Divinity: Original Sin 2 Preview & Interview - Perfecting an Already Great Game

Larian Studios is finally going big with Divinity: Original Sin 2, subsequently the success enjoyed with the commencement game. The Belgian developer found its breakout game with Original Sin and now RPG fans are very much looking frontward to the sequel, which received over twice as much in crowdfunding via Kickstarter.

At Gamescom 2022, the developer presented some of Divinity: Original Sin 2's new features. Offset of all, character creation is now set to exist much deeper cheers to the power to choose different races such as elf, dwarf, lizard, undead and of form human.

This volition determine how NPCs in the world react to your player character, but at that place are also racial skills and talents to consider. For case, if you pick an elf you'll get Corpse Eater - anyone in the game tin swallow corpses, merely they'll just get sick unless they are elves. This race is not merely able to heal past eating corpses, but they can also sometimes remember something about the dead person and fifty-fifty possibly inherit i of their skills, such as a magical spell.

During character creation you may also cull a musical instrument, which will dynamically alter the musical score during your game, for example when you score a critical hit.

Going back to how the world reacts to your character, Divinity: Original Sin ii adds a tag arrangement. For instance, you could choose two tags similar outlaw hero (if yous dig the Robin Hood archetype) or even noble villain.

The biggest add-on in character creation may just be the ability to pick an origin story, though. This was added by Larian to address a specific critique oftentimes brought upon the previous game.

While players tin can still decide to accept a generic background and roleplay their grapheme, the origin stories will add a personal quest. For instance, Lohse has been possessed by a demon which volition sometimes emerge and force her to say or practice things; the Cherry-red Prince was supposed to exist the side by side emperor of the lizard land, but he was framed and kicked out, then he's eager to right this wrong and repossess his throne; Sybille is an elf who was a slave to lizards, rebelled and ate her masters. This allowed her to remember other lizards who take elf slaves and she decided to tattoo their names on her body, setting along on a quest to kill them all.

What'due south more, in case you go with the generic background you'll still find NPCs with those origin stories in the globe. You lot may choose to ignore them, impale them or add them to your party; if you ignore them, they'll progress in their personal quests on their own.

Divinity: Original Sin 2's Early Access release, due in ten days from at present, volition throw player characters in a rather thorny state of affairs: as Source wielders, they are amidst those imprisoned by Bishop Alexander on the island of Fort Joy. That's because creatures from the Void are being attracted by the Source and Bishop Alexander thinks he can find a cure, once all Source wielders are confined on the island. Except the Source isn't something to be cured of...

In the very beginning of the game, it will exist rather hard to find useful items (simply there's a black market place somewhere on the island). Of course, the main goal is to remove the Source collar (which blocks your graphic symbol's powers) and escape the island; there will exist multiple ways to do that.

During the presentation, a dialogue between the right hand of Bishop Alexander and a soldier was showcased. The soldier, believed to be helping prisoners escape the isle, is questioned and ultimately executed. At that betoken, we can pick upwards the soldier'southward severed limbs and consume them (if our character is an elf) or wait for an elf that would consume them; by doing so, we'd learn that the soldier was really helping prisoners and thus we'd receive a hint towards a possible escape route.

Finally, the folks from Larian antiseptic that the engine as well received a significant overhaul thanks to the introduction of PBR, higher texture quality, material simulation, improved blitheness and particle effects systems.

Later the presentation, we were able to ask a few questions to Executive Producer David Walgrave.

During the presentation, you said that the writing team has increased in size.

Yes. The starting time game was written by two writers, merely one took a really long Holiday and so I usually say it was written past one.5 writers. Nosotros now have viii writers. Only like I said during the presentation, I besides believe in quality over quantity, only the manner we are working now with the origin stories makes information technology piece of cake to distribute these guys over the origin stories. We have a couple of writers taking care of the master story while the rest assist on the origin stories, but they all criticize each other'south work which as well helps.

I know you said that it'south non most quantity, but with the additional writers can nosotros expect a larger game in Divinity: Original SIn 2?

I don't recollect information technology's a longer game. It'south approximately the same size, only there is more content. In just one playthrough, you lot volition feel just one story. At present, when you restart the game you can get different stories too.

So we can say that the game is more replayable than the kickoff one.

Yep! Most certainly.

When Divinity: Original Sin first launched it didn't have any phonation acting, but you added that with the Enhanced Edition. Divinity: Original Sin 2 won't accept voice acting, merely are yous planning to add it once again with another Enhanced Edition?

We don't know even so if it's doable, because there's now and so much written content, there are so many words. Information technology might have a long fourth dimension, be very expensive...We need to decide this, but starting time we demand to have numbers. We are going to crunch numbers, not only for vocalization recording simply besides for localization. Translating a complex RPG similar this is non about translating 100K words, the previous game was well-nigh half a 1000000 words.

Information technology's not just about costs, it'southward likewise about what you make it return and how long it takes. Nosotros desire to release everything at once if possible, there are indeed some things that we need to decide on.

In the Kickstarter campaign you also mentioned an improved dialogue system, can you aggrandize on that?

What we meant is the tool that we use in-business firm to make dialogues has been improved. Information technology'due south now more user friendly, which volition too help modders since nosotros'll still have modding tools and you can nonetheless create your own RPGs with the editor. Information technology'll be easier to create dialogues with information technology.

Nosotros also introduced the tag organisation to dialogues, which improved it immensely.

Y'all talked about some of the tech improvements during the presentation. Are yous going to support DirectX 12 or Vulkan?

Nosotros're at present running on DX11, but our graphics programmer is indeed looking into those technologies.

Of grade, you released the Enhanced Edition on consoles equally well and I bet in that location are a lot of console gamers interested in Divinity: Original Sin two. Is that something y'all'll be making afterwards the PC launch?

Yeah, we're focusing on releasing on PC offset. And that means making information technology run on PC, making the user interface for mouse & keyboard...Once we've washed that and nosotros're happy with the game, we'll start looking at user interfaces that back up a controller, exist it for PlayStation or Xbox or if only to be able to add controller support on PC.

Nosotros'll await into consoles after the game is done.

So there won't exist controller back up on PC at first?

Not initially, no.

Cheers for your time.