Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire - Seeker, Slayer, Survivor (PC) Review

The Watcher's new adventure starts with her receiving a decapitated head - a morbid way to convey a message, but a pretty effective one, as the gifted protagonist can communicate with souls. After doing so, he or she can now head to the Crucible, which is basically an arena where warriors can please the god of the hunt (among others), Galawain, with all challenges being divided between the aspects of Survivor, Seeker, and Slayer.

More specifically, Survivor is all about endurance, with enemies coming in waves; Seeker requires some stealthier stuff, like trap-disabling; and Slayer, as expected, is the most straightforward of the lot. There are three problems with these battles, though. First, those who will come here a bit high-levelled will find most fights to be very easy. Secondly, the three different approaches are actually superficial and most players will end up doing pretty much the same thing.

The biggest issue, though, is how the RPG aspect takes a big, bad plunge, with nothing but some simple talking after each battle or so - in fact, the very brief conversation between you and Galawain in the beginning turns out to be much more interesting than what's on offer here. Even the secondary mission, which has the Watcher searching for artefacts in the archipelago to unlock even more battles in the Crucible, turns out to be nothing more than sailing from A to B, and then back to A again, with a little bit of "detective" work thrown in to spice things up.

Is there no role-playing in here at all? Well, there is, but it is right in the end and, thus, it won't really matter, as the player will reach the finale without feeling a connection with this small microcosm and its fate. Furthermore, whereas Beast of Winter provided plenty (despite its length) of lore, this doesn't make that big of an effort. Long story short, Seeker, Slayer, Survivor belongs in that family of DLC that only those who want the "complete game" need to buy, as it's far from a must-have.