Played a bit of this, I'm at the Disfavored camp, so far there are alot of stat checks, most of them however being flavour, let's push this rock here, let's grab this rope to reach this place with loot, usually athletics with some rare occasions of lore and subterfuge checks, on the tutorial area, there were alot of small decisions you could make, dunno if any of them have consequence yet. The gameplay at the beginning involve mostly chosing between the three factions with each action building reputation or wrath with them, so far you aren't asked to join them and can do the content of both the Disfavored and Scarlet Chorus but sometimes they have conflicting interests and you have to make a choice, I'm favoring the Disfavored to see what happens.
The factions are kinda abstract archetypes though, they aren't like something like the Tribunal Temple on Morrowind, I dunno if it is because you can't join them so you don't have to follow their rules, the Disfavored are the order murder guys while the Scarlet Chorus are the chaos murder guys, not seeing much depth on both of them, could be that I'm still at the beginning but so far what you read at the updates is all you get of exposition on them.
The companions, Verse and Barik so far, they aren't terribly written but they aren't good too, kinda of bland so far. Verse doesn't seem to have a goal or a belief, she is just a regular member of the chaos murder guys with some animu ability (pretty much everyone has an animu ability on this game), same for Barik, typical dumb order murder guy, those are the first impressions of them, they could turn out interesting later but so far they are very meh.
Personally, I liked the opening of PoE better, you were a common guy going on an ominous caravan and is attacked by strange barbarians and have to go on strange ruins then go on a strange village, maybe it is my personal preference for mystery but the begining on Tyranny is very, very straightfoward, they leave you very little room for the imagination. I find kinda funny how on Conquest mode you single handly can murder the whole noblemen of a city, command armies while burning down ancient libraries with an edict of fire and carry an Edict with the power to kill whole armies but when the game starts for reals, you are a level 01 scrub. I assumed Kyros could at least hire some bodyguards for someone carrying something so important.
Speaking of the conquest mode, I dunno if any of the decisions you have on it have consequences yet, so far the only thing you get is some NPCs commenting on your actions, on the conquest mode you can favor the Disfavored or the Scarlet Chorus on decisions but I hope it isn't just a let's click on the Disfavored options to get brownie points with them or click on the Scarlet Chorus options to get points with them as I fear it is. Sure, if it is just that it isn't the end of the world as it is just a version of the gypsy lady asking you stuff to determine who your character is but I hope for more substantial consequences. Let's see how thing turn out.
