The thing is, Confessors feels easy Right.
Normally there is a period of adjustment when you start playing a new role-playing game, you have to get used to the peculiarities and learn the special features. But with ConfessorsI just started playing. I chose a rogue character, armed with two pistols and a bow for longer range, and immediately set about exploring some caves beneath Dawnshore as if I had spent my whole life there.
Much of what was shown Confessors has so far been very focused on action and exploration, either in the game’s combat systems (particularly dual-wand wielding for some reason) or the un-RPG-like jumping and climbing in the first-person world. The demo I played at GamesCom was much more focused on an aspect long-time Obsidian fans have probably been missing: role-playing. While I participated in several battles and did my share of exploration, the emphasis here was on conversation, deliberation, and branching decision-making.
The first-person perspective certainly adds to that sense of familiarity – it removes much of what can feel alien in more traditional RPGs viewed from a distance, and means you don’t have to learn a new 800-button interface. Instead, all of your actions here are performed via wheels that pop up when you hold down the left bumper (I played with mouse/keyboard because that’s my natural inclination, but then found it more comfortable to play with a controller). The action pauses when you select a healing potion or ask your companion Kai (voiced by Garrus himself, Brandon Keener) to help with something specific.
It also helped that so many of the conversations in this 45-minute section of the game felt familiar to someone who has already spent a few dozen hours in Eora, the world where Pillars of Eternity was set. Here I was tasked with finding a missing expedition team who were themselves on the hunt for a sacred relic associated with the god Eothas. I know Eothas! Or actually, I don’t, given the events of the 2015 RPG and its 2018 sequel. Deadfireand fully understood why the godlike I then meet, Sargamis, notices that Eothas’ light has faded of late.
Of course, the developers at Obsidian are not stupid, and all this is color for those who are already in the game, while it is a side note for those who are new. And to keep a balance between the two, Confessors continues the RPG series’ tradition of including footnotes for absolutely everything of note, including the option to call up a paragraph about Eothas (the god of rebirth and the deity of the previous games’ antagonist, Waidwen). (I leaned over from my PC and asked an Obsidian developer, “Why doesn’t he know what happened to the gods?” and he replied, “Eora is a large place, and news takes time to spread – these people don’t even have the printing press.”) The Living Countries, where Confessors is set in a whole new location, meaning it’s refreshing for first-time players, but still varied enough to be familiar to long-time fans.
Right, so Sargamis is a godlike like your own character (a unique race, beings believed to be blessed by the gods and have special abilities), and he’s clearly up to no good. He has a ridiculous plan to resurrect Eothas using a statue, and he taunts us with the nonsense that he never saw the survey party. Sargamis is clearly too cowardly to go get the relic he needs, as it’s behind a collapsed and flooded section of caverns and guarded by various beasts, so he inevitably suggests we go get it ourselves.
So begins the quest, which involves jumping, climbing and exploring between platforms across a huge chasm to find chests and discover the path to this magical MacGuffin. Throughout the game, I couldn’t help but collect every item, harvest every plant and seek out every chest, even though I knew I wouldn’t use any of it given the shortness of my playtime. But the fact that it was there, that it was engaging, is crucial in my opinion. This meant I would find strange electrical devices that would trigger when I threw seeds from a plant I’d picked, opening doors to special areas, or I would slash my way through suspicious-looking wooden boards to find bonus chests.
What surprised me, aside from how natural it all felt, was the scale. This section is set entirely in caves, and could easily have been tunnels and small rock rooms. Instead, it was a series of huge, beautiful caves, extraordinarily detailed in huge areas I couldn’t reach, pretty enough to just stand still and stare for a while. This is further enhanced by stunning lighting. (You’ll see what I mean when you skip to 13:30 in the video below and see the candlelit library, then the turn to the spider-infested, sunlit cave section just beyond.)
The only thing I didn’t have time to get properly familiar with was combat. I got by well, although I was a little embarrassed by how many healing potions I was chugging, but it’s obviously going to take some practice to act like a rogue when things get tight. (It would also have helped if I’d spent more time honing my skills and donning some of the armor I’d collected.) But at a distance, I felt like a damn master. The bow and arrows are fantastic to use and pretty generous with aim (this is an RPG, not a first-person shooter, after all), which meant I was more often than not clearing an area of the goblin-like Xurips before I even got there. Thankfully, Kai helped out too, his own AI taking care of his combat.
The same sequence from the game was used for hands-off demos elsewhere at the German conference, so you can see an alternate playthrough of what I saw, albeit with a wizard instead of a rogue and different conversation options. Also of note, there’s a whole section here where a gate is opened that I never came across because I’m pretty sure I found a completely different way through.
I have seen many gaming sites that compare Confessors To Skyrimwhich I find to be the oddest idea. The games are both RPGs and both first person, but after that I find it hard to make the connection, no matter how much I love Bethesda’s game. Confessors feels much much more coherent, more focused, like the natural evolution of games like Arkane’s wonderful RPG from 2006, Dark Messiah of Power and Magic. It felt encouraged by the narrative skills Obsidian has acquired through its wonderful third-person RPGs, and differentiated itself from its Bethesda-based Stand out And The outer worlds Title.
In the hustle and bustle of a week full of appointments, I completely forgot the release date for Confessorsand it occurred to me that it would be out before Christmas. After the demo was finished, Sargamis was done, and I felt an absurd desire to keep playing, I turned back to the Obsidian guy and asked, “When is the release date again?” “February 2025,” he replied, and in a moment of total unprofessionalism I replied, “WHAT?! NO!”
I think that’s the most useful information to take away from all this: I cried out like an offended nine-year-old when I realized how long I would have to wait before I could continue playing.
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