Obsidian's RPG Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire Appears To Have Been Cancelled For Switch

Well these days we should give them at least kudos for cancelling instead of releasing an unfinished mess I guess.

But dang, all the people waiting for the game for all these years to come on the switch, only for this news, ouch.

Ah nothing lost.
Was playing through Baldurs Gate 1 & 2 and Icewind Dale and i wanted mooooore.
I've tried so hard to find Fun on the PC with Pillars of Eternity, but it is brutally boring.
So damn brutal boring.
And there is sooo much unneeded Text that adds nothing to the Athmosphere... from which speaking, i have to mention is boring.

But i've read that Tyrany, also made by them in the same Engine, is much more fun.
Will give that a Try.

Bummer, but if they don't have the skill/resources to make it work, I'd rather see it wait until the next gen successor than show up now as a "cloud version". Although there's the important footnote of the publisher still being motivated when the time comes; Ubisoft's Steep, for example, has the risk of going AC1's way by the mid-20s. Switch still hasn't got a port of Watch Dogs that Ubisoft once saw fit and possible to put on Wii U.

Understandable. Game barely works on PS4 as it is.

We all know that the switch is not powerful enough though, like the other systems. So no hard feelings.

They left the first game riddled with bugs, and even a game-breaking glitch after they "patched" it, so I'm ok with them not even trying if probably would have ended up worse than the first installment.

Pillars of Eternity was the only game I have ever asked for and got a refund from Nintendo. It was absolutely broken when it was released and should never have been released. Also I believe VsEvil under estimated the feelings of how this game was received by Nintendo Switch players on their discord channel and their poor response to make any efforts to fix the game.
I’m not surprised that the second is cancelled as I don’t believe they have the knowledge to create anything on switch.
There are better RPG’s on the Switch. Divinity of Sin for example.

This announcement is no loss to the Switch Community.

Given that they're part of Xbox Game Studios, I can't imagine there's much desire to spend a lot of time and resources getting round issues with projects on non-Microsoft devices, even if it was just in supporting another dev who was doing the porting. So this news isn't exactly surprising. I assumed it had been cancelled years ago.

Part 1 is a big technical disappointment on Switch, so totally understandable. Part 2 would always be compared with Divinity: Original Sin II, and in this comparison part 2 would look poor.

@ATaco "Understandable. Game barely works on PS4 as it is."

I already have it on PC. I saw the low PS4 review scores and knew if it's having trouble there, no sense waiting for Switch.

I installed it on my Surface Pro back on the day and couldn't get it running at anything like playable frame rates at a reasonable resolution. For a game that isn't remotely impressive visually, it's surprisingly fussy about the hardware it'll run on.

I suspect it's so badly optimised that it just wasn't worth the trouble of getting it running on consoles. The PS5 would have enough muscle for it, but I can't see it selling now.

@Medic_Alert Not sure if serious or trolling? 🤔

@Azuris for what it's worth, Pillars II was much better. I know what you mean about having to slog through the first. Deadfire thankfully wasn't as bad, but only because you already knew some of the characters.

So basically not much of value was lost then considering the massive amounts of quality RPGs already in the system and more coming all the time.

@TowaHerschel7 Seems like just one of them graphic freaks who need 60 fps or they say their eyes bleed or such nonsense.

That's a really big lost for RPG fans, although they might have issues with the hardware since the first one had alot of bugs that aren't on the PC version.

Switch has proved time and time again that with the right optimisation it’s can cope fine…. And many of us understand that some compromises can be made to give us portability.

Bored of the lazy narrative the hardware isn’t up to it. Witcher 3 and doom work fine. Good ports and we have had many many others.

Bored of posters here and devs rolling out the same sad narrative. You don’t like switch don’t come here.

The switch 2 or pro will come when it comes.

I own ps5 Xbox SX and switch and I have as much fun on switch as I do the other two. Power is not everything.

@Stocksy people use the witcher 3 quite a lot to say switch can handle games and forget the witcher 3 is a 2015 game.

Fifa 18 for switch was basicall PS4 Fifa 16 port.

Every other newer game like Resident Evil 7 comes with an cloud version attached to the end of the title.

Zelda Breath of the Wild runs at 30fps, Mario 3D World bowsers fury can only run at 60fps at docked mode, in portable it's 30.

"you don't like the switch don't come here"

The point isn't liking it, this is a fact, switch has weaker hardware.

The problem is nintendo mentality that they don't need to talk with third parties when making new hardware. Both Microsoft and Sony goes to developers when they are creating new hardware to know what they needs are, how they can create a machine where developers can make their vision come true. Nintendo don't do that. They only do as they please, and then people call the devs lazy because they can't or don't want spend tons of money and time to make a game run on switch properly. Its not an automatic process it takes lots of effort.

If we like Nintendo to have better third party support we should make nintendo listen to them, and not bash every single dev that can't port a game for switch. We can't pretend every developer is lazy just to justify Nintendo's lack of interest on third parties.

Funny I had this preordered on Amazon for years and cancelled it myself a couple months ago. Oh well.

@Azuris Did you try Divinity Original Sin 2? Highly recommended.

@Quarth
Read about that, but there are so many Time Wasters ...
So the Damage is done for this Series for me :>

@bluecuban
Ahh i am half through the first one and yes, absolutly a great Game.
Forgot to Backup my Save Game after getting a new PC a few Years ago and i was tooo lazy for a long Time to set up the old one gather some of my forgotten Files :>

I am waiting for the next Time i am in the Mood for such Games.

A no name Kickstarter game not coming to Switch? Oh well this game was made with PC only in mind so it not coming to Switch is okay.

@Medic_Alert Nintendo being about a decade behind with hardware is both a blessing and a curse. You see a lot less shady monetization on the Switch than PS/Xbox but on the other hand there's the stuff you describe.

Ideally there'd be an outcome where there's more powerful hardware and a lot less shady monetization but I doubt that would become reality. You'd see the next Splatoon having battle passes, the next Nintendo hardware Mario Kart having Tour's monetization, etc.

Meh. Both Disco Elysium and Divinity 2 are MILES better anyway, no loss. Plus the developers are absolute charlatans

@Medic_Alert Can’t help thinking that you’re comparing apples and oranges. Until the Steamdeck, no handheld was more powerful than the Switch. If Nintendo had released a pure TV console as powerful as the Switch, then I think you’d have a point. PS4 and Xbox One are more powerful, sure, let alone the Series X and PS5 - but I can’t pick them up and carry them on the train. It’s a totally unfair comparison. It’d be like me going on Push Square and complaining about how unportable the PS5 is.

@Yanina I wouldn’t be giving them any credit then, considering they abruptedly cancelled this title, as well as release and leave PoE 1 in an unfinished mess.

Not a shock as the first one is a mess on Switch, i'm surprised they even thought they could port the sequel.

@Medic_Alert I think it just needs a new Gen with a Switch 2. Problem with a "Pro" is it would what last 2 years or 3 years max before the Switch 2 drops? I don't fancy buying a premium priced console where i'm only getting a couple of years from it before a much better and more powerful console drops, i think i would rather buy a Steam Deck now then a Switch Pro. Basically Nintendo left it to late for a mid gen upgrade.

I never knew that it was considered for Switch...

@BionicDodo

While it might seen like the obvious answer, that's a really hard viewpoint to justify if you look at the support Microsoft game Studios offers its cross platform games in general as well as projects like Ori and Will of the Wisps : Definitive Edition. Not only dose that have Switch exclusive content you can't even get on Xbox, but the port is FLAWLESS and has seen tons of support. Not only that, PoE2 has had huge unresolved issues on PC as well, while the PlayStation port is fantastic and the game was ported to freaking LINUX.

The motivation is money, which is a thing they get when people buy games they publish on Switch. I'm pretty sure MS doesn't even see Switch as a competitor to Xbox/PC gaming, but as it's own market segment like mobile. They are EXTREMLY friendly with Nintendo's console, to the point where they offer indie developers free support and tech assistance to enable Switch cross play with Xbox releases.

Sometimes technical limitations is simply the ligament reason. From my experience, a studio admitting "We are not good enough at game making to port this" is the last resort, and saying "We just don't want to support Switch anymore" would be the favourable press release if that was actually the case.

@HeadPirate I'm aware that Microsoft has shown some limited support for the Switch, but I still don't think it is a big priority for them and think that a niche game that is a pain to port would be seen as a waste of effort for Switch where they might make the extra effort for Xbox as they need to be seen to support all genres and gamers on their own platform to make sure it is the platform of choice for as many gamers as possible. That said, I agree that if a studio struggles developing for a platform they're highly likely to gloss over that fact in a press release. Let's be honest though, if Microsoft were all in on Switch support they'd have ported Rare Replay by now.

Versus Evil are incompetent c*nts. The state that the first game is still in on the Switch is a shameful disgrace.

I hope they go bust.

@UglyCasanova

There are certain genres I refuse to play at anything less than 60fps. First person shooters and fighting games being the two big ones.

But he’s got an important point. The Switch hardware is starting to hold back games significantly.

Bummer that the company does not like money or to put effort in their games or to hire third parties to help port. Oh well, their loss.

@Laxeybobby same here about the refund. No fuss on Nintendo’s end when I asked for it. I imagine we were two of many!

Well I’m truly disappointed. I had been keeping an eye out, but I knew something was up, it having been so long. I searched the eshop for it last week, thinking I had missed its release. Sadness. 😔

@edusoares Actually not true. Nintendo reached out to various developers to hear their thoughts on the hardware. It's thanks to a request by Capcom that the Switch has as much RAM as it does.

In general, Nintendo has done a lot to improve its standing with third-parties this generation. The Switch might be underpowered, but there's only so much that could have been done to create a cost-efficient hybrid gaming platform back in 2017.

It's a shame that they can't get a good game technically right. As in to run properly. Oh well.

Noooooooooooo! I wanted to play the game at 480p and 25fps on dock mode with those beautiful n64 textures!

@BionicDodo Rare replay would be kinda hard to port to switch because the vast majority of games in that collection were already running on a xbox, they just used the backward compatibily of the xbox one. If they wanted to port it to switch they would have to make a port of every single game in that collection and that would be too time-consuming.

You can still play it on a handheld natively.. Steam Deck.

Unsurprising, they complained a ton about Pillars 1 and not being able to fix the performance, despite having the largest install size of any system. 28g.

@fenlix Xbox Series S and One X consoles costs less than Switch, so people could just get one of them instead.
Then get Game Pass which also includes Rare Replay and 100's of other releases.

I always knew why Rare Replay couldn't be ported to Switch for several reasons too.

@BionicDodo

It's really hard to justify suggesting that making a version of an Xbox studio game that is exclusive to Switch, porting 2 additional games to Switch but not PlayStation, the completely retooled Minecraft switch edition, offering millions of dollars worth of support to developers to ensure people on Xbox and Switch can play online together and featuring the Switch as will as some first party Nintendo games predominately in several of Microsoft's own marketing materials as "limited support" just because they haven't taken on a project you personally would like to see. Even more so given that Rare Reply was in development for Wii U and at the time MS was clear that the decision to port games was entirely up to Rare as it will continue to be run as a completely independent subsidiary.

Rare only has 200 employees and released a successful MMO style game they are supporting and making new content for, while also working on Everwild ... I can't imagine them having the resources for anything else.

Nintendo and MS have always been friendly. They ported Blue Dragon to DS, both Viva Piñata games, both Zoo tycoon games, and two Age of Empire games. There were lots of Xbox games on Wii as well, but that's too far back to list off the top of my head.

The perception that there is more value in keeping a 4 year old game exclusive to you system then you would get from releasing it on a platform with 3 times the install base as the console you make if there is a market for that game has always baffled me. Not only is that illogical, but as you can see from the past two mega popular systems ... it's just not what happens. There are always going to be times where the value of releasing your exclusive game cross platform is just too high to ignore.

This is epically true for MS, given how pathetic PC and Xbox market share is in Japan. The ONLY option to get exposure in that market is to release on Switch or PlayStation.

@fenlix The vast majority is something of an exaggeration. 22 of the 30 games are emulations of N64 and earlier hardware. I take your point that the Xbox 360 games would have taken a lot more effort than was required for Xbox One, but I'm sure they'd have been doable too.

@HeadPirate How do you know what does or doesn't appeal to me? That's an odd comment as I happen to be a fan of the Ori games. Minecraft I'd say is something of a special case as it was agreed when they bought it that it would be kept multiplatform and is available on every format imagineable. Otherwise, I'd say that Microsoft releasing anything that wasn't already in development when they bought the studio is surprising, so in that context their support is impressive, but overall I'd still call it fairly limited for a company that owned double figures studios even before they bought Obsidian and Zenimax.

I finished the first one on PC after buying it on switch and running in to all sorts of bugs. Still… the game ran like garbage on my laptop.

I have the second one on my laptop, but I don’t have the time to sit there and go through it all.

Wish I knew that I could’ve gotten a refund… I wont buy anything from this port developer again.

@Medic_Alert
It seems like there's a lot of hyperbole when it comes to people responding to switch specs criticism, it feels like you get a lot of assumptions that people who are hoping for a theoretical hardware upgrade are looking for something with high-end specs and are "graphics snobs" (or a less friendly variation of the term)

from what ive seen a lot of the time said newer hardware is brought up its when games have noticeable performance issues (Age of calamity, MHstories 2, SMTV etc) or when games are released via cloud, rather than people seeking high end specs.

@UglyCasanova
To be fair if someone is looking for high framerate i wouldn't consider them to be a "graphics freak" since there are quite a few games which sacrifice visual quality for framerate , its also why you see certain games with visual and performance modes. plus framerate also has a link to the gameplay itself since the higher the framerate the more responsive the game is, though in the case of the switch framerate seems to be brought up more often when a game is struggling to hit a consistent 30 (such as the games mentioned above) than when a game isnt 60 (unless the game is particularly reflex intensive)

@Ventilator Is there a sale now?

Where can I get a series X for less than USD$300?

Well no big loss for me never managed to finish the first one.

@edusoares Fifa for switch is basically PS3 Fifa port.

@BionicDodo

You specifically called out Rare Reply as I game you wanted to see, I called out the fact that Rare Reply was in development for Wii U.

What is you baseline? You suggesting Microsoft has "poor" support even though it releases dozens of games on Nintendo consoles, while other two publishers owned by console makers have both released zero cross platform games.

You're also being EXTREMELY selective in your reading, completely ignoring the literal of millions of dollars they are spending to ensure Xbox games are cross platform with Switch. I repeat, for the 3rd time, that as a developer I can give MS the net code for me game and tell them to add Switch cross play and they WILL. FOR FREE. Getting a 3rd party to do that would be $100,000+ depending on the complexity of the code. They are also working to make Xbox Live chat compatible with NSO. That is simply insane. They support NSO more then NINTENDO.

Microsoft also did the Switch port for Cuphead even though they don't own the IP OR the publisher. MDHR just paid them, and the fact that MS have teams with the expertise to port another developer's game speaks volumes.

Plus the fact that they have promoted the Switch on Xbox's official channel. Phil Spencer did a freaking "let's play" of BOTW.

The level of support MS shows Nintendo is so insanely high that it's lead insiders to suspect a merger of Game Pass and NSO, or that MS will be taking over Nintendo online services (I mean, more then they already do, given the actual run NSO's back end already).

Sorry man, you're starting to come off like someone who's already decided you don't like MS because they are too big, and you refuse to accept you might not have had all the information when you formed your opinion on their support of Switch.

@HeadPirate I referrenced Rare Replay as a title that I thought would be popular on Switch. It's not something I care about seeing personally as I own it for Xbox One. I didn't know about it being in development for Wii U, but if it was I'm surprised they didn't move it over to Switch. I'm sure if Microsoft wanted that done they could ask another studio to help out if Rare were busy. How much is a lot of support from a company like Microsoft is subjective. We clearly don't agree so there's little point in wasting so many words going back and forth on it.

I actually played and enjoyed POE1 on Switch and was looking forward to playing the second one too, so this announcement is a bit of a bummer

I’m confised, I’m an engineer and I don’t understand why people think the cloud, which is only a way to distribute assets basically, would circumvent the switch hardware limitations, afaik it really doesn’t. Am I missing something here?

@Krull I'd just amend that to say no DOMESTIC handheld. I'm typing this from my Odin Pro, having stepped away from my currently docked GPD Win 3. Switch isn't the most powerful fish in the market pond, but Switch and the Deck have the benefit of local support and (compared to a GPD) lower cost.

@Olmectron I forgot to write "One".

Xbox One X. The 4K console from 2017 with 4K UHD Drive.
Costed 300 bucks since 2018 when i bought it and it weren't even on sale.

@Kisame83 Totally fair. I meant to raise the issue of price too. I’m sure Nintendo could have brought out a beast of a handheld/hybrid in 2017 - but there’s no way it would be selling for under 300 smackers. And then it wouldn’t have sold enough for people to bother porting stuff to it.

That's really unfortunate, I liked this game alot and was ready to buy it again. If you have a PC, definitely recommend this one. My laptop is a complete potato and it still runs fine, sunk most of 2020 into this game.

@Medic_Alert you have to think more sustainable. Problem isn’t the power but more the creativity in and during the development.
😁

Yeah, these are PC games. I am happy with Divinity Original Sin 2 on Switch, although it is better on iPad. But PoE was an absolute hot mess, better leave Deadfire on PC since they gave up on making the first one work on Switch.

Not surprising. The game has horrendous load times on PS/XBOX. On the switch, it'd probably take like 2 mins to load just exiting a house.

It's no big loss, as these games are a dime a dozen, even on the Switch. I didn't even get the first Pillars of Eternity.
I recommend the following Switch games that are in the same genre (PC RPG):

Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate II
Planescape Torment
Icewind Dale
Divinity: Original Sin II

This game that's not on the switch is a great one.

@Azuris Yeah, I like BG and PoE, but I feel like PoE is for people who are interested in old-school crpg design, but just can't live with such an old-school interface.

@themightyant OK, I was missing the word “console”, as in handheld console. Fair cop.

On the other hand, a brand new, top of the range smartphone is at least twice the price of a Switch. And also does not come with bespoke controllers and internal cooling and a dock. If Nintendo had made something which people seem to think they should have done - and in 2017 - it would easily end up costing consumers a thousand pounds/dollars/euros (deplete as applicable). And hardly anyone would have bought it.

@themightyant Maybe we just need to stop expecting or caring about ports. Switch is big enough as a platform to get bespoke software - and the bespoke software it does get is, generally, excellent, be it it first party or third party. It took Capcom until 2021 to bring out genuine Switch-first titles, and both were very well received (MH Rise and MH Stories 2). I don’t pick up a 3DS and complain that it can’t run Dark Souls.

That said, as much as I’m being argumentative, I wouldn’t mind a Switch 2 by 2025. As long as it’s backwards compatible. I really don’t want a mid-generation upgrade, though. Should be like a DS to 3DS jump.

@Medic_Alert @Medic_Alert
And the new Kirby game already runs at only 30fps with enemy animations run at 10-15fps in the distance.

While resolution is dynamic 1080p but goes down to 800p docked, problem is no anti-aliasing so game looks jaggy when docked.