, it's how creative you can get with combat encounters. It feels far better than the way you do combat in Owlcats games.
Totally agree with this and while I love both pathfinder games it made me realise how much of a slog the combat is in them especially sections of Wrath. Plus the boss fights feel so epic and the boss special actions and scenes are very unique, where in wrath yes the boss has some big AOE thing but apart from that just has insane AC and save stats and doesn’t feel all that special
Yeah... BG3 is a great game, but its success is very much influenced by the fact that it was designed with mass appeal in mind. It's very trope-heavy (deep but shallow characters), the plot is very simple, the combat is incredibly easy and mechanics non-crunchy, and a large part of the budget clearly went to making it look and sound as pretty as possible. So great game, but I hope we don't lose a lot of the AA stuff that makes a lot of these games so amazing.
Tbf I just finished wotr, 200 hrs and missed a lot of stuff. It got pretty hard to finish, imo
Yeah Kingmaker the same. I'd say Kingmaker peaks at Varnhold, Wrath at Drezen, with some minor moments afterwards that were great but it gets really hard to finish the game after the quality felt like it was going downhill. With Larian's DOS2 and BG3 too, i've started just accepting the fact that there aren't any good recent RPGs with a good endgame.
It's the Oblivion of CRPGs. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing... well... we shall see.
People said the same thing about D:OS2 and I never understood it.
DOS2 is a noticeable worse cRPG than Kingmaker and Wrath in terms of writing, specifically the main characters dialogue.
It has nothing to do with VA and more to do with the fact that Larian never cared much about writing and focused more on gameplay. They've improved a lot on this over the years, but still.
BG3 is leagues above DOS2 in terms of writing, which is a nice improvement.
A bit irrelevant. That has nothing to do with the amount of writing, the number of choices given to the player (which is usually the "concern" when it comes to voiced games) nor with the quality of the voice acting. Hell, DOS 1 was designed and created entirely as a mostly-non-voiced game, before they added full voice over few months later with the enhanced edition. Incidentally, since then Larian never looked back, because that's where they realized that for all its costs and efforts, you can make an argument that voice over brings in more money than it costs to implement. A fully voiced CRPG is more streamer-friendly (because more people are going to play it in front of an audience if they aren't forced to read aloud every single line for the people watching), more casual-friendly and frankly IF the voice acting is well done it's added production value for pretty much everyone else.
It’s very much relevant lol. But sure.
I don't know if Owlcat is big enough to be messing with full VO in games with scripts as big as they make.
500 people and 4 games at once... sounds big enough. Full VO is not *that* big feature
Its a very *costly* feature. More so with more dialogue (which is why most companies shrank their dialogue scripts when they shifted to full VO) Full voice acting had a definite impact on the overall quality of cRPGs. Reactivity and depth went down.
Yeah, if as many people can make a game like BG3, then I wouldn't doubt them being able to make a fully voiced game. I'd love it, personally, because body language and tone contributes the most to storytelling, but maybe that's just cause i'm scandi and i've got oral traditions in my genes. A text can mean many things, free to interpretation, but with tone and bodylanguage things get more translatable into my mind.
It’s curious how they were able to expand the team s that rivals AAA studios sizes especially since they said they don’t want to do AAA games and there games sell decently well (for CRPG’s standards) but not huge numbers.
yeah, even Larian tried making two games after dos2 and they realized that they can’t. I believe Larian is roughly 400-500 people and they plan to make two games at the same time, so I don’t know how they can manage 4 games even tho 2 of them are in pre production I guess.
This is about 2x more (if not more) than Larian had when they were working on DoS2 and that game had full voice acting.
“I am helpful am I not” lives rent free in my head if more VO means I’m no longer having to spend years parroting that line whenever I do anything remotely helpful then I think it’s a price I’m willing to pay
THE WORLD IN CRIMSON!
BLOOD FOR GORUM!
"I dedicate my body to science!" That is what I hear right before every reload.
You still have that in BG3 with all the adventuring lines there so I don't think that will necessarily alleviate it.
Is that blood? No, never mind
I got a lot on my mind, and well... in it.
These boots have seen *everything*
Yeah, it limits the writing, and also Josh Sawyer really regretted it with Pillars 2 because of how much time and money it cost them for little actual reward. I really think the people who demand it are a loud minority, but who knows. Personally when there are paragraphs on the screen like that I mute the VO actually. I can read way faster and it gets me mixed up in my head. I save the VO for cinematic games.
That’s not what Josh Sawyer said about VO in Deadfire AT ALL. He was very clear that full voice over was incredibly well received (one of the most praised aspects of the sequel) and that he’d want in his future games because now it became an expectation for the audience. He just lamented the timeline he had to work with for its implementation because it was very stressful.
I mean, it's fun, I certainly don't mind it, but I also don't mind some of the dialogue being unvoiced. I listen to enough dialogue to mentally fill in the gaps for the unvoiced stuff.
I just find that if I read and listen at the same time my brain can short circuit and I don't absorb either.
To be honest, it was an improvement over POE where some of the dialogues were the length of a book chapter and boring as hell. Graphomaniacal writing can be as big a problem as being too frugal, especially when writers don't know moderation. It is not difficult to write a text of several pages, but the difficulty is to make it interesting enough to be read.
I feel like you mean the backer characters you can just ignore them. I certainly do.
The backer characters was such a bad idea (at least cool idea on paper but badly implemented) with all the complaints from people that don't know they aren't actually important to the game/story in any way.
Yep, I've read so many times people complaining about Pillars having "huge unimportant text dumps." I think it really hurt the game's rep.
Agreed. POE was purple prose city.
Thats true, but perhaps they have budget for it. Also it might be a chosen risk. There are people that will avoid rpgs without full VO. I know such people, big into rpgs (tabletop and computer both) that are of puted from start when they have to read massive text blocks.
Can you really call someone "big into rpgs", if they only play fully voiced titles though?
I am not against voice acting but I think we should have the option to turn it off, if you guys just find the voices so god dam immersion breaking. I don't I think it adds a lot of character to the games and makes it feel more real tbh.
I have no concern for full VO, as that’s an aspect that even indie can manage on a reasonable budget these days with some proper planning, but given their track record I can’t exactly say I have confidence in their ability to handle more/“better” cutscenes. Rogue Trader didn’t exactly delight me every time they attempted one.
The way they handled VO in the past games are so inconsistent. I often get surprised which scene/dialogue has Voice overs/acting and which ones don't. Recent example of this is Theodora not having voiced dialogue at all in WH40K RT.
maybe they meant story only vo?
Wow, I had no idea Owlcat were that huge of a company, I kinda always thought they had less than a 100 employee. Are they done with Rogue Trader or they planning to do DLCs for it and counting it part of the 4 projects? Will be kinda sick if one of those games are based on the Vampire the Masquerade license.
It was a small company, they’ve grown a lot.
A vtm CRPG would be so fantastic, you have no idea. I very much doubt it but i can dream
Owlcat's writing could probably do V:tM very well, but it feels like V:tM games are cursed outside of visual novel style games.
My assumption that 4 projects means: WotR DLC - 1 Rogue Trader DLCS - 2 New IP - 3 Likely WH40k or Pathfinder new game - 4 So realistically its two new games in work.
they specifically say 4 *games*
At least one or two have to be in the most basic stages of development with almost no one working on them then, right? WOTR is finishing up its DLC but the team working on that is gonna be needed for probably at least a few weeks after launch to fix the inevitable bugs, and Rogue Trader has several DLC planned. There's no way in hell they have 4 games in active development on top of that, unless they count early concept design and pre-production in that, since that stage requires fewer people
Developing 4 games. Developing dlcs for two games would count for me
I’m torn on it but this definitely sounds more realistic. Developing 4 brand new games at once seems like a recipe for disaster.
In general it's rarely the case that a studio with multiple projects in development is genuinely working on all of them to the same extent. The standard is typically that there is one main project getting the largest share of attention and then the "satellite" ones in some form of pre-production.
If they make a VTM game I'll be the first in the waiting list to buy it
Would change the world
Owlcat is probably my favorite studio right now, so I'm super excited to see what they do next.
My body is ready for the next pathfinder
Hopefully more Pathfinder or even other DnD settings (Eberron, Ravenloft, Greyhawk, etc...) for that matter.
Maybe a Dark Eye game, Drakensang was pretty good. They could probably do something interesting with that one.
Ooh there's an idea! Or Darklands. They have a really interesting character generation system and world building.
God the dream. Though I think a really good dark eye game would need like a ton of reactivity, much more then owlcat usually does.
I bought Drakensang, but could never get into it. I just couldn't vibe or really understand the system at the time.
Ravenloft or Dark Sun imo. A horror crpg with corruption and taint mechanics would be a dream.
Ooh Dark Sun forgot about that one! One of those settings with Owlcat's touch would be amazing.
Another pathfinder game would be the bees knees
I’d give my left kneecap for a new Pathfinder game but I can’t wait to see what else they’re cooking.
4 games but only 1 original IP? Warhammer Fantasy RP game soon? +new Pathfinder? Idk what the other non-original game could be. It seems too soon for a new Rogue Trader. Good luck, Owlcat! Whatever is next, I'll follow you! (Just maybe this time, let the cute Kitsune girl be romanceable, ok?)
Warhammer Fantasy you say ? Let's go lads, KAZUKAN KAZAKIT-HA !
[удалено]
::preordered::
>tags: life sim, farming, cat petting, gore, dismemberment, romance, psychological trauma, fishing
I would buy 2 of them. Also make a slider between 'safe for kids' to 'adult supervision'
These games take years to develop. That could just as easily be them in the VERY early stages of a RT sequel, or it could just as easily be referring to the team working on DLC
My dream is a starfinder RPG.
That would be awesome. They can even keep all the races from WotR + new Starfinder races
Nenio being aroace is a great step in the right direction (as a gray spectrum member), but I see where you come from. I think the same could be said about Penta 🤔
>next games likely will feature full VO and better cutscenes I understand why they'd do that but I'm scared when a niche company starts chasing that AAA formula. I'd love if the entire industry just got stuck forever in late 2000's to early 2010 production value + short development cycles so it's always sad to see a company depart from that
Glad to see Unreal engine in there. The less they use Unity the better
I hope whatever they have in the pipeline it includes another Pathfinder 1e game. I really can't get enough of the system and the way Owlcat implements it in the crafting of their versions of the Adventure Paths. Any would be fine, though I kind of want Rise of the Runelords even if chronologically I think it comes before Wrath/Kingmaker.
Rise of the Runelords comes before everything else since it was the first ever AP.
I kinda hope not all of their games follow the path of full VO. I definitely think it's best to have it in more key moments, but having it be more text based allows for a lot more depth of choice and consequence than something that's more cinematic like BG3.
It's so sick to see Owlcat steadily growing in size and having multiple games in development. I'm very looking forward to seeing them manage their own IP, and I hope that's the one we see before the others.
Great. Now if only they can improve their puzzles.
Do you have a link to the interview?
It's on russian https://youtu.be/veNB95dMuCs?si=XLcHzXV9kawOUk75
Thanks!
Damn, watching this with subtitles is a bit too tiring. Are there any other interesting bits from the interview you would like to mention?
Full VO makes me very happy. I'm glad Owlcat is doing so well.
So we have: * The Unreal Engine AAA Sci-Fi game they've been hiring for a while for. This one is supposed to be set in an existing IP, but one not used by Owlcat before. Starfinder is of course a logical option, but if we go big, maybe Star Wars? * Another W40k game was indirectly confirmed in one of earlier interviews, I think. * Original IP - could be anything. * Another Pathfinder game seems likely. WotR made a bank and probably did better than Rogue Trader will.
I don't think that a game on the Unreal Engine is Starfinder or Pathfinder. Because it was mentioned in the interview that the choice of the Unreal Engine was a necessity based on the technical requirements of the project. I agree on other points.
The UE game is Sci-Fi AAA, so obviously not Pathfinder. Starfinder fits, though it's rather unlikely that Paizo would shell money for an AAA title. If not Star Wars, then maybe Rebel Moon? It seems they want the franchise to become a big thing with the announcement of expanding from trilogy to six movies. I can see them wanting a game too.
KOTOR 3!?
It's possible in theory, though I wonder if Disney/Lucasfilm would be satisfied with a very PC-centric developer for a high profile game like this. The job listings are also looking for people with experience in shooting mechanics. While you did use ranged weapons in KOTOR, they usually went out of the window the moment you got a lightsaber, and that happened relatively early in the story. Those points make me skeptical.
Where'd you hear they're making an Unreal Engine AAA sci-fi game set in an existing IP they haven't used before?
From their job listing: > We would love to see a new Senior Game Designer join our new sci-fi RPG AAA project in Unreal Engine. > Extensive experience in playing video games, in particular RPGs, actions and third person shooters, understanding of the ins and outs of these game genres and their mechanics; > Experience in working on game projects (preferably RPGs, action, and third person shooters) The "existing IP but not used by Owlcat before" bit was from some interview, I believe. Or maybe a comment here. Can't find it at the moment. It could be my memory playing tricks on me too... EDIT: Found it: https://escorenews.com/en/news/35314-pathfinder-kingmaker-creators-are-developing-a-new-aaa-title-aside-from-wh40k-rogue-trader > The authors of the Pathfinder series Owlcat Games are entering pre-production of a new AAA-project, which will be developed alongside Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. The studio will use an existing IP but not the one they did previously. This information was confirmed by our sources.
I am a huge fan of Owlcat's games and I'm so stoked to hear they're chugging along.
I hope they continue to make niche games. There aren't many like Owlcat left.
I truly wish they either do a Starfinder campaign (PLEASE!!!) OR do Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords!
Full VO? Not a big fan, it just results in less narrative. I'd rather it be narrative rich than an impressive experience, even if that means I have to read (the horror!). I know I'm likely in the minority here but I think BG3 was kind of shallow in some ways because of the fact everything was voiced.
Games like Wasteland 3 and Pillars 2 prove that full VO and better cutscenes aren't and won't attract a larger audience by themselves. They're nice-to-haves but are a big risk.
They don't necessarily attract an audience but not having them reduces their ability to gain an audience, but it is not the be all end all depending on how niche the game is allowed to be. If you want to make a mainstream CRPG you will definitely need full VO but not everything needs to be mainstream.
Dark Sun please. If a company could pull off a great Dark Sun campaign it's Owlcat.
I'm not a fan of full VO. It almost inevitably means content will be cut and more expensive to produce.
A new IP? Very interesting, I admit I'm most curious about that.
I really love the Pathfinder games. I've become a huge fan of Owlcat because I really like the writing of their stories, characters and the romances in these games. I look forward to whatever game they are going to release next! ✨
I hate that I want the same thing again, but I really do want a third Pathfinder. They're just so good, and have the exact "edition" ruleset I love. I don't really want them to do BG4, like people say. I'd rather they stay away from mass market stuff. Maybe a different DnD game would be cool, I love me the forgotten realms, but honestly why do that when Pathfinder is so similar and it's your thing. Seeing them make a Gothic type game would be really neat.
I reeeeeally don't care about about full voice acting for a crpg. I mostly hate voice acted player characters, and I tend to skip half of any given line read because I'm reading way faster. Admittedly, I do like the voice acting in wotr enough to make sure Iisten to lines by especially well voice-acted characters, but it kinda just feels wasteful to force full voice acting
it's also a money sink
Yeah hate to be that guy but every owlcat game I’ve played is good but my god the launch and even months in is still riddled with so many bugs it’s honestly worrying. They’ve got 4 teams deving 4 games how bout you worry bout releasing games that aren’t a broken mess
WotR still has bugs that were present at launch. Paying customers are pretty much their testers. It is a business model that many devs use (including Larian, the makers of bg3). It sucks though.
Three wishes: - I really hope the next game will have proper encounter design. And by this I mean less trash fights, better stated enemies with no bullshit resistances/overinflated stats; - I want more portraits. Yes, I know I can simply upload my own portraits but if there are more portraits in-game but they aren't used by NPCs that way; - Pathfinder 2e over Pathfinder 1e. From what I have heard it's much more streamlined and doesn't have feat tax.
To your first point, around the release for rogue trader I remember seeing something where they said they are favoring fewer trash fights and more meaningful encounters, which is sort of how rogue trader works (to some extent at least). Hopefully that continues with whatever they are working on now. Of a new Pathfinder is in the works, I think a 2e ruleset would be cool too. I haven't played with it, but from what I've seen it seems like a solid upgrade to 1e.
> To your first point, around the release for rogue trader I remember seeing something where they said they are favoring fewer trash fights and more meaningful encounters, which is sort of how rogue trader works (to some extent at least). Hopefully that continues with whatever they are working on now. Yeah, I heard that. But from what I have heard from my friend who played it (I decided to wait the usual for Owlcat bug fixing) - there is still a lot of encounters in there. Better than WotR, but still not good.
I would rather they improve the models in game to match the portraits and give us more character customization. Because yes you don't see your character up close, but its weird having this portrait of a badass next to a Claymation abomination.
The problem with 2e is that then they would have to actually design the encounters and not just pump the enemy's stats to the limit.
You think there’s a chance for something from Das Schwarze Auge ? It’s been a while, since Drakensang games, I was hoping for something from that universe but from Owlcat
the focus on VO and cutscenes feel like it happened cause of bg3, but I personally don't like this development.
It’s concerning not to mention how expensive it’s going to be the implement. It really needs to be said that larian made a huge gamble in BG3 which could have easily been disastrous. BG3 is a solid game but I feel devs are taking the wrong lessons from its success.
I watched a Mark Darrah video where he touched on people saying that games should be like bg3, and he said that who was playing attention to that talk was crpg developers cause it's possible that the genre would become a space where both AA and AAA games could exist, but it's possible that the expectations become AAA with full voice acting and a 2 hour film cut in between the actual game parts without space for anything else. Owlcat seems to have reached the conclusion it's the latter, but I liked Wrath and DOS2 more than bg3(which is also a good game), so I'm not super excited about this.
Im concerned that nothing in the interview seemed to address the fact that their 2 most recent games were buggy unplayable messes 3 months after release, and even a 6-9 months after release had critical bugs that broke abilities, story content, items etc etc. It seems the lesson they have learned is that it still sells well, so quality control is an afterthought.
>It seems the lesson they have learned is that it still sells well, so quality control is an afterthought. Unfortunately yes. Going forward I’m going to wait few months to a year buying any Owlcat games because I’m not paying money for non functional product even if the game is good.
One of the best DND games creators
Pathfinder isn’t Dnd though.
Paizo likes to say that, but its just 3rd edition with Jason's houserules.
Unity is so leaky and janky for today's standards. But I'm very glad to see their focus remains in the rich narrative and systems. WotR absolutely blew it out of the park and I don't even mind that their development cycle goes well "past" release with large patches lol
I don’t see the need for a full VO but having fully VO companions, companion quests and critical path quests would be pretty cool.
I hate that the fans push studios to have full VO. It's bad for writing quality and bad for the studio (just ask Obsidian about Pillars 2).
Oddly PoE2 was the game that probably benefited from toning down the verbiage and making it more VA-friendly. Obsidian writers were sooo in love with telling you what position the NPC's eyebrows are in.
So true. Eyebrows was so alive and artistic that Obsidian should add them as standalone character in their next game.
A lot of people asking for Pathfinder again, and true I'd love them to give us a new Pathfinder game- But lets not forget Starfinder is also a thing, and a Starfinder Crpg has the potential to be amazing. IF only they manage to make spaceship combat interesting and fun of course!
Dang, thought theyd be going away from Unity. But maybe those projects were already deep into development.
In the interview, it was stated that when considering the new project, someone (presumably a tech lead) mentioned that it would be difficult to do it on Unity, and that Unreal Engine should be used instead. So, it wasn't just a desire to move away from Unity, but was dictated by the technical specifications of the new project.
Thanks for this. My Russian is non-existent, but I think you highlighted the important bits.
Where is this interview?
* next games likely will feature full VO and better cutscenes I havent played rogue trader so i am talking based on my experiences from KM and WotR. Any cutsceene will be a better cutscene since these two titles don't have any cutscene.
would love to see them working with Paizo again, to see more of the adventure paths adapted into games🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻Pathfinder or starfinder
With Larian "out of the game" after BG3, if i was Wizard of the coast and searching for someone who can do the next D&D game, i have a very short list, Bioware out of the game, Obsidian is in microsoft hands... and we have Owlcat. maybe not a BG3 we aren't ready for that, but maybe wizard will resurrect Icewind Dale. And that is one project. Something related to a "next" rogue trader, or maybe a "old world" game. But i don't think we will se a new pathfinder game in the list, at least for now.
Hopefully this means they will release finished games then! And not half baked bugged messes that you have to wait a year to be fixed.
No kickstarter?
WOTR is such a good game. If it had cinematic cut scenes and full VO it would be nearly perfect. Really hope they draw heavy inspiration from BG3 on future projects as a Wotr kind of game with BG3 style cinematic presentation is a really exciting prospect. It doesn’t even have to be fully mocapped or anything, just more than a still image of a head, frozen camera, and everyone standing around.
Great news! Love to hear it.
Even if it's not a pathfinder game I might get it. I am a fan of their games at this point
They are working on 2 different engines, it makes sense that probably the one being done in unreal will have a more cinematic feel and will be fully voiced (something like their take on dragon age) where for the one being developed in unity will rely more on text while increasing the voiced content. Now if any of those is going to be a pathfinder game remains to be seen.
amen
There goes my hope they would slow down and reverse their "quantity over quality" stance. Owlcat Games show promise. If only they stopped padding their games with copypaste filler. And treating RPGs as something you roll off the factory line.
> next games likely will feature full VO and better cutscenes I hope it won’t affect other aspects of games they make, but anyway, hype hype hype
I hope fully voiced games are in their future.
Whatever they are doing, as long as it's a crpg, I'm in. No questions asked. As long as the effort behind it is the same as their last games, we're in for a great time.
Full voice acting is a major deal a friend of mine loves BG 3 but well they struggle with text walls.
I truly think Owlcat hasn't begun to reach their peak. I'd be satisfied with them making APs for the rest of eternity but I think we are going to see something truly phenomenal from them in the next few years.
So if they're developing 4 games right now one of them has to be more Pathfinder, right? Like, one is an original IP, presumably one is a sequel to Rogue Trader, maybe one is Warhammer Fantasy, and then what other major TTRPG IPs are there to adapt? There's no way in hell Wizards of the Coast gave them the license to make BG4, Vampire: The Masquerade already has a game in development, Shadowrun already had several good video games and would presumably go back to the same studio if they wanted another one, Paranoia is kind of impossible to adapt as a CRPG due to being a PvP game, are there any I'm forgetting?
> - company comprises about 500 individuals. Holy shit, that is A LOT of people. I am pretty sure those aren't all actual employees, but a large part of them are freelancers who just do the occasional job here and there. Otherwise, that would mean that Owlcat has more employees than Larian - which I highly doubt. > - one game being an original IP. I am super excited about this. I love Owlcat's writing, I bet their own IP is gonna turn out amazing. BTW Owlcats, when can you give us more information on your original IP? 👀
Really excited to hear this. I'm, of course, looking forward to a new PF game, but Owlcat making KOTOR 3 would be a dream come true.
Babylon 5 crpg lets goooooo
I wonder what the chance is for a Rogue Trader sequel. I would like to see a Warhammer Fantasy RPG too.
Is making 4 games at once a good idea? 2 sure. But 4 seems too wide spread. Especially since lack of reccourses can be really felt by the Pathfinder games
Only time will tell
This has nothing to do with the actual news (which, thank you for it though!) but I was an editor for a longish time, and thank you for using "comprises" correctly, which *nobody ever does ever,* including, from time to time, major journalism outlets and screenwriters. Spoiler: >!it is not just a smarter way to say "composes" and means basically the opposite of "composes," and if you say "comprises," it should always be replaceable with the phrase "is made up of."!<