Original Sin - The Road to Original Sin

Eye noticed that TechRaptor created an editorial about Larian Studios' road towards Divinity: Original Sin.

Beyond Divinity, a sequel set 20 years after the last game, changed things up. The roleplaying makes a return, but with a twist as you now have an inseparable companion to control and manage. A pause button aids you in managing your playable characters, as well as summons. Both the pause button and the companion system would later make a return in their own sequel.

The funny thing about Beyond Divinity was, while it plays similarly to it’s predecessor, it was actually meant to be turn-based. Project leader Swen Vincke admitted this in an IGN article, making it not much of a stretch to imagine that this was the reason it would eventually be implemented in the Original Sin series. But the game suffered from its own problems with crashes, bugs, and voice acting that didn’t please everyone. It seems this may have urged a more customizable approach to having a duo of playable characters in Original Sin.

Divinity II (subtitled Ego Draconis) changed things up from its predecessor. Gone is the top-down view, replaced with third-person roleplaying and combat. With a twist involving the ability to eventually be able to turn into a dragon for aerial combat. Both stages come with the option to pause the game at any moment and review your available skills, with a feature to automatically trigger at a certain health threshold. This would prove useful if you had more abilities than there was room in your skillbar for, or you wanted to quickly consume an item.

I recently finished this game and felt quite wowed. There is a constant build up of new things to do or new capabilities. It begins with learning the basic combat, expanding into the skill trees and more impressive gear. As you slowly turn into a full fledged Dragon Knight, the raised jump speed gives you access to areas you couldn’t reach before or with unprecedented ease. And when you gain the ability to turn into a Dragon, you’ll explore familiar areas in whole new ways. Which makes it only more sad when the story suddenly comes at a dead stop with an unsatisfying end.