Tyranny dev diary explains the vision for Obsidian’s next RPG

The first of what will no doubt be a series of developer diaries about Obsidian’s upcoming Tyranny RPG explains some of the vision and intent behind the game.

By the sounds of things, the tech foundations laid by Pillars of Eternity have been enormously helpful for this next game. “This meant we didn’t have to worry about things like ‘how will we create areas?’ or ‘how does inventory work?’,” writes game director Brian Heins, indicating that some of the structures from PoE will be present in Tyranny.

Obsidian’s other stated goal with Tyranny is to “make the player feel important to the world from the beginning of the game, and focus on choice and reactivity in our quests and systems.” Heins explains that with this title they want to subvert the usual zero-to-hero RPG progression map, by starting you off as somebody in a position of real power. “We didn’t want you to be the ‘errand girl of Evil’,” he writes.

“We wanted to make a game where players were free to take the evil path as far as they want to go, and feel powerful and rewarded for it,” the post adds. However, that’s going to be a more “nuanced” evil than in other games. Don’t expect to be a psychopath going around murdering everybody for no reason. “Your choices shape nations, and the quests had to reflect that.”

In addition, they’re designing Tyranny to be “a highly reactive game that you can play multiple times. Each time seeing how the world changes as you make different choices.”

The title is expected later this year.