Different people have different perception of time, I guess.
A phenomenon also known as "bad management".
Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part Two review: An incredible, apocalyptic finish
NOTE: Expect SPOILERS throughout this article for both Pillars of Eternity and the first half of the White March expansion. I recommend skipping to the end if you just want to know whether to buy the expansion as a whole.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. When last we left Pillars of Eternity, my party of adventurers had just completed the first half of the White March expansion and reignited the fires of Durgan’s Battery, the ancient forge hidden high in the mountains. And then we went on our merry way, content we’d saved the tiny town of Stalwart from economic collapse.
How naive. We probably should’ve guessed that the power of Durgan’s Battery would draw more than laborers to Stalwart. Eyes have turned towards the village. Hundreds of eyes. The eyes of an army set to sweep through the entire world, leaving nothing but ruin in its wake.
And you’re the only one who knows.
The big finale
After playing through the first half of The White March last August, I said “What we have in The White March Part One is a low-stakes, low-reward dungeon crawl padded with some filler quests.” And I stand by that, because Part One was tedious.
(Click to expand)
Part Two makes up for it. Apocalyptic—that’s the best way to describe The White March Pt. 2, which once again brings you to the snowy mountains surrounding Stalwart and Durgan’s Battery. If you’ve already finished the expansion’s first half, you’ll need to rest once in Dyrwood to trigger the second section.
Do so and you’ll have a dream. An omen. You see hundreds of eyes, staring through you. You see the aforementioned army sweeping down from the mountains, eventually crushing your fortress of Caead Nua into dust and reducing the world to embers. And you think to yourself, “This seems bad.”
So it’s off to the White March region again. Regardless of how long ago you were actuallythere, the game acts like it’s been a few months. Returning to Stalwart, you’re hailed as a hero. Seemingly everyone recognizes you—“The hero who re-lit the fires of Durgan’s Battery!” People are a lot friendlier. The town is bustling. The mines are open again. But...well, there’s an army encamped near Durgan’s Battery, called The Iron Flail. Maybe that’s who you seek?
Maybe.
It’s no wonder Part One felt dull. It was essentially a bare-bones first act, setting the stakes for a more energetic second half—problem being it was impossible to tell at the time. The mystery of Durgan’s Battery is not the end-goal. It’s the setup, another pawn in a much larger story, the flapping butterfly wing that leads to dire circumstances later on.
And the issue is...Part One still exists. In order to get to The White March Part Two you’ll need to plod through ten or so hours of first-act fluff. Is it worth it? I think so. But you may value your time in an RPG differently.
Regardless, Obsidian should be commended for minimizing re-traversal in The White March. I half-expected to spend Part Two double-speeding through the same areas as last time, fighting new enemies on the same ol’ maps. A few pull double-duty—namely Stalwart and parts of Durgan’s Battery—but in general you’re exploring untouched areas of the White March region, from long-forgotten abbeys to military forts.
As far as raw numbers, I count five or six major new areas and one new companion (Maneha, a barbarian). There are also the usual handful of unique weapons, smaller tasks, et cetera, though nothing quite as big as the raft of new features in Part One. Perhaps the biggest change from a mechanical standpoint is (once again) to spellcasting—wizards/druids/priests/et cetera now “Master” certain spells, meaning they can be cast once per encounter without taking up a slot in your grimoire. The tradeoff is that lower-level spell tiers don’t just recharge uses out of combat anymore, as far as I can tell.
But these are small tweaks, and they rightfully play backup to the story this time around—a story that builds to a climax that’s honestly as good as anything in the main Pillars of Eternity storyline. Perhaps better, given The White March’s shorter overall length. I clocked the second half at ten hours, bringing the expansion to twenty hours total. Not too shabby.
Bottom line
For those of you who skipped the spoilers: I (with some caveats) like it. The White Marchhas its issues—pacing problems in the first half, an over-reliance on huge groups of enemies in the second, and three companions who aren’t given enough time to breathe before their quests are over—but it’s a solid expansion with some incredible moments sprinkled throughout. I still think it’s a better piece of content if you encounter it organically during your first Pillars of Eternity run, but both halves combined are a pretty good argument for end-gamers to dive back in. For a short while, at least.
Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part 2 Review
Time to gather your party in their winter woolens for one more excursion into the snow, as Pillars of Eternity brings the White March expansion (and most likely the game itself, to a large extent) to a close this week. This final set of quests provide a satisfying reveal for the carnage at Durgan’s Battery, deliver on the visions of cataclysmic rumbles in the mountains of the March, and probe further into the pantheon of thoroughly dysfunctional Pillars deities.
Part two of The White March also refines combat encounters a little more, and includes a couple of map locations with options of approach which nearly (but not quite) rival Raedric’s Hold.
Time has passed since your talented Insert-Class-Here entered Durgan’s Battery and re-ignited the White Forge within. Stalwart village has seen an influx of workers and administrators eager to exploit the new economic possibilities, resulting in the settlement’s mines finally being open for exploration. Tensions have been heightened by these rapid changes in fortune, but a far more ominous threat looms in your Watcher’s visions.
Oh, hello. You’re quite a looker.
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The only person even remotely qualified to deal with the impending doom is your hardy protagonist, although that hasn’t stopped a Readceran commander with visions of his own setting up camp near the Battery.
Obsidian’s methodology for patching and updating the game means that all players will get the ‘3.0’ mechanical changes outlined in this video, so none of that business is strictly part of The White March Part 2. It’s still worth commenting on though. In part to distinguish it from the paid expansion, and in part because aspects like the Survival skill’s new relevance (you can choose specific defense and damage bonuses when resting, depending on your character’s abilities), did prove their worth during some of the expansion’s more testing battles.
The added quest-line about Caed Nua’s ownership is also a great deal of fun, featuring a pantomime aristocrat and his obsession with your stronghold. It culminates in a full-on pitched battle, commanded through the illustrated text format, and complete with rousing (or hilariously bloodthirsty, if you prefer) speeches.
Back to what is specific to The White March Part 2, though. The full range of classes is now represented among the named companions, thanks to the inclusion here of an Aumauan barbarian called Maneha.
Helpfully, she’s not hiding inside a barrel of fish. Unlike SOME companions I could mention.
Like all of the companions, she has an attendant quest linked to her current profession (she’s had a few) as an Ondran ‘giftbearer’. Giftbearers, for those who don’t recall, are the devotees of Ondra (goddess of loss, tides), who collect symbolic tokens from people who wish to forget a particularly painful memory. It’s kind of a more spiritual take on the premise behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Maneha’s own troubles eventually intersect with the narrative progression of The White March Part 2, and lead the party to the Ondra-centric Abbey of the Fallen Moon. Her personal quest is a touch on the familiar side (Pillars isn’t short of amiable companions with darker secrets, and the resolution re-treads philosophical territory the game has done better), but the Abbey itself is a typically fine-looking map with some admirable variety in how it can be tackled. This goes beyond a binary “kill everybody / don’t kill everybody” choice, providing a couple of non-violent ways to achieve your goals (one of which is playing along with some Ondran rituals), and quite a few entrances and passageways for the more stealth-inclined to exploit. I was even able to plan out my escape route in advance and use it to avoid any meaningful conflict when matters went sideways.
The climatic choice in the area does feel a bit too binary (and, disappointingly, doesn’t draw much comment from Maneha; suggesting she’s not hugely devoted to her religion), but overall the Fallen Moon map(s) represent the best of The White March’sintentions toward player choice. There’s plenty of interesting world-building going on here too, surrounding both Ondra’s followers and her own divine activities.
#OndraShaming
The White March narrative will lead players to the Abbey no matter what, but other, more side-questy activities will briefly take you back to Dyrford in a familial dispute, and out to other parts of the March’s wilderness in search of a wandering child. If you dealt with Concelhaut in the opening chapter of this expansion, then there’s a fabulous trip to a cultist-filled bog in store as well.
That latter mission is quite substantial in length (and merits its own map with distinct landscape), but perhaps the most in-depth auxiliary quest in this concluding segment is one I’d almost missed until making a second sweep of Stalwart village. Inside the mines (for, as mentioned, they are now working), strange incidents concerning the workforce have escalated to a grisly murder. The two map quest is a mixture of the cosily familiar (a mine level in a fantasy RPG!) and things more otherworldly (the second map, which I won’t spoil), and it works as a neat microcosm for the game’s overall ethos of combining nostalgia-tinged homage with the unique.
The entire second part of the expansion benefits from more crafted combat encounters, where terrain and enemy selections will force players to at least adjust their regular tactics a little. There are fewer opportunities to just lock down an entrance with Eder, and fewer haphazard roaming groups of monsters (creature placement seems more considered, and in harmony with location or story). Instead, you’ll have to deal with situations like being pined down by Xaurip archers and magicians on higher group, while trolls block your path (they’ve clearly been learning from Eder). Or scattering from the onslaught of the intimidating Eyeless; towering, slender golems with pounding hammers for hands.
I play on Normal difficulty, so bear in mind the caveat that such things may seem less impressive if you’re already a master of Path of the Damned.
Oh yes, the Eyeless also have tentacle pals.
The Eyeless represent a significant challenge, but the manner of their difficulty also suggests that Pillars of Eternity’s combat system is pretty much at its limit. Eyeless hit hard, and brute-force their way into making players switch up tactics by being immune to basically everything. They will not be charmed, poisoned, confused, petrified, burned, or any of that nonsense (though, amusingly, their Reflex defense is relatively low, so the good old Slicken spell can still work wonders). This does force a definitive plan of action, and had me actually stacking my quick-use item bar with objects that could provide useful boons, on top of searching for specific spells that would muster better-than-negligible damage.
These foes appear for the climax of the expansion, by which point you may have some additional combat abilities and summons courtesy of any alliances you formed during the course of The White March. This is a welcome consequence for those who made an effort to be diplomatic throughout the add-on. One particular new ‘Soulbound’ weapon added in Part 2 is of great use against the Eyeless too.
For those who might feel their inventory of adopted companions was getting a bit feline-centric, there are a couple of non-cat pets to discover.
Part-way through the review process The White March Part 2 received a hefty bug-busting update, but by this stage I was already quite deep into the 10-12 hours it took to complete. For that reason it’s hard to say for sure which issues (if any) were a hangover from the earlier build. None of the problems were at all severe, but post-patch I did see Aloth standing around after combat and wasting all of his 7th level spells for some secret wizardly reason, poor old Itumaak slowly sliding around in a prone animation during combat, and a couple of overly-pyrotechnic spell effects that seemed to be caught on a loop and dragged my frame-rate down to single digits (before mercifully dispersing).
For change of expansion scenery, why not visit this lovely squelchy mire?
The White March does what most expansions should, and works within the existing game parameters to provide refined extensions of what’s on offer in the main title. It puts more thought into making each combat encounter more of a tactical challenge, and, in its quest design, exhibits some of the main strengths of Pillars of Eternity in offering different options of approach. Choices made during the opening chapter (and the rest of the game) have a reasonable impact on the climax too. It feels a touch strange to wrap-up the final, substantive part of Pillars of Eternity without it being the game’s actual ending, but that’s the nature of the mid-game expansion model. Though it won’t radically alter anybody’s existing opinion on the game, those who voted it asBest PC Exclusive of 2015 in our Reader Awards will be well sated.
8/10
The White March Part 2 brings this multi-part expansion to a satisfying, and typically well-constructed, conclusion; solidifying Pillars of Eternity as one of the best CRPG titles of recent years.
I'd say definetly. The difficulty settings' names are kind of deceptive, and PotD is the real "Hard" setting imo. The game is largely geared towards casuals, apparently in the least annoying way they could come up with. As long as you don't enable expert mode there should be enough feedback to tell you where the difficulty is coming from, so even if you get owned somewhere, you'll be able to analyze why.
Review: The White March Part 2 Review
Writing a review for an expansion to a story-based RPG is never easy. Suffice it to say, you’ll want to turn back now if you don’t want spoilers on Pillars of Eternity’s White March Part 1. If you just want the score, and to know whether or not it lives up to the game’s earlier content? The score is 8.4 and yes, it definitely does. Read on for our full review.
The White March Part 1 left off with both a story complete, and a cliffhanger portending doom for the northern reaches of Eora. We managed to reopen and reignite the White Forge inside of the long-forgotten Durgan’s Battery, and the town of Stalwart became a prosperous mining town in the months between WM part 1 and the beginning of part 2. If you recall, as the fires of the White Forge roared on and as you returned of Caed Nua, the first expansion ended with an ominous foreboding noise from the north beyond Stalwart.
In short, without giving too much away? The White Forge was closed for a reason. Reopening it went and pissed off something ancient, and there won’t be an easy way to appease them. I loved every single second of The White March’s story in parts 1 and 2. I played through Part 2 twice, once with my original character, and once on Story Time with a new character (we’ll talk more about Story Time momentarily). Often in these long and winding RPGs, I get lost pursuing side quests, and the main story sometimes takes a back seat. This time, like Part 1 before it, the tale of the White Forge and Eora’s ancient gods had me so enthralled that I finished the main storyline first, simply because I wanted to know how it ends. And for those who like replay? You’ll be happy to know there are several possible endings, all based on the choices you make.
Story Time, the new game mode in Pillars of Eternity 3.0 (which applies to vanilla PoE, and the first expansion) will make subsequent playthroughs much more enticing. Those who play Pillars know it’s not an easy game. Even on “Easy” Pillars nuanced combat can be challenging for those who don’t have the patience to take it step by step and strategize between actions. Story Time, in Game Director Josh Sawyer’s own words:
“Story Time uses the encounter composition of Normal difficulty but biases the math heavily in the player’s favor. Enemies have lower stats overall. Party members Crit more often, especially when enemies are at low Endurance. Enemies have increased Recovery (attack less frequently), crit far less, have inaccurate Disengagement Attacks, do less damage overall, and do much less damage against party members who are at low Endurance. Hostile status effects on party members are reduced in duration. The party can also carry (effectively) unlimited Camping Supplies.”
Essentially, you can and still will die if you don’t pay attention, but Story Time makes the game’s difficulty far more entertaining. If you haven’t finished Pillars or have never bought into it because of the aforementioned difficulty, today’s 3.0 launch is the absolute perfect time to try out one of 2015’s best games. If you loved Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate, and games of that ilk, Pillars is basically a love letter to those games with a more in-depth combat system and an all new world and lore to delve into.
There’s a new companion, complete with her own story and questline in TWM part 2: Maneha. An Aumaua Barbarian, her voice reminded me of Suzie Ford – resolute, kind, and determined. I’m not buttering up Suzie, either, it really sounds like they hired our beloved News Editor to voice the brutal combatant. And she is someone worth taking along too. My main was a range-focused Druid, and I love Durance (at range) and Sagani, so having another capable melee fighter was fantastic for my first playthrough. Her story, nuanced and layered as the Watcher’s own tale, is worth seeing through to the end as well. She may not be as fun to bring with you as the Devil of Caroc, but kudos to Obsidian for making yet another memorable character.
Those are the Eyeless. They aren’t here for tea…
The Pillars of Eternity story seems to come to a close with the completion of The White March part 2. If the gaming gods are just, Sawyer and his team at Obsidian are already planning on where to take us with Pillars of Eternity 2. There’s a whole wide world they’ve crafted, and we’ve only touched in a very little bit of it all. This expansion really made me keen to find out more about the old gods, their struggles, and why exactly so many seem to have forgotten them save the fringe cults. In whatever form we get the next installment, I hope it touches more upon the past and layers in more of the Eora’s carefully constructed lore. Hats off to Obsidian Entertainment for creating and curating a fantasy world I can care about again, and here’s hoping for many more adventures in the future.
GAMEPLAY: 9 Story-Time makes for an overall more enjoyable experience for those just looking for a good RPG tale. The game’s new quests are among its best, and the always welcome challenge of Normal and above difficulty will give fans of tough games something to work through.
VISUALS AND SOUND: 8 Pillars of Eternity’s hand-made backgrounds are a thing of beauty. The character models are “OK”, but it’s the game’s sound and the fantastic voice acting make this one superb.
POLISH: 9 Simply put, there aren’t really any noticeable bugs, the difficulty balance feels right, and the game is polished to a sheen. Bring on Pillars 2, please!
LONGEVITY: 7 There are plenty of side quests, a nice lengthy main quest, and loads of replay value. Still, we’re rating on the longevity of this single expansion.
VALUE: 9 For $15 and free to Kickstarter backers, there is around 20 hours’ worth of content here. Definitely worth the price, and more considering replay value on other characters.
Final Score
8.4
Pros
A fitting end to the White March story
Great new companions
Story Time mode is great for casual play
Cons
Over too soon
Somewhat predictable
