A little confession; I have been a pen and paper nerd for most of my life. The last time I played anything consistently was before my daughter was born as Pathfinder had just started to pick up in the main stream. It was fantastic. The freedom the system gave to character building, and my ability to role play that character into the ground was freeing. I was so good at putting him into bad situations, against other players on my “team” that I quickly became the worst player at the table. I loved it. Unfortunately, for the weekly gaming group at all, we finally figured out where kids came from. Apparently we were all busy around the same time, as most of our wives were expecting around the same time. Babies and Pathfinder did not work well. We have not got back together at that table in over five years. I miss it horribly.
Obsidian have looked into some crystal ball and seen my need for Pathfinder in my life, even if it is a digital representation. Known for Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: the Stick of Truth and the Kickstarter title Pillars of Eternity they have now entered into a long-term license partnership with Paizo Inc., the creators of Pathfinder.
The first title in the works will be a tablet game based on the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. I know little of the game, but it is a co-op 1 – 4 player game, with… cards. Different classes have different strengths and players can customize the decks to better suite their particular character.
“At Obsidian we have a long history of working with the greatest RPG franchises, and we’re thrilled to get to play in the Pathfinder universe now,” said CEO Feargus Urquhart. “We’re huge fans and can’t wait to bring what we do in the electronic gaming world to Pathfinder fans everywhere”.
Players will go along a traditional RPG formula in a decidedly expectable basis. The world is beset by magic and evil, yada yada. This is normal for RPGs these days, even Skyrim falls into the same tropes. The question will be how well they can write a story that is engaging. Pathfinder is a fantastic system because there are so many different stories that can be told. Player choice is key and if Obsidian can tell the story, leave player choice intact and create something that doesn’t remind us of Dungeon Siege III we should be looking at a pretty solid game.
Fortunately, plenty of stories are already written as supplements to the game, and if Obsidian takes something from the similar Shadowrun game (based on the table top RPG of the same name) they could release a core franchise with plenty of room for constant new stories. This will likely lead to plenty of DLC for specific story lines – but if the characters can stay constant through each, I can’t find anything wrong with that.
“Obsidian is a video game developer at the top of its game”, said Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens. “Being able to bring that type of experience and passion to Pathfinder can only mean great things, both for our loyal Pathfinder community and for all fans of great CRPG’s.”
So, what are your thoughts? Have you played the tabletop Pathfinder? Obsidian have seen some increased quality in their games of late, does that bring as much hope to you as it does me?