Divinity: Original Sin II - New Patch and Release Date

A new patch will be made available for Original Sin II. Unfortunately it is not compatible with previous save games, so if you play it in Early Access, you would need to restart again. There are a number of additions and changes to the game, which are explained by Swen in the video below, but the most important date is that it is going to be released on September 14. One of the changes is that your home base is not going to be the Hall of Echoes anymore, but a ship.

What is better than a warship? Nothing! That’s why we created The Lady Vengeance, a beautiful and daring ship to be your home base as you journey on your quest . That's a change from what we originally planned (the hall of echoes as a home base) but while playing you'll quickly understand why we went for the Lady Vengeance in the end. All the home base functionality that was planned for the halls is there but more importantly - the Lady Vengeance requires no level switching which means you can split the party between home base and another piece of the map. That's much more convenient than having to gather your party and loading a new level. It's also a much better setting for some of the relationship building that we added to the game.

In case you are wondering, the Hall of Echoes is still part of the game - you actually visit it in in act 1 already - we just moved the home base functionality away from it.

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More information.

My annual holidays are in September!

Wow, this is really starting to look great! Damn, I will be busy in September... guess I will have to make time somehow to play this.

Looking very good - enjoyed the video as well.

A ship! Maybe they'll add fishing!

Can't wait for this one... I'm embarrassed by the number of hours I pumped into Divinity: OS and this one has a DM mode(!)

Unless something drastically terrible goes wrong, this is likely to be my game of the year and maybe the next couple years, especially if a vibrant modding community springs up for it, which I dearly hope.

They got so inspired by PoE 2 KS they decided to beat Obsidian's game with their own ship

Grrrrrrrr it looks great.

I only checked it out for about 1/2 4 months ago, but really temped to play it now.

Great video, looking forward to the game. But Swen - get some sleep you look TIRED.

TheMadGamer said:

Great video, looking forward to the game. But Swen - get some sleep you look TIRED.

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No sleep until release date for any of them lol...while no sleep until release date and the first couple of patches.

Archangel said:

They got so inspired by PoE 2 KS they decided to beat Obsidian's game with their own ship

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It must of been in the planning before the fig campaign. Swen made a comment when the campaign started that 'great minds think alike'. Maybe Obsidian copied Larian? Any how it is a good idea and I'm sure I'll like Larians better.

Nice. I just played through the new (awesome + atmospheric IMO) beginning aboard the ship that Swen talked about in the video and that is mentioned in the patch notes.
It is all coming together now and it's funny how this new beginning is a bit reminiscent (in an easter-eggish way?) of the BG2 and PS:T intro .

Before this patch and in the old intro, I always created a custom human but now I went with Ifan because he seems like a very interesting character (i.e. his origin story).
I chose conjurer as the base class. I think that will be my character combo choice for the full game unless I hear about conjurers being horribly underpowered or something cruel like that (hopefully not ).

I will still wait for the EE, or whatever they are going to do this time, before getting into a full playthrough, but it's looking very promising so far and the new intro does a really good job at turning on instant addiction mode because you simply *must* push on to find out what is going on about you, your companions and everything else in the greater scheme of things…

I always end up picking Lohse for some reason. I started the game three times now. Twice I had to, because of incompatible save games. Not sure I'll start it again. There is one patch more and then a final release, probably all with incompatible save games.
The main reason I would start it again is to see how party character interactions and affinity has been implemented.

It all looks interesting, but maybe they are cramming in a bit "too much". There is a saying around cooking about having too many ingredients and ruining a dish that way. Maybe its just me, but the relationship system seems half-assed, like they just threw it in there, and it sounds like it could be potentially annoying. So, we have to babysit our party members/companions now, and if they don't like what we decide or say, eventually they might take off and leave? Okaaayy.

That would really piss me off if a character I have leveled up and worked on for hours upon hours, all of a sudden throws a hissy fit and leaves the party… I would say to have an option to turn that off, but then, that kinda sucks too. Because then you would miss out on a possible game feature which could give more depth and richness to the characters in your party. I hope Larian is thinking about all this, and not just throwing new stuff into the game in a blind, "more is always better!" approach.

I think it was a missing feature to improve the character depth. In Original Sin II all potential party members are different and each has their own background and goals to fulfill. Those goals will be very different between each of the characters. I would assume that continuously not being allowed to fulfill those goals would have a character leave the party. That is nothing new, Baldur's Gate had it as well.
Next to that, in conversations each character has a personal opinion. You can overrule that in SP, but I assume that means that the character will start to dislike you and if you keep that up, eventually leave.
Personally I think it can really improve the game as until now there were no consequences in party relations based on what you selected in a dialog. With this it can become much more interesting.

I also like the increased depth and I don't think there will be a problem. You get instant feedback when you lose attitude so you will most likely have enough of an advance warning before someone takes off for good.

For example, I can't really stand that (to me) annoying lizard (the Red Prince a.k.a Divinity's version of Jar Jar Binks ) so even in this short intro aboard the ship, I went confrontational on him with Ifan and the game provided the corresponding feedback (- 5 attitude).
You have to pay a little attention though because the loss of attitude will only be displayed as a small red number above the character's head.

Also, after the shipwreck, when you meet the lizard again at the beach, he will tell you about his goals and one of the choices you have is that you can outright tell him without much consequence (at least at first) that you do NOT intend to be of any help. He only responds by saying that he will return the "favor" and not help you much either.

No idea how this will play out later but I guess this is exactly what will make things in the game interesting. In fact, a little conflict and controversy in the party will probably make things A LOT more interesting than surrounding yourself with a bunch of yes-men and brown-nosers.

In the final game, it will be my first and foremost goal to make the Jar Jar Binks lizard depart in record time... well, at least after milking as much XP from him as possible .

Lol seriously, how many years does this game take to get finished?

Yea, I guess we will see what its like in practice, maybe I'm being too pessimistic. You guys, Myrthos and Moriendor, make some decent points.

Given the scope and original estimated time line this really isn't that long for an extermely long and well written RPG. This is (ok ok i should wiat for the release to judge) the witcher 3 of party base rpgs.

elikal said:

Lol seriously, how many years does this game take to get finished?

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elikal said:

Lol seriously, how many years does this game take to get finished?

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Not sure what you were expecting but the original D:OS came out in June 2014, the Enhanced Edition in October 2015 and the KS campaign ended September 2015.

Backers received early access by September 2016, i.e. "only" about a year after the KS campaign concluded.
With a September release, it will be coming out 3 years after the first part, 2 years after the EE of part 1 and 1 year after entering early access. Seems like a perfectly normal development schedule to me.

Yes, they wrote "December 2016" on KS but anyone who has followed Larian's history should know by now that their initial dates are only for the lulz basically .