Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous was the best role-playing game of 2021. We asked what the future holds. For the game and the series.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is something other role-playing games have to come close to. The oldschool RPG is certainly not one of the really big productions in which we wander through an incredibly detailed 3D world with our heroine and experience action-packed adventures in it or talk to fully dubbed characters.
Nevertheless, no one should underestimate how much there actually is in Wrath of the Righteous. This game is massive thanks to its huge amount of classes, characters as well as tasks and conveys the feeling of a multi-volume fantasy epic better than many a triple-A blockbuster.
You have to get into it, because it’s the rulebook that can overwhelm. But if you succeed, you will find one of the best role-playing games of recent years. You should also bring some time with you, this chunk can hardly be mastered in less than a hundred hours.
The art of Pathfinder is shown in the fact that even after 150 hours you still want more and the good news – there is more planned. At least for Wrath of the Righteous. What the future holds for Pathfinder as a series remains to be seen.
So we spoke at length with Creative Director Alexander Mishulin of Owlcat Games about the recent past and future of this now prestigious role-playing game brand.
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As epic as intended, but …
Back in September, Wrath of the Righteous was released and caused a few beaming faces. As mentioned at the beginning, this game is extremely entertaining. But it was not completely free of problems. In the test, for example, we criticised the cumbersome crusade mode, which in our opinion unnecessarily slowed down the actual role-playing game. In addition, Wrath of the Righteous, like Kingmaker, was technically somewhat immature.
These are both points that Mishulin hears in the interview not for the first time and both are currently being actively worked on. In general, though, Mishulin feels that Wrath of the Righteous was, on the whole, released in the way that was previously envisioned on the greenfield site. Sure, there were a few ideas that didn’t make it into the game. But according to Mishulin, the final result hardly suffered.
We wanted to tell an epic story, with lots of choices, with mythical classes and lots of opportunities to role-play. In our opinion, we achieved that. Along the way, of course, we had to make a few compromises and cut things out. We would have liked to have spells like wish or time stop in there because that would have fit the high level adventure
In the end, however, they preferred to concentrate more on the mythical paths, which in turn filled out many power fantasies well. After all, we are allowed to transform ourselves into a golden dragon or walking swarm of locusts.
Crusade against the Bugs
That Wrath of the Righteous was plagued by similar technical quirks to Kingmaker was, again, not at all desirable. Mishulin, however, finds that the extent was much less compared to Kingmaker. He and his team could not have foreseen a few of these bugs, but that is not unusual in development.
I can’t say that we released the game flawlessly. But in our eyes it was much better than the release of Kingmaker. We were able to learn from a few of our mistakes and still managed to make a few others. So we are still busy fixing bugs. We want to get it as clean and bug-free as we can
The criticism of the crusade mechanic is somewhat different. Mishulin confirms that the reactions to it were mixed – but mixed also means that there was another side. Many players liked the crusade. Some even went so far as to desperately want to wipe every demon army off the world map.
According to Mishulin, they nevertheless continue to strive to optimise this part of the game. They want to take the criticism from the other side (who didn’t enjoy it) seriously. They often heard that the mode attracts too much attention and is very demanding because of the micromanagement. At the same time, there is the group that would like to eliminate the turn-based battles but keep the decisions.
We’ll definitely tackle that in some way. I can’t say exactly how yet because we’re working on it right now. But we want to try to make the crusade easier to use but need less micromanagement. We want to make it more rounded and catchy
Wrath of the Righteous warns that turning off the crusade can have an impact on the story. One of the reasons why some wished they could just disable the battles. However, Mishulin reveals in the interview that the influence on the story is quite small. More precisely, it is only about two side quests where we as commanders can no longer decide between choices.
This could be communicated more clearly in the future. Whether it will be possible to switch off individual mechanics and keep others, however, remains unclear. After all, we can only build teleportation circles in the outposts with the crusade activated, which is a clear playful advantage. After all, the shorter the running paths for our party, the less danger we run of sometimes suffering significant disadvantages due to the spread of demon depravity.
What happens next with Wrath of the Righteous
The daily routine of the developers at Owlcat is currently divided into different areas. One part of the team is tirelessly busy fixing bugs. Both to solve acute problems via hotfix that cannot be postponed or to compile extensive patches, of which quite a lot have been released in the meantime. So many, in fact, that we have removed our rating:
In fact, the developers are additionally working on small, free additional content in this area. These are little things like a new portrait in the character editor or animal companions that scurry after our heroes. The really big DLCs that are part of the Season Pass are an area of their own.
Actually, the first DLC should have been released on Steam on 25 February. But Owlcat decided at short notice to postpone it a few more weeks. According to Mishulin, as they still need more time to clean up the last blemishes.
Three DLCs are planned as part of the Season Pass:
* The first DLC
This will be the only expansion that we experience in the role of our character from the main game. It is meant to be the ultimate challenge that takes us to another dimension called Axis. A new plane where the laws of creation are enshrined. Here there are even more powerful enemies to slay than in the campaign’s endgame. And that means a lot, because even those are extremely difficult to crack. The DLC will be released on 3 March 2022.
* The second DLC
In contrast to the first DLC, the focus here is not on godlike heroes, but on ordinary people. Once again we experience the demon attack on Kenabres, at the very beginning of Wrath of the Righteous. But this time from the perspective of a different group. The task is to lead the group of survivors and bring them to safety. Since these ordinary people are not up to many challenges, difficult decisions have to be made or battles avoided. Sometimes our own strength alone is not enough either, then we have to gain an advantage through our surroundings.
* The third DLC
Lastly, as with Kingmaker, there is again a Roguelike expansion. With the help of a demonic ship, a specially created group sails into a whirlpool that leads us to a randomly generated dungeon. There we can defeat powerful enemies and collect items. Those who fail are permanently dead, but the next group of adventurers gets to keep some of the trophies. This DLC is especially good for trying out the huge selection of classes and races that await us in the character editor. A whole group of dwarves? You can try that out here.
So Owlcat dares quite little experimentation in all this, and is aiming at a similar content plan as already with Kingmaker. This also applies to an Enhanced Edition, which Mishulin confirms in the interview. This complete version is to be released before the end of the year. In Kingmaker, it included other extensive improvements as well as some new content such as a new class and turn-based combat.
Mishulin is still keeping secret which larger features are planned for Wrath of the Righteous.
What might happen next with Pathfinder
Those who have taken Pathfinder to their hearts after Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous will hope for further spin-offs. We also ventured a glimpse into the distant future in the interview. Even if Mishulin stated that he could not say anything about future projects. But the passionate pen & paper player was very happy to talk about which new campaigns might be possible.
To reassure all fans: Unlike Pillars of Eternity 2, there seems to be no disappointment with Owlcat after the second oldschool RPG. Mishulin is very happy with the reception and apparently also with the sales figures. Kingmaker is still getting a lot of play on Steam and Wrath of the Righteous has taken off at an even higher player level.
The hope is that Pathfinder 2 will stay alive for a similar length of time. Only Mishulin knows whether one can conclude from this that there will be a new Pathfinder. It should be noted, however, that in the interview he spoke the following words with a mischievous grin:
All I can say is that you’d better follow our channels and in a while we’ll announce something
That sounds quite positive, at least on paper. If it does become a third Pathfinder, we also have an advantage that almost never exists with other games: We know there will be a template. Both Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous are based on Pen & Paper campaign books. So it would be quite interesting to know what other campaigns the people at Owlcat Games approve of.
When we decided on Wrath of the Righteous, there was a list of adventures that we enjoyed and would have been happy to make a PC game out of. There was a lot of discussion to prioritise what we could do that would be best. Of course we chose Wrath of the Righteous because we made it. But there were alternatives.
Mishulin is also quite open about these alternative adventures. The following paths were considered:
War for the Crown
As agents, the heroes in the land of Taldor are given the task of dealing with a political succession chaos. In particular, this involves court intrigues and secret actions to ensure that the right person is allowed to sit on the throne of the country.
Mummy’s Mask
This path takes a slightly different direction. Namely, it drives the group of heroes to Osirion. The land is reminiscent of earthly Egypt and would thus be a rather unconsumed role-playing scenario. The adventure revolves around the return of the ancient pharaoh Hakotep and offers not only flying pyramids but also an epic battle in the air.
Skulls & Shackles
This would be a similar path to the one Pillars of Eternity once took. Skulls & Shackles offers an imaginative pirate scenario, with everything that goes with it. So raids, treasure hunts, sea battles and maritime monsters. Pathfinder meets Pirates of the Caribbean.
Perhaps one of these paths could be realised after all. At least with Skulls & Shackles, however, Owlcat should be very sure. After all, the pirate setting already didn’t do Pillars of Eternity 2 much good, at least in terms of sales figures.
https://www.global-esports.news/general/pathfinder-2-the-first-story-dlc-is-coming-soon-and-will-probably-offer-time-travel/
Mishulin also came up with some other adventure paths that have been heard time and again from the community or within the team. Surprisingly, one of them is a sci-fi-fantasy mix, in which a crashed spaceship is investigated and the group of heroes is pitted against aliens as well as robots. Owlcat is also repeatedly referred to the Reign of Winter adventure path. A campaign that actually leads to earthly Russia in 1918. There, Anastasia Romanova is protected from Rasputin.
We are often asked by players whether we are doing Reign of Winter because it has a connection to us, because we come from the same culture [Owlcat Games is based in Moscow. Editor’s note]. It’s hard, though. Not only because of our connection, but also because of its structure. It is not as easy to implement as a PC game as previous adventures.
To realise an adventure as a PC game is something else again. Owlcat has to be careful not to go beyond the scope. Moreover, they still attach importance to continuing the strategy part of their role-playing games. After all, this is what sets Pathfinder apart from the competition.
But who knows whether Owlcat will stay with Pathfinder. Other systems are certainly conceivable, perhaps the studio will even jump over to DnD or venture into Mishulin’s personal favourite, the 7th Sea. There are many paths the studio can take after the success of Wrath of the Righteous.
