➤ It's all white! 🎮

After having seen it at the recent trade fairs and having appreciated the work done by Obsidian on all those elements of gameplay that had prevented the original game from reaching absolute excellence, it is finally time to analyze in every detail the first expansion of Pillars of Eternity, The White March. An add-on divided into two parts, offered at the double price of € 14,99 if you want to buy the episodes individually or € 24,99 if you want to trust the project and buy the second package. Little or nothing is known about the second part and the hope is that it will arrive on the market before Christmas, but what we can tell you is that this first segment is actually practically self-conclusive, unlike what we would have expected.

The first part of White March is finally available and we have played it from top to bottom

Once upon a time

The story told has its own precise narrative arc and does not leave the player hanging or, at least, not more than necessary since, most likely, the next part will be set in a different area of the Biancamarca and will take into account only minimally what is narrated. in this episode. Wait to sing the victory though, because the narrative aspect is the least successful of the package, probably because Obsidian, in order not to disappoint both those who had already reached the endgame, and those who will take advantage of the expansion to start playing Pillars, it has been seen forced to create an excessively diluted plot, too superficial and lateral to that narrated in the original game. Therefore, if on the one hand we were able to appreciate the secondary missions much better connected to the main quest, being also reduced from a numerical point of view, there is no doubt that having completed The White March Part 1 adds very little to the fantasy universe set up by Obisidian.

It is nice to find out something more about the dwarves who inhabited the Durgan Battery and used its mythical forge or the sad fate of the village of Stalwart, but to note that the Legacy, the Watchers and more generally the whole phenomenon of the Animancy have not crossed the borders of the Forest of Dyr, or nearly so, are hardly credible. In practice, the expansion offers five different locations: the Biancamarca, a real map apart, offers four including a village that represents the new collection point for all the quests and the only safe area where the player can interact. with non-player characters and obviously seek shelter and refreshment. Additionally, the Cragholdt fortress has been added to the original Dyr area. While the latter is specifically dedicated to parties that have reached the endgame and will allow you to rise to the new maximum level, the fourteenth, with new spells and seventh level skills, Biancamarca is a territory specifically dedicated to level parties. variable between sixth and eighth. Basically the only requirement to reach it will be to have completed the first act of Pillars of Eternity and to have discovered the stronghold in Caed Nua. However, the add-on also allows those who have finished Pillars of Eternity to face this new challenge and at the precise moment in which they will go to the new area, the game will allow you to increase the level of the enemies at the discretion of the player in an attempt to offer a balanced battle. In reality, what we saw during our play session is that White March tends to be more difficult than the original for two reasons. First of all, it tends to put much larger and more varied groups of opponents on the battlefield at each encounter. Virtually every battle sees the presence of warriors, thieves, wizards and even clerics ready to slaughter the player. This element, combined with a rewrite of artificial intelligence that finally takes into account the various skills and fighting styles, makes positioning become a crucial element in every fight and it is not so rare to see some characters in your group. immediately fall to the ground at the start of the fight because it is targeted from a distance. White March's quests also tend to take place a lot more inside dungeons with all that that entails in terms of character movement and distance management during encounters. And, for the writer of this review, it's a shame since the fighting in the open air was just one of the most successful and distinctive elements of Pillars of Eternity.

How much beautiful new stuff

As we have already written during our previous encounters with the expansion, a great deal of work has been done by the developer to clean up and update the gameplay of this splendid classic RPG. Starting from the artificial intelligence described above and which also influences the members of our party through, finally, the introduction of a series of behaviors that can be managed automatically and customized by the player. Based on the type of class we will be able to determine the nature and style of the actions of our fellow adventurers during the clashes while they are not under our direct control.

It is not a question of managing only how and when to respond to opponents' attacks but also what type of skills and spells to use and whether to "waste" even those that need rest to be recovered. But this is only the most evident tip of an iceberg also composed of the possibility of sending only certain characters into stealth, the addition of a handful of talents that allow you to use a rudimentary multi-class system and the presence of particularly powerful weapons that, once tied to the soul of a specific class, they also gain experience in combat by gradually unlocking new skills and powers. In addition, the same game interface has been tweaked to make the areas of influence of spells and abilities much clearer, so as to allow you to better plan the movements of your party. As icing on the cake we also find two brand new companions, a masochistic monk and a female construct thief, both recruitable in the Biancamarca but usable, eventually, also in the original territories of Dyr. And the most interesting thing is that all these improvements and changes to the gameplay, with the exception of course of the new territory and the unreleased content, are also available to owners of the base game through a substantial free patch distributed a few days ago. In reality we feel compelled to beat the Obsidian guys anyway because despite the obvious effort made to enhance the gameplay of their creature, we noticed that the pathfinding problems highlighted in our original review have remained practically untouched here. Of course, as we wrote above, now enemies tend to position themselves in a much better way than in the past but all the difficulties our characters had in reaching them or in getting around obstacles during the fight, are still an integral part of the game. It will continue to happen very frequently to see our melee fighters freeze a few steps from the opponent on duty or, even worse, start some strange dances on the spot when the targeted enemy is immediately behind another character and often the consequences are catastrophic even at because of the increased difficulty level. Furthermore, in the build we tested there was a fairly annoying bug that left our AI-controlled companions motionless for several seconds when their target died. Before moving on to the technical component, it seems only right to point out that it took us just over 13 hours to complete the expansion. Starting with a high level group it is possible that it will easily take two or three less.

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

Processore: Intel Core i5 4690k a 4.0 GHz
Memory: 8 GB of RAM
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
Operating system: Windows 10 64-bit

Minimum requirements

Processore: Intel Core i3-2100T a 2.5 GHz o AMD Phenom II X3 B73
Memory: 4 GB of RAM
Scheda video: ATI Radeon HD 4850 o NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
Operating system: Windows Vista / 7/8 with the latest service packs installed
Disk space: 14 GB

Recommended Requirements

Processor: Intel Core i5-2400 at 3.1 GHz or AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Memory: 8 GB of RAM
Video card: AMD Radeon HD 7700 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
Operating system: Windows 7/8 64-bit with the latest service packs installed

It is always a lookout

From an artistic point of view there is very little to contest with White March Part 1. The incredible attention to detail is still a consistent element of the gaming experience and the total change of setting, now almost completely snowy and bright references to the past masterpiece Icewind Dale, did very well to the game's variety. The scenarios are always splendid to look at and the care in the choice of the color palette combined with the aesthetic solutions used to populate the maps properly compensate for the minimalist technical component which is very close to the genre of very old role-playing games. It is important to mention that Obsidian has also made an effort to make the scripted but interactive game book-style sequences featured in White March much more interactive, lengthy and stylistically flawless. Often you will also have to decide which character of your party to use during the narrated actions and, sometimes, even which skill or spell to cast to dodge a danger or save the unfortunate person on duty. Last note for the soundtrack which is enriched with a handful of splendid orchestral pieces perfectly in line with the original soundtrack. As always, the game is dubbed exclusively in English while the lyrics are in perfectly translated Spanish.

Comment

Price 14,99 € / 24,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

8.5

Readers (11)

8.4

Your vote

We liked the first part of White March, this is beyond doubt: the setting is splendid, the challenge rate is really very high and the new contents, combined with a cloud of more or less evident gameplay improvements, make it a essential expansion for those who adored Pillars of Eternity. However, we would have expected the developer to further refine those small defects of the original game, above all the pathfinding, and we must highlight how the story, however pleasant and well told, is not the strength of the add-on. In short, it is a highly recommended purchase for fans of the Obsidian creature but, with the second part, the developer will absolutely have to do more.

PRO

The Biancamarca is artistically splendid and offers a good variety of environments
Gameplay tweaks are plentiful and even owners of the base game can enjoy them
The challenge rate is pretty high ...

AGAINST