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Will there be a Pillars of Eternity III? That’s the question someone put to Obsidian design director Josh Sawyer recently, and his response doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

Writing on his Tumblr, Sawyer said the “relatively low” sales of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire suggest that if Obsidian were to develop a third game, the studio would have to “re-examine the entire format of the game.” He added that whether or not a third mainline game happens is not up to him.

Despite solid reviews and strong pre-orders, Deadfire sold worse than the first game, Sawyer added. That leaves Obsidian scratching its head for answers.

“Is it because the first game satisfied the existing need and the audience just wasn’t interested in the second? Is it because awareness was lower for the sequel? Is it because despite the strong reviews and the strong sales for the first game, people didn’t ‘really’ like it? Maybe it’s a combination of all of these things,” Sawyer said.

Sawyer went on to say that because Obsidian doesn’t fully understand why Deadfire failed to sell at a better level, that makes it hard to move forward with the series. Had the game been a critical failure, then the studio could know that perhaps more time spent in development would be needed for the next game. But Deadfire reviewed well with critics; the game has an 88 on Metacritic compared to an 89 for the original game.

Some have said Pillars of Eternity could have benefited from abandoning the real-time with pause (RTwP) battle mechanics, but Sawyer said this did not hurt sales.

“I’m sure some of the people reading this think they know precisely why Deadfire sold worse than Pillars 1. I don’t have that confidence, which is one of several reasons why I am leery about trying to direct a sequel,” Sawyer said. “I couldn’t give our (Obsidian’s) audience the game that they wanted and without understanding where I went wrong, I would be guessing at what the problems are and how to remedy them.”

Replies flooded in after Sawyer posted this blog post, and here are some other takeaways that he shared on Twitter:

• Pre-sales for Deadfire were 3X better than the first Pillars, but sales on launch day and after were “quite low” compared to the first game (source)
• Deadfire sold better than Obsidian’s 2016 game Tyranny but worse than Pillars of Eternity 1 (source)
• Sawyer’s big takeaway on why Deadfire sold worse than the first game? ¯_(ツ)_/¯ (source)

While Deadfire might not have been a top-seller, Obsidian’s latest game, The Outer Worlds, was a critical and a commercial success. Sawyer did not have much involvement in that game, however.

Microsoft recently acquired Obsidian, and the Xbox-maker reportedly has plans to turn The Outer Worlds into a franchise. As Sawyer alluded to here, there is no word on if the Pillars of Eternity franchise will continue going forward.

Deadfire is supposed to launch on PS4, Xbox One, and Switch sometime in 2019 through a partnership with Grip Digital. However, no release date has been announced yet.

Metacritic and GameSpot share a parent company in CBS.

See all of what you can uncover in Red Dead Redemption 2 with this map.

It’s now been over a month since Martin Scorsese stated his opinion that Marvel movies were “not cinema,” opening up a larger debate about the state of show business and causing folks like James Gunn, Natalie Portman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Disney CEO Bob Iger to defend the MCU.

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Where The Water Tastes Like Wine, a narrative-focused game in which you work your way around the 1930s American Dust Bowl, hearing and trading stories, is come to consoles later this month. The game, which released on PC in 2018, is coming to Switch, PS4, and Xbox One on November 29.

The game’s impending release was announced by publisher Serenity Forge on Twitter. It’s now available to pre-order on Switch.

The game also received a new launch trailer ahead of its console release.

The game, which contains a guest appearance from Sting, struggled at launch, with creator Johnnemann Nordhagen publicly discussing the difficulties developer Dim Bulb Games faced following the game’s release. “At the end of the day it’s astounding that a game that got this much attention from the press, that won awards, that had an all-star cast of writers and performers, that had a bizarre celebrity guest appearance(!) failed this hard,” Nordhagen wrote. Perhaps the game’s console release can recoup some of the costs of development.

We gave the game a 6/10 in our original review, stating that “if the basic premise of gathering folk stories across a version of 1930s America strongly appeals to you, then Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is worth a look, but it’s probably not worth finishing”. Since launch, the game has been updated with Chinese-American tales. It’s currently discounted by 70% on Steam.

Blizzard has come under fire lately for their harsh treatment of Hearthstone Grandmaster pro Blitzchung, who was banned from the game and had his winnings taken away for expressing a pro-Hong Kong sentiment during a post-match interview. Although eventually his prize money was reinstated and his ban was reduced to six months, the fallout from the incident was immense: the game’s developers spoke out against the way Blitzchung had been treated, sponsor Mitsubishi cut ties with the Hearthstone esports scene, and numerous protests were held, which led to further bans.

Blizzard president J. Allen Brack addressed the decision directly during BlizzCon, but it’s clear that many within Blizzard remain unhappy with how things have played out. Now Jeff Kaplan, director of Overwatch, has added his own voice to the discussion. Talking to The Washington Post, Kaplan has said that he would personally like to see Blitzchung’s suspension reduced further. “I was relieved when they reduced his suspension…and I think the suspension should be reduced more or eliminated. But that’s just me.”

“I’m obviously a huge supporter of free speech,” Kaplan said. “It’s something that’s very important to me…it got to me personally. I think the punishment was too harsh and I was greatly relieved when they gave his money back. I think that was extremely important.” Kaplan talked about his own experience in Overwatch, where decisions like this typically take “four or five days” to get settled. He said that it was surprising to see a punishment like this get metered out so quickly: “I was actually shocked that such a harsh penalty was levied.”

For now, Blitzchung’s suspension remains in place. For more on this, watch our interview with Freedom Hong Kong organizer Dayton Young about Blizzard’s action here, and why change is important.

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow….

First thing to mention here out of the gate: I’m surprised at the overall lack of Michonne this first half-season. I guess I figured she’d be featured a little bit more given it’s star Danai Gurira’s final season on the show. Related, I’m also taken aback a little by how much Negan we’re getting in place of Michonne.

But it makes sense. Negan’s more or less following his comic arc while also stepping up as more of a main character who could replace Michonne on the show’s marquee (not in a spiritual sense, but in a “grown up who also loves Judith” sense). And with this week’s episode, “Bonds,” the show’s finally figured out the best thing to do with him since he helped Judith with her math homework. And that’s annoy the ever-loving s*** out of Beta.

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This review contains spoilers for Watchmen episode 4, titled “If You Don’t Like My Story, Write Your Own.” Check out our recap of Watchmen episode 3 here.

With its fourth episode, titled “If You Don’t Like My Story, Write Your Own,” HBO’s Watchmen finds itself in a major way. While the show’s central mystery remains vague — as it did in last week’s Brecht-laden entry “She Was Killed By Space Junk” — lingering questions of what and why (and malformed political mechanics) fade into the backdrop. Instead, the focus falls on characters we know, and their respective inherited traumas. It’s with this episode, written by showrunner Damon Lindelof along with Christal Henry, that the series’ emotional scope finally begins to crystalize.

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