Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition

You lead a customizable party of adventurers from an overhead view through the original world of Eora, pausing real-time combat whenever you need to reposition characters or queue up spells and abilities. Fights ask you to manage six party members at once, watching things like which enemies are attacking your fragile spellcasters and when to use limited-use abilities, and the game explains its various classes well enough that experimenting with different builds feels approachable. Between fights you spend a lot of time reading dialogue and lore text, since the writing takes its fantasy setting, including themes of religion and colonization, fairly seriously.

Your goal is to progress through a story centered on your character's strange connection to souls and reincarnation, picking up companions and side quests along the way, plus you can build and manage your own stronghold as an optional side activity. The included endless paths dungeon beneath that stronghold offers many additional floors of combat for players who want more to do beyond the main story. This complete edition bundles the base game with both expansions, adding up to well over sixty hours for a thorough playthrough.

The amount of reading is considerable, and playing with a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard is a workable but noticeably imperfect compromise for a game clearly designed around point and click. On harder difficulty settings it is easy to fall into pausing constantly to micromanage every single action, which can slow fights down a lot. It is a strong pick for people who already like this style of party-based fantasy role-playing game and want a modern, polished example of it.