Pathfinder: Kingmaker

 PC
User Score
7.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 551 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 374 out of 551
  2. Mixed: 65 out of 551
  3. Negative: 112 out of 551

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  1. Rilke21
    Oct 2, 2018
    5
    This is not a finished game.

    I'm a big fan of the genre. I have logged many hours into Pillars, Tyranny and the like. I bought this game sight-unseen based on the premise alone, and I nearly requested a refund. I will re-asses this review after I have logged more hours (I'm currently around 5.) Here are the problems that the game is seriously suffering from, at least in its current    This is not a finished game.

    I'm a big fan of the genre. I have logged many hours into Pillars, Tyranny and the like. I bought this game sight-unseen based on the premise alone, and I nearly requested a refund.

    I will re-asses this review after I have logged more hours (I'm currently around 5.) Here are the problems that the game is seriously suffering from, at least in its current version.

    1) Pathetic load times and poor optimization. I am playing on a top-end system. The initial loading screen now reads "first time loading may take several minutes, please wait." This is because every time you log in, you have to wait 2-5 minutes. We are past the days of Deus Ex running on a Compaq, and there is just no excuse for this.

    2) Questionable voice acting, from the first scene.

    3) Horrifically tuned encumbrance mechanics and no option to increase game speed. Your characters will be trudging through molasses, even when your party is not encumbered. If you find the default speed in Pillars to be slow, you will quickly either take up knitting or stop playing Pathfinder in frustration...and, unlike Pillars, there is no option to speed up the action.

    4) Poorly optimized difficulty settings. I started playing on "challenging" since I'm no stranger to the genre. I breezed through the initial encounters, and then came to the first main "outside of town" event. The encounter was impossible. I went to the next area in the hopes of leveling up, and the encounters were even worse. I lowered the difficulty to "normal" and got through with a tough fight...but the next main area was pathetically easy. You also have to play on normal (or custom) if you want to avoid the ridiculous encumbrance penalties. As noted above, even if you do avoid the penalties, you party will be moving like geriatric garden gnomes.

    All that said, I feel a spark of potential in this game. It is precisely the kind of game that I want to love. I just can't in its current version. I am very much hoping that the developers fix, primarily, the lack of speed issues...until then, I'll be plugging away while my patience lasts, which hasn't been for long.    … Expand
  2. Malvolio
    Oct 4, 2018
    6
    Half these reviews: Game needs fixing 10/10 That's not how scores work. As of 4 Oct not a single person has completed the game according to steam. Is it that long? Nope its so bugged out you cant even fkn complete it but my god 10/10.

    Numerous Kingdom bugged events that end the game entirely, your advisors bug out in your own throne room making numerous quest un-completable, Act 3-4 bug    Half these reviews: Game needs fixing 10/10 That's not how scores work. As of 4 Oct not a single person has completed the game according to steam. Is it that long? Nope its so bugged out you cant even fkn complete it but my god 10/10.

    Numerous Kingdom bugged events that end the game entirely, your advisors bug out in your own throne room making numerous quest un-completable, Act 3-4 bug either ends your game or prevents you from moving forward at all. But call a game difficult and the hipsters come out of the woodwork to call a game that isn't even fkn finished a masterpiece.

    Game has good writing, amazing character backstories, great voicework on the parts that are voiced, and a ton of character customization.

    What it doesn't do is actually work at all. People who say nothing is wrong have no idea that a bunch of their items aren't granting bonuses at all. One misclick and items disappear from a bugged stash. That one advisor that walks up to you at your throne and talks about random stuff is actually supposed to be different people but he bugs out. Artisans capable of crafting you items at the beginning of every month almost all stop functioning.    … Expand
  3. MoppleTheWhale
    Oct 6, 2018
    5
    Pathfinder: Kingmaker could become an outstanding game at what it wants to be: A Pen and Paper adaptation to it's core.
    For now it is unfinished. There are a lot of bugs. Story bugs, UI bugs. Abilities (or "feats") don't allways do what it says in their description. The kingdom management system gets out of control and sometimes you just can't do anything about it.
    In this kind of game    Pathfinder: Kingmaker could become an outstanding game at what it wants to be: A Pen and Paper adaptation to it's core.
    For now it is unfinished. There are a lot of bugs. Story bugs, UI bugs. Abilities (or "feats") don't allways do what it says in their description. The kingdom management system gets out of control and sometimes you just can't do anything about it.

    In this kind of game your journey shouldn't allways go smooth. Not every enemy encounter should be fair. I absolutely agree. But in this game there is just too much that is totally messed up. If this was beta stage my tendency would be 9/10. But it is not ok to release a game in this condition.

    There is not even a way to finish the game yet, that's how broken it is. Noone has done it yet.    … Expand
  4. tma2
    Oct 2, 2018
    6
    The game has alot of potential but it is not the masterpiece these 10/10 reviews claim. It is full of bugs, including many which are game breaking. Basic class feats don't function. The difficulty even on normal is very unbalanced to the point where you will reload just to hit an enemy, let alone win encounters.

    The content is definitely good but its not comparable to Baldur's Gate 2.    The game has alot of potential but it is not the masterpiece these 10/10 reviews claim. It is full of bugs, including many which are game breaking. Basic class feats don't function. The difficulty even on normal is very unbalanced to the point where you will reload just to hit an enemy, let alone win encounters.

    The content is definitely good but its not comparable to Baldur's Gate 2. Graphics are pretty good but the loading times are very very slow. Story and voice acting is good.

    At launch and currently, the rampant issues seriously detract from its rating. 6/10. In time a 9/10 may be reasonable.    … Expand
  5. Hecatoncheires
    Sep 29, 2018
    2
    Maybe in one Year the Game is really cool like Poe .But now the customers are the Beta Test for the Game.EA or work on the Game longer maybe the smarter choise.Now the Steam Review and support for the game is dropping
  6. Magalha
    Oct 5, 2018
    2
    Despite being sold as a full release, it clearly is an early access tittle, keep your distance for at least 6 months.
    Has great potential, but the developer's "vision" about difficulty is to lazily just break a d20 system by doing flat increases to the enemies stats almost reducing encounters to pure RNG, making players have to rely on save/load on every encounter, and even when    Despite being sold as a full release, it clearly is an early access tittle, keep your distance for at least 6 months.
    Has great potential, but the developer's "vision" about difficulty is to lazily just break a d20 system by doing flat increases to the enemies stats almost reducing encounters to pure RNG, making players have to rely on save/load on every encounter, and even when travelling on the map, since you can get forced into encounters way above your level/abilities and there isn't any way to flee. While it's still plagued with several game-breaking bugs and the devs are slowly fixing them, it'll take a while for it to shine as much as it could.    … Expand
  7. dontadow
    Oct 1, 2018
    2
    The game could have been a solid rpg, but it's mawed by trying to stick too close to a tabletop rpg but yet use computer game tropes.

    Tabletop rpgs are turn based, and yet the game decides to be real time. The result is a cluster. Monsters are not properly balanced for all party makeups, and the game does not allow you to choose who joins you in the beginning nor does it tell you that    The game could have been a solid rpg, but it's mawed by trying to stick too close to a tabletop rpg but yet use computer game tropes.

    Tabletop rpgs are turn based, and yet the game decides to be real time. The result is a cluster. Monsters are not properly balanced for all party makeups, and the game does not allow you to choose who joins you in the beginning nor does it tell you that a specific party makeup is neccessary. This game is the MMO of CRPGs without the experience of game designers who know how to make fun, tactical battles.
    To make matters worse, the AI for your comrades is nonexitence. You will spend a lot of time pausing and giving orders to your player. If you have played games like Pillars, Divinity, Dragon Age, where you don't have to micromanage party members, you'll miss them sorely.

    FOr those who manage to make the right party, and choose the right choices in the game, (i say right b ecause the game uses tabletop random encounters that range from things you can handle to things grossly out of your level ), then you wil have fun. However, there's 33 percent of people who've bought this game who the game has screwed.

    The only way to play the game is to min/max and power game. Making choices from a roleplaying point of view will cause you. Case in point, when the intro is happening u are gathering your starting party membres. However, you have chances to save certain people and change your alignment. If you don't choose evil, you will find yourself without an arcane magic user which is required (becaue of aoes ) for several encounters.
    Of course, nothing in the game will tell you that. You will spend 30 minutes fighting a spider swarm before you google things and realize that someone who has the srd figured out that the creature needs magic to attack. Well, here's the problem, no where in the game does it hint to how to hurt spiders.    … Expand
  8. KIlravock
    Oct 4, 2018
    2
    I have played the tabletop RPG since it began and was looking forward to a computer version I could play solo. I was hopeful, but after a very short time...greatly disappointed. Icewind Dale (ID) CRPG series was a long time ago, yet Pathfinder kingmaker demonstrates minimal advancement. in fact in PK, you can only create one character but years ago in ID you could create your entire partyI have played the tabletop RPG since it began and was looking forward to a computer version I could play solo. I was hopeful, but after a very short time...greatly disappointed. Icewind Dale (ID) CRPG series was a long time ago, yet Pathfinder kingmaker demonstrates minimal advancement. in fact in PK, you can only create one character but years ago in ID you could create your entire party of six.

    In PK you're given a choice of some pre-generated characters to come along with you that you can level up, but the developers obviously missed that character creation is one of the most fun aspects of these games!

    However, the absolute worst aspect of the game is the time limit. You must do "X" by a certain date or the game is over. "X" was not obvious to me as I started exploring the world and getting total party killed by spider swarms, single trolls or a handful of were-rats depending on where I stumbled upon.

    I never saw anything to do with setting up or running a kingdom, as the "timer" ran out on the game. By the way...that timer continues to count down even when you're resting or spending time constantly swapping out armour of your party members in order to rest and avoid fatigue.

    In real-time I played about 10 hours and lost the game. In game time....it is a fantasy calendar...I obviously spent three months. Half of that was either travelling from A to B and resting/changing clothes.

    I play Skyrim, different kind of game, with no issues. I loved Icewind Dale, Temple of Elemental Evil...all great. How to fix PK? #1 is to remove time limit. #2 is to allow character creation for your entire party from level one.

    I bought this on pre-order. 10 hours later it's game over...failed? I'll shelve this until it is fixed.    … Expand
  9. Artmaton
    Oct 10, 2018
    4
    To understand this game you should get deeper into it. I spend 70h of Gameplay on it right now, and normally I would quit but I work in QA and thats why I move forward. Why I mention this? It's because game at current stage in not finished product. You got a ton of bugs, Check issues section on Steam it got over 2500+ posts. Some are minor like display of something, but others are likeTo understand this game you should get deeper into it. I spend 70h of Gameplay on it right now, and normally I would quit but I work in QA and thats why I move forward. Why I mention this? It's because game at current stage in not finished product. You got a ton of bugs, Check issues section on Steam it got over 2500+ posts. Some are minor like display of something, but others are like quests not working, characters roaming around without your interaction, spells vanishing from character, skills not working, missing descriptions and a ton of other things. For example so anticipated feature of building a kingdom is only partial at the moment, After building up and investing in my city it got high level and still looks like village full of peasants, so the video showing graphical advancement of your city was fake. At moment this is not implemented, one of major features of game which was advertised on video is not in game, and you still pay for it. The list goes and goes on, developers are trying to hotfix a lot but often with one fix they provide new defects. Its obvious that this game is lacking of good Testing team. I paid for it regular price and I'm not satisfied with result, and I must say that game has a huge potential but at this stage it should be called Beta, not official. Maybe if there would be a Modification tool for community, people would fix and improve game by themselves. For now I would wait around 2 months till everything gets fixed before buying it. I spend days playing rpgs when I was younger, finished BG, Icewind, Gothic and other multiple times with different ways but currently Pathfinder is the most bugged game which I have seen.
    Have a nice day.    … Expand
  10. SDaemon
    Sep 25, 2018
    10
    It is just our beloved and awaited Bauldur's Gate v3.0!
    just throw your money right into the monitor and enjoy!
  11. Auticus
    Sep 26, 2018
    7
    Great game in the spirit of Baldurs Gate, Torment, Pillars of Eternity etc. The Kingmaker series is one of my favorite RPG modules of all time, so seeing this was pretty exciting.

    The game out the gate is pretty good for a group of developers' first attempt. The game for the most part plays solidly, has good voice acting, and an engaging story. The visuals are on par with existing    Great game in the spirit of Baldurs Gate, Torment, Pillars of Eternity etc. The Kingmaker series is one of my favorite RPG modules of all time, so seeing this was pretty exciting.

    The game out the gate is pretty good for a group of developers' first attempt. The game for the most part plays solidly, has good voice acting, and an engaging story.

    The visuals are on par with existing games in the same genre.

    I'm giving it a 7 right now instead of a higher score because there are some initial bugs that need worked out. Nothing has been game breaking for me, but I have had one crash to desktop, and there are little annoying minor things such as string place holders for descriptions showing, or the name of an item being called NULL. Little things like that.

    Bottom line for me is if you enjoy isometric RPGs, then this is worth checking out.    … Expand
  12. Taziar
    Sep 28, 2018
    0
    Game is completely broken. I have never seen so many bugs in a game before, and this is after 2 patches. As to the game itself, graphics are good, performance is good, beyond that, things start to fall apart.

    Difficulty. I love challenging games. If I don't get my party wiped at least once every few hours in a game, then the game is far too easy. This game is not too easy. It is    Game is completely broken. I have never seen so many bugs in a game before, and this is after 2 patches. As to the game itself, graphics are good, performance is good, beyond that, things start to fall apart.

    Difficulty. I love challenging games. If I don't get my party wiped at least once every few hours in a game, then the game is far too easy. This game is not too easy. It is hard. Unfortunately it is more hard than challenging. Yes, this game will kick your butt, but the problem is, it is due to inflated attributes, not encounter design. So you can have an encounter that wipes the floor with you. I mean, you don't kill a single enemy. But then, when you redo it, and use the exact same tactics, can wipe the floor with them, not losing a single party member. Challenging suggests that you need to apply strong tactics to win. Hard means reloading until you don't get one-shotted before you take your first action.

    To make a proper challenging game, you need to change the encounter for harder difficulty levels. Add more enemies. Replace weaker enemies with more powerful enemies, like casters. Enemies that are harder because they have more skills and abilities to use on the party. This game doesn't do that. It simply applies a formula that blindly boosts attributes of enemies. So, what happens is, the party misses 90% of the time, and the enemy hits almost every time. (They boost enemy AC and their attack rolls)

    The game is not all bad. You can tell they really tried to make a Pathfinder game that feels like the Pen and Paper version. They just made tons of mistakes. Given enough time, assuming the developers don't give up in it, it might become a great game. But it isn't today.

    The bugs are just too many. Not just bugs, the mechanics seem fundamentally flawed. The 6-second round system is broken. Flanking was redesigned to include simply being engaged to two enemies. So two fighters standing toe-to-toe with two rogues, in a battle line, and everyone is considered flanked. The rogues get to sneak attack the fighters standing in front of them. Not to mention any archers, regardless of where they are positioned.

    If they manage to fix the many, many bugs in this game and actually make it playable, I will rewrite this review. I want to like this game, I really do. But it was released in a sad, sad state.    … Expand
  13. Switters
    Sep 28, 2018
    0
    Half baked, unpolished, bug ridden, and imbalanced. Any 10 reviews are fanboys or shills. Check out Steam reviews for a more accurate picture (currently it's at mixed reviews which just "meh").
  14. roachtbp
    Sep 26, 2018
    10
    Feels just like the classic isometric crpgs of old (with modern conveniences)!!! Uses the Pathfinder ruleset, which is extremely similar to the D&D 3.5 ruleset.

    If you like old school crpgs such as Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Temple of Elemental Evil, and Planescape: Torment, or if you like more modern rpgs such as Pillars of Eternity, Torment: Tides of Numenera,    Feels just like the classic isometric crpgs of old (with modern conveniences)!!! Uses the Pathfinder ruleset, which is extremely similar to the D&D 3.5 ruleset.

    If you like old school crpgs such as Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Temple of Elemental Evil, and Planescape: Torment, or if you like more modern rpgs such as Pillars of Eternity, Torment: Tides of Numenera, and Tyranny, then you will definitely enjoy this game, I have no doubt.    … Expand
  15. Sinue_shakkara
    Sep 28, 2018
    9
    Great game in all aspects, some minor bugs but they already adressing them , great work for an small indie studio. Great visuals, storytelling, characters etc... those who said "its imbalanced/too hard" havent played baldurs gate in their lives, where every door you opened u were gonna die because u didnt know what was coming, or u failed your save throws, or got crit on the face... and onGreat game in all aspects, some minor bugs but they already adressing them , great work for an small indie studio. Great visuals, storytelling, characters etc... those who said "its imbalanced/too hard" havent played baldurs gate in their lives, where every door you opened u were gonna die because u didnt know what was coming, or u failed your save throws, or got crit on the face... and on this one in normal difficulty ive been pwning all my normal combats, having to think or reload sometimes when come to the boss/difficult ones but not even close of how many times u needed to reload on BG/icewind/planescape etc... if u find this hard on normal diff settings, these games arent for you...and even tho u can put in on story mode so u cant die and enjoy the game...dont know what more u want guys...game cannot summon you some hands and brains so u can l2p, go back to fortnite or cod...… Expand
  16. Pech_SOG
    Sep 25, 2018
    10
    Incredible. The best of BG2, Pillars 1/2 and isometric rpg gaming. Epic, deep, and wonderful gameplay.
  17. mjprogue
    Sep 30, 2018
    0
    Any game that is bought and paid for and still can not be played after 5 days is a garbage game. If you are one of the very numerous people who are having problems, you can guarantee that Owlcat will put zero effort into addressing your issues. Buy at your own risk...its a gamble whether your money will be totally wasted or not.
  18. EricNeo
    Sep 29, 2018
    0
    Areas that crash the game.

    Swarm of spiders early game that you cannot kill unless you see a dev post or a youtube video on how to get by them. The game gives all the early kingdom quests to a single advisor and one of those locks him for 60 days which means you fail all the other quests because he is the only one you can select for them. Main storyline quest "Ancient Curse" has a    Areas that crash the game.

    Swarm of spiders early game that you cannot kill unless you see a dev post or a youtube video on how to get by them.

    The game gives all the early kingdom quests to a single advisor and one of those locks him for 60 days which means you fail all the other quests because he is the only one you can select for them.

    Main storyline quest "Ancient Curse" has a timer and hidden requirement that requires you hunt IRL forums for an obscure dev post on what you have to do, miss it and you're completely screwed. Enjoy watching the Eight-Legged Plague destroy your kingdom 2 days at a time and there is nothing you can do about it.

    I really wanted to like this game but this game makes it so hard. It's not fun running into game breaking bugs, bad design choices, and quests with hidden conditions that require you to hunt dev posts on forums to figure out what needs to be done.    … Expand
  19. whyteian
    Sep 25, 2018
    10
    Pathfinder Kingmaker is a fantastic rpg. So far, I am loving it. Congratulations to Owlcat Games!
  20. night4
    Sep 25, 2018
    4
    Pros:
    -Character creation. Everything here is amazing except the extremely limited number of portraits and the fact that elves can't have beards.
    Cons: -Crashes. Crashes on startup, crashes on exit, crashes sometimes otherwise. -Graphics. It's ugly and the characters look like they're from 20 years ago, even with all options on high on a great gaming pc. -Too similar to Neverwinter    Pros:
    -Character creation. Everything here is amazing except the extremely limited number of portraits and the fact that elves can't have beards.

    Cons:
    -Crashes. Crashes on startup, crashes on exit, crashes sometimes otherwise.
    -Graphics. It's ugly and the characters look like they're from 20 years ago, even with all options on high on a great gaming pc.
    -Too similar to Neverwinter NIghts, in a bad way.
    -Extremely unoriginal
    -It should be turn based
    -Resting is tedious and unnecessarily time consuming.
    -Inventory management is ridiculous and unnecessarily time consuming
    -Too difficult/expensive to create your own group

    Edit: The game is just loading screens and small, bland, empty wilderness areas with nothing there. It's not fun, and I've enjoyed every D&D based game ever made.

    TLDR: The game feels like playing with a pedantic, punitive GM who is deliberately trying to suck all the fun out of it.    … Expand
  21. Donutstalker93
    Nov 29, 2020
    5
    I really wanted to like this game. I have nothing negative to say about it from a narrative standpoint, in fact I was pretty invested in that aspect of the game, and it's the only reason I'm giving it a 5. But the gameplay here is god awful. I've been playing a lot of CRPGs lately, and I've played tabletop games before, and I've NEVER seen this many misses in any game before. I'm notI really wanted to like this game. I have nothing negative to say about it from a narrative standpoint, in fact I was pretty invested in that aspect of the game, and it's the only reason I'm giving it a 5. But the gameplay here is god awful. I've been playing a lot of CRPGs lately, and I've played tabletop games before, and I've NEVER seen this many misses in any game before. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I had Harrim in my party for around 45 minutes, through several battles, before he finally landed a single attack. I thought it may just be me but when I looked it up it seems like a lot of players were screwed over by the biased rng in this game. It's unlikely to happen, but it needs to be fixed. I'd actually give it another go if it was. But for now I don't feel like putting up with artificial difficulty that just boils down to being annoying and time consuming.… Expand
  22. Steyraus
    Jan 30, 2021
    3
    It startsout really good butvall falls apart when you hit the open world. With glitches, awkward combat , ridiculas ballancing, you encounter almost invincible swarms and high level bosses just steps from the begining area. It throws yoi completely off the experiance.. Every side character has thr same damn story. Was not happy in their home town because life is hard fot wahmen and wahmenIt startsout really good butvall falls apart when you hit the open world. With glitches, awkward combat , ridiculas ballancing, you encounter almost invincible swarms and high level bosses just steps from the begining area. It throws yoi completely off the experiance.. Every side character has thr same damn story. Was not happy in their home town because life is hard fot wahmen and wahmen are amazing so they went off to lives on the streets and run around the wilderness.… Expand
  23. Macbaine
    Mar 3, 2019
    7
    I like this game.. the story is rich and interisting ... you need like reading for enjoye this game
  24. Geralt123
    Oct 20, 2020
    6
    It is a little bit sad. This could have been a great game, but there is one serious design problem: The balancing. I have NEVER seen a game with such a bad balancing. While the normal enemies are ok, when it comes to bosses or minibosses, it is possible that you cannot defeat them without lowering the difficulty. Even on Normal Mode, the encounters can be extremely unfair. Normal Mode isIt is a little bit sad. This could have been a great game, but there is one serious design problem: The balancing. I have NEVER seen a game with such a bad balancing. While the normal enemies are ok, when it comes to bosses or minibosses, it is possible that you cannot defeat them without lowering the difficulty. Even on Normal Mode, the encounters can be extremely unfair. Normal Mode is actually Hard Mode!

    However, this game was made with love, it can be seen clearly seen. They just did not find the right balance and obviously ran out of money during the development. But the end result is worse than it could have been. Which is a pity because the Story, atmosphere, companions and music are very good.

    --> Overall, I can recommend this game to cRPG fans. I would give it a 6/10 because of the bad balancing and horrific Kingdom Management. Otherweise it would be 8/10. Buy it at max 12 Euros on Sale. You can tone down the difficulty when things get too hard.

    Story:
    It is good. I liked it. It is deep and complex, sometimes serious, sometimes funny. A good mixture.

    Music:
    Music is done well, but nothing exceptional like Witcher 3.

    Combat:
    Combat is fun. There are so many spells and skills, it is really amazing. Real time with pause is good. However, in many fights even on Normal mode, the balancing was totally off, making it nearly impossible to defeat certain bosses

    Graphics:
    Graphics are cute with a lot attention to detail. I like it!

    World Design:
    You move on an overview map and enter the actual game maps from there which are quite small. Open World would have added to the immersion. Load screen are very often and annoying. No fast travel.

    Pros
    ===================
    - Nice graphics
    - Interesting Companions, deep character stories, good dialogues, good banter
    - Complex combat
    - Good music
    - Very long game (if you do all quests, certainly 200-400 hours)
    - Good atmosphere
    - Good story

    Cons
    ===================
    - Balancing of the fights is sometimes totally off, especially in the endgame where everything counts. Frustrating!
    - A lot of F5 / F8 involved in this game (Quickload, Quicksave) because outcomes are determined by virtual dice throws
    - Some quests are so vague that you don't know what to do next. This is not Ubisoft style of quests. Quests will make you Google like an idiot every 2 hours because you don't have any clue what to do next
    - Kingdom Management is a nice idea but totally broken so that sooner or later you will turn on "Easy Mode" or "Invincible Kingdom" anyway. Very annoying.
    - Load screens every time you go to a new minimap or go back to the main map, or enter a building
    - Voice acting only about 20-30% of the dialogues
    - The last chapter is such an enormous difficulty spike that it is absolutely annoying. Diffculty has to be lowered
    - Some quests have a time limit and since you have to travel back and forth on the map due to conflicting quests, this can be very annoying and stressful    … Expand
  25. Zelmar
    Oct 2, 2020
    10
    It is amazing how this game is able to scratch my Baldurs Gate itch. It pushes in small but very subtle details a lot of traditional RPG elements by giving them a bit more depth a bit more push a bit more substance than you are used to and the cumulative effect is that you have a gorgeous full of content and progression arch for your hero and party. Amazing. I am playing version 2.1 soIt is amazing how this game is able to scratch my Baldurs Gate itch. It pushes in small but very subtle details a lot of traditional RPG elements by giving them a bit more depth a bit more push a bit more substance than you are used to and the cumulative effect is that you have a gorgeous full of content and progression arch for your hero and party. Amazing. I am playing version 2.1 so cannot comment on the earlier version. This version is very polished.… Expand
  26. iamaneviltaco
    Jun 2, 2021
    6
    I swear some times I like this game despite the developers' best efforts. I'm gonna give it a 6, but it's really like a 9 game bogged down by some truly baffling design choices. Very mild spoilers for a few very early fights, but I did my best to not give any specifics.

    The good: - Combat. Both real time with pause and turn based feel satisfying, turn based in particular is like    I swear some times I like this game despite the developers' best efforts. I'm gonna give it a 6, but it's really like a 9 game bogged down by some truly baffling design choices. Very mild spoilers for a few very early fights, but I did my best to not give any specifics.

    The good:

    - Combat. Both real time with pause and turn based feel satisfying, turn based in particular is like playing the pen and paper game on a computer. They nailed the game play, at least on a mechanical level.

    - Sound. The music is great, and the voice acting is surprisingly good for an old school crpg. The sound effects, too, this is a genre that tends to suffer from bad voice acting and sound design. It's good to see owlcat thought of this when they made the game.

    - Kingdom management. If you like this sort of thing, the kingdom management is honestly pretty fun. Manage advisors, handle crisis situations and opportunities, build stuff to improve your barony's stats, it's got a lot to it.

    - The aesthetic. It looks like the game is written on a book, with the dialog choices and various cutscenes. The map is an actual map, with little toy pieces that slide around it. They spent a lot of time on the ui for this thing, I bet. It's beautiful.

    The bad:

    - Henchman balance. Harrim is a dwarven cleric with a dex of 8 and a cha of 10. He gets hit every other swing and his channeled healing is legitimate garbage. Valerie has mostly odd numbers for stats, literally wasting points. The only cleric that CAN heal properly, Tristian, can't wear freaking armor. Most tellingly? Amiri and Linzi are built using 20 points, like a mercenary. Valerie has 2 more points than the player, but they're wasted. Regongar and Octavia have 5, they're flat out better than the "main character". Ekundayo? 6! He's hilariously better than you, if you build an archer as well.

    - Combat balance. Some fights you steamroll over. Alternatively? In one area, there's a few bodies dead near a camp site. A skill check (knowledge nature) has a high difficulty, so you won't pass it by the time you get there. Gotta sleep, because some of the fights in this area are hard? Free camp site! Oh, but there's a demilich. That has an ac in the high 30s. Who is immune to healing spells. And magic missiles. And has concealment, so you miss 50% of the time. And casts fear every round. And has an automatic aoe electricity attack. You're level 3. Oh, and you know what skill you use to tell if something died from undead? It's not knowledge nature, it's knowledge religion. Another fight? invisible were rats that do like 20 damage per swing with sneak attacks, while you lose a lot of your defensive bonuses. The main tank in the game has about 60 hp at this point. She dies pretty much instantly. Another one? Bug swarms you can only kill with fire or aoe spells, that do damage and poison you. Again, level 2-3. With probably no mage, so you have very limited grenades (if you found any) or freaking torches.

    - Troll developers. That previous statement about the demilich that attacks out of nowhere? The game is full of that, random fights that are much higher level than you, and nearly impossible at times. With no warning. In an area you're set to at a level way below what you'd need to fight them. This has gotten better over time, but it's still a major problem.

    - The Deal With the Devil quest. This is a tie in to the Troll developers. Some dude on kickstarter paid 4 grand to put a quest into the game, and what he added was a mary-sue led adventure that the entire community absolutely hates. You have one path through it, it railroads you into helping this dude (Darven) and actually doesn't have any options to just end the quest or arrest the dude. Even though he kills people on sight, and is very very evil. Kill him? That's an evil action. Ignore him? Kingdom crisis events your advisors can't fix, slowly destroying your entire game. Oh, but help him? Your alignment is screwed, and you have 70k gold for some reason. It's actually the worst thing I've ever seen in a video game, and I played Ride to Hell Retribution.

    The final verdict:
    It's like dungeons and dragons, but you're playing with a malicious and vindictive DM. There are moments of absolute brilliance, but you will want to uninstall the game at times.    … Expand
  27. Joseph65
    Sep 3, 2020
    9
    Much controversy over this one: rated with many "zeroes" and "tens". I must say this is an excellent game, with has aspects that can please most players. For instance I thoroughly enjoyed the controversial Kingdom building part, which adds a strategic layer to the action. One thing that many naysayers forget is that after two full years from release, this game is being constantly updatedMuch controversy over this one: rated with many "zeroes" and "tens". I must say this is an excellent game, with has aspects that can please most players. For instance I thoroughly enjoyed the controversial Kingdom building part, which adds a strategic layer to the action. One thing that many naysayers forget is that after two full years from release, this game is being constantly updated with substantial improvements: the best of these is certainly the turn based combat. After so many Patches the game has lost the vast majority of the initial bugs. I rate it 9 because I still do not like some details of the combat system, a bit based on luck and imho, devoid of a proper interaction between weapons and armour. Overall, a great game.… Expand
  28. toroks
    May 27, 2020
    10
    This is a true spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate series, and small studio Owlcat deserves a whole lot of credit to have pulled off this very complex game as good as they have 12 years after we saw a similar D&D game, Neverwinter Nights 2. The gameplay, the exploration, the combat system, the overview and feel of the graphics, the quirky humor - the Baldur's Gate inspiration is veryThis is a true spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate series, and small studio Owlcat deserves a whole lot of credit to have pulled off this very complex game as good as they have 12 years after we saw a similar D&D game, Neverwinter Nights 2. The gameplay, the exploration, the combat system, the overview and feel of the graphics, the quirky humor - the Baldur's Gate inspiration is very clear. The biggest deviation is really that this is in the world of Golarion and not Forgotten Realms, but in some way it feels refreshing to get to know this (for me) new setting.… Expand
  29. setpol
    Jul 20, 2021
    0
    DO NOT BUY FOR PLAYSTATION CONSOLES

    This game is a buggy horrible mess. It crashes constantly and has not been fixed in the 3 years of it being out, it won't ever be.

    The game was fun interesting and has something to it but I absolutely cannot recommend when it crashes nearly as much as cyberpunk.

    This was even on a ps5 and it didn't help it at all.
  30. cremadiscampi
    Jun 23, 2020
    8
    I was quite surprised by Kingmaker, it is a great CRPG and a worthy spiritual successor to the old isometric rpgs such as Baldur's Gate. The story is simple but nice, the characters and companions are enjoyable but what I liked the most was definitely how immersive the game is and the huge amount of choices it offers. The kingdom management mechanics might not appeal to everyone, but II was quite surprised by Kingmaker, it is a great CRPG and a worthy spiritual successor to the old isometric rpgs such as Baldur's Gate. The story is simple but nice, the characters and companions are enjoyable but what I liked the most was definitely how immersive the game is and the huge amount of choices it offers. The kingdom management mechanics might not appeal to everyone, but I personally enjoyed that aspect. I didn't really enjoy the combat, but I fixed it thanks to the marvelous turn-based mod.
    I'll definitely be eager to play the next game.    … Expand
  31. MegaLuter
    Jan 18, 2022
    0
    игра содержит ЛГБТ тематику. Если честно вы уже достали пихать в игры тематику больных на голову и письку людей.
  32. Pigofiend
    Sep 27, 2020
    7
    Prepare for a 100+ hour ride. The game was riddled with bugs, but now, 2 years after release you can actually play it without a hitch. BUT you will have to manage

    - items, items, items, lots of them - your kingdom - the whims of your companions - your advisors. Early advice: do not go to Fangleberry cave early in the game since the SWARM will zero your party. You have been warned    Prepare for a 100+ hour ride. The game was riddled with bugs, but now, 2 years after release you can actually play it without a hitch. BUT you will have to manage

    - items, items, items, lots of them
    - your kingdom
    - the whims of your companions
    - your advisors.

    Early advice: do not go to Fangleberry cave early in the game since the SWARM will zero your party. You have been warned :). Maybe after level 5!

    All in all a beautiful RPG, but requires a lot of time because of unnecessary micromanagement and too many, way too many options. Play it on cold winter days when you have literally nothing to do.    … Expand
  33. Deprecated
    Oct 4, 2020
    10
    The most expansive CRPG out there, massive amount of depth and challenging gameplay that forces you to plan out your encounters and build your team with balance in mind (and make use of the quick save). Playing through on difficult is a rewarding experience that rewards you for exploring and punishes you for your mistakes
  34. EvgeniLinuxUser
    Jun 21, 2020
    10
    Good written text (at least on Russian), a beautiful picture, an interesting world to discover, a solid story, an understandable protagonist motivation, but why have the “top manager” simulator added here? Ubuntu 18.04. There are some performance issues that were recently mostly fixed but not everywhere. Otherwise GNU/Linux port works perfectly.
  35. ottohahn
    Jun 12, 2021
    0
    Played the most recent patch in June 2021.
    The Kingdom Management Minigame is boring and sucks.
    The balancing is horrible. Some Enemies are Paperweights and some are just unbeatable. Additionally the difficulty is increased by throwing mob after mob at the player. Last act is incomprehensible and has also horrible balancing. Story is the generic "ancient evil destroys the lands".    Played the most recent patch in June 2021.
    The Kingdom Management Minigame is boring and sucks.
    The balancing is horrible. Some Enemies are Paperweights and some are just unbeatable.
    Additionally the difficulty is increased by throwing mob after mob at the player.
    Last act is incomprehensible and has also horrible balancing.
    Story is the generic "ancient evil destroys the lands".
    There are also technical difficulties. What can take approx 1min to save the game on a 8-core cpu with 32GB RAM and fast SSD?
    I had to force myself to finish the game.    … Expand
  36. sunnycorax
    Dec 26, 2018
    4
    This game has so much promise and started out addictively fun. The battle system is trash. The encounters are exercises in patience and frustration. Complete unbalanced mess. I wish I could have made it to the actual management part of the game that is in the title but I couldn't help setting at some of these quest missions setting dumbfounded at what it was that this game wanted me to do.This game has so much promise and started out addictively fun. The battle system is trash. The encounters are exercises in patience and frustration. Complete unbalanced mess. I wish I could have made it to the actual management part of the game that is in the title but I couldn't help setting at some of these quest missions setting dumbfounded at what it was that this game wanted me to do. Enemies with high spell saves, DR given out to enemies like it is **** candy. Healing castings that works but your party member immediately dies after being healed because **** you that's why. Never before in a game has auto-save and quick save been such a companion...on normal difficulty. There is challenging and then there is brutally unforgiving. This game revels in handicapping the player and tossing them into fights in which luck has more to do with you beating an encounter than any level of skill, planning, or equipment. I found myself on main quest modules hammering save before each fight and load several times as my party gets wrecked with not a clue as to why. This game reminded me why I hate the idea of random encounters in game and in D&D when I play it. It is like a D&D game ran by the most chaotic evil DM on the face of the earth. There is plenty good here but the gameplay kills every bit of fun that the opening hours of play seemed to glimmer with. I want to like this game but as it stands right now it is garbage. Redeemable? Yes. Playable? No.… Expand
  37. aidan0
    Jan 24, 2019
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I was going to give it a 7, but instead I'll put down a 5 for all those brandspanking new accounts giving it a 10. I guess they hired a marking company to help with the bad reviews, bad form guys.

    Time to ramble a lot.

    So, I played this game for 160 hours, as a backer I did get my money's worth I'll admitted that. But many of those hours were painful and not really fun, I play on normal. I waited until November to play it. So, patch 1.1 roles in and I started playing. The 160 hours is due to a restart when I was at 55 hours in, because somehow kingdom management decides to spiral out of control. You don't know what is going on and you better hope and pray that stuff works out somehow. What I've learned is that taxes are bad.

    So, what to say about the rest. It's pretty, but Baldur's Gate/ never winter nights are far better. Less is more. It felt so special to get a +3 sword in those games. This game just gives you +5/+8 items like it's nothing. The stuff you work for, the artifacts you work hard to put back together, are worthless. There is always some superior free gear around. Oh wait, the point is to sell those "useless" +5's so you can bankroll the kingdom? That's just stupid.

    Remember when companions were memorable? Remember when they were useful. Well these aren't, your companions are an extra challenge, you'll need to overcome their weaknesses to make them usefull. There is no Mazzy Fentan or Minsc to save your bacon. Maybe that's why the game tries to kill them at the end. It's trying to help you, because a custom party is far better than your companions.

    Gimmicks oh the gimmicks. A gimmick is not a challenge. Ability drain and paralysis is easily countered with 50 scrolls of the appropriate counter spells. I mean you solve a problem but it's not fun. My characters should be solving those problems not a backpack full of scrolls. Don't forget the 50 scrolls of resurrection, you have money to burn anyway. Why even heal with low lv spell when you can res. or turn your non cleric into a full heal healer with 50 scrolls of heal.

    Be ready for 40+ AC on enemies. Not really a problem, right? Just haste up and keep on swinging until you get a crit. 15 damage resistance you say? ohhh my 28 str barb doesn't need to care. She needs to crit to hit and when she hits the enemies just explode. RNG not working? Best to pop that true strike wand. Come on, that's not fun. To give you a example, there is this epic black dragon you can fight. I went in thinking this will be a very hard, but epic fight. Nope... the RNG gods wanted me to win. Buff up, fight starts, fights over. Checked the logs. (ugh ohhh the immersion) Barb did two crits in a row and the dragon was pretty much dead.

    I guess that's about it. I killed a lot of time with this game, but in the end I didn't really have fun. POE 1 was cool, played it twice, played the expansions. POE 2 was meh, won't play the expansions although I'll get them for free. Kingmaker? I won't even bother with the next one.    … Expand
  38. Galwail
    Aug 18, 2019
    10
    This game was a huge surprise for me. It has very entertaining story, solid game mechanics and a lot of content. I would rate it higher than other RPGs I have played lately (Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Wasteland 2, Mass Effect 4…), it is certainly one of the best story driven RPGs I have ever played (like Planescape: Torment, Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Origins,This game was a huge surprise for me. It has very entertaining story, solid game mechanics and a lot of content. I would rate it higher than other RPGs I have played lately (Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Wasteland 2, Mass Effect 4…), it is certainly one of the best story driven RPGs I have ever played (like Planescape: Torment, Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer). Unlike the above-mentioned games, this one does one thing very differently, the real sense of urgency. The main crises pop up at predetermined time intervals and when they do, you better solve them quickly or face the consequences. You can easily lose the game by ignoring the main quests.

    What I liked most about this game was its story. The initial chapter of the game gripped me and didn’t let go. The origin story of the main villain made me genuinely sad and the last chapter, where you go against literal demigods, was very satisfying, it even has a secret ending, where you can give the main villain a taste of his own medicine. The pacing of the game was good, I had just enough money to buy everything I wanted and equip all companions, just enough time to fully develop my kingdom and explore the entire map and just enough XP to hit level 20 during the final chapter. I liked that the game did not push me into any alignment (hello Baldur’s Gate) and that you could recruit some of your former enemies as advisors.

    The difficulty level was uneven with a lot of power creep toward the end. I was playing on the hard difficulty with story companions and the opening chapter was very hard. Some fights were almost unfair (the wererats cave still haunts my dreams), but that was mostly due to my unwillingness to give up and return later. Compared to that, the endgame was very easy, I just had to make sure my buffs are up and mow down all the opposition. But I can see why some people find the endgame very hard, there is a lot of room to make mistakes in your character builds and miss important buffs and abilities.

    I have waited a year to play this game and I’m happy, that the developers used that time to fix and polish the game. I didn’t encounter any content bugs; the game froze only a couple of times. Some of the mechanics work differently than in PnP, but it is hard to tell, whether it is a bug or feature.

    The weakest part of the game was the kingdom management, its mechanics are shallow, events are mostly random, I did not notice any event chains, the buildings system is simple and leads to weird and unrealistic situations, like filling towns of your lawful good kingdom with goblin quarters to boost your espionage score. The most interesting part of the kingdom management was the decision making with your advisors, but it had little impact on the RPG side of the game. Develop your kingdom well and you may get extra time in the last chapter, but that’s about it. The game could also use some ease of use features. Like searching items for a particular bonus type, or some way to automate long term buffs.    … Expand
  39. Valkyrje
    Nov 26, 2020
    7
    It scratches BG itch better than BG3 but ends up being too repetetive and relying too much on its pen and paper Pathfinder mechanics which means that the end game is an endless slog through the same enemies and micromanaging your equipment and skills. Loved it until I didn’t. Story-wise it’s solid but nothing groundbreaking. Also kingdom management is boring at best.
  40. ireviewbadgames
    Feb 12, 2019
    5
    Kingmaker falls under the category of games we know could be critically acclaimed masterpieces, but sadly for one reason or another, fails to do so. For this grime-encrusted gem, there was a serious lack of play-testing and not enough development time. Had Deep Silver allowed for an additional three months of bug-squashing and fixes, the reception might've been much friendlier.Kingmaker falls under the category of games we know could be critically acclaimed masterpieces, but sadly for one reason or another, fails to do so. For this grime-encrusted gem, there was a serious lack of play-testing and not enough development time. Had Deep Silver allowed for an additional three months of bug-squashing and fixes, the reception might've been much friendlier. Unfortunately, they hastily pushed out their product like an actor with half his costume on and the game suffered greatly.

    What I don't understand is how the developers thought everything would be fine, despite the fact that no one could actually complete the game. That in it of itself should have stopped them in their tracks, but I'm sure the allure of ill-gotten cash from naive Steam users smelled too delicious.

    In conclusion: huge potential and brainless, drool-spilling release date.    … Expand
  41. FrostormNidhegg
    Oct 27, 2019
    6
    Странная игра. С одной стороны - есть интересные самобытные моменты, например, перемещение по карте, события по таймеру, которые просто происходят в определенный срок и ты или подготовился или нет, неплохая ролевая система. С другой стороны - абсолютно плоские характеры персонажей. Вот баба варвар, она тупая, она хочет рубить врагов, у нее меч, который в реале весил бы тонны полторы (почтиСтранная игра. С одной стороны - есть интересные самобытные моменты, например, перемещение по карте, события по таймеру, которые просто происходят в определенный срок и ты или подготовился или нет, неплохая ролевая система. С другой стороны - абсолютно плоские характеры персонажей. Вот баба варвар, она тупая, она хочет рубить врагов, у нее меч, который в реале весил бы тонны полторы (почти меч из Файнал Фентези, заточенное крыло от самолета на ручке). Вот баба паладин, она паладин, она за мир и справедливость. Вот мелкий хитрый злодей, который хитрый и злодей. Никаких граней, никакого именно характера - просто опереточные маски. При этом например все та же баба варвар рассказывает байки, как она стадо мамонтов за хобот таскала в свою деревню - то есть на юмор время нашли, а на описание нормального характера - нет, очень странно. Портреты многие просто сделаны анимешными, например все тот же мелкий хитрый злодей - он выглядит как аниме персонаж. Зачем? Почему? - не понятно. Итого - поставил ее и одновременно Пилларс оф Этернити 2 - после Пилларсов играть в Пасфайндера просто не приятно, слишком все какое-то несерьезное, и убогие персонажи. Удалил, играть дальше не стал. Ну и багов запредельное количество - кладешь в слот оружие, а оно не кладется, отменяешь - кладется, а иногда нормально все. В общем, рпг с большим потенциалом, но его не раскрыли. И не серьезный подход к сюжету и персонажам убивает весь настрой. Оперетка, играть в которую на фоне других рпг такого типа не хочется. Тем более жанр этот нишевый, и пытаться вот эти мотивы привносить несерьезные - очень странная идея. Надеюсь разрабы подумают над тем, что они делают и выпустят нормальную вторую часть. В общем, попытка была не плохая, но не получилось… Expand
  42. suitejesus
    Dec 1, 2018
    3
    Starts off great, a true RPG..... until you run into a game crushing bug. You can easily but 50-60 hours in to all of a sudden find out you can't even finish the game. My first play through I made the mistake of trusting the developer comments about setting kingdom management to the auto mode. I found the idea of constantly assigning advisors to meaningless tasks to be a burden after aStarts off great, a true RPG..... until you run into a game crushing bug. You can easily but 50-60 hours in to all of a sudden find out you can't even finish the game. My first play through I made the mistake of trusting the developer comments about setting kingdom management to the auto mode. I found the idea of constantly assigning advisors to meaningless tasks to be a burden after a dozen hours in, so I set the option to auto which specifically states in the menu option that your kingdom CANNOT FAIL in the auto-mode, which is great considering once you click this option you cannot undo it. After all, maybe I just want to adventure around my lands instead of manage it. Well, guess what? 50 hours go by and all of a sudden I get a game over screen because my kingdom has crumbled, and there is absolutely nothing I could have ever done about it. On top of this, you will have countless missions you cannot complete if you happen to select dialogue choices out of order, happen to have the wrong companion at any given time, or sell items you didn't know you were supposed to keep. You want a customized party to compliment your play style? Hahahaha..... too bad, here are a bunch of pregenerated companions with horrible stat allocation that you will have to babysit in order to stay alive. Or you can buy mercenaries for an absurd amount of coin, but then forego some of the MAIN GAME content. Sadly this game had great potential, but the execution of the game is horrid.… Expand
  43. Avva
    Oct 26, 2018
    6
    It’s a good game, though I would not compare it to the old classics like BG or modern one like PoE. As many here mentioned, it’s a faithful transfer of well known (in Pathfinder universe) P-n-P campaign with the same name. Let me say it again – TRANSFER. Not adaptation, not a “computer variation” – but literal transfer from one media (table top pen-and-paper) to another (computer). TheIt’s a good game, though I would not compare it to the old classics like BG or modern one like PoE. As many here mentioned, it’s a faithful transfer of well known (in Pathfinder universe) P-n-P campaign with the same name. Let me say it again – TRANSFER. Not adaptation, not a “computer variation” – but literal transfer from one media (table top pen-and-paper) to another (computer). The result – it did not work all that well.

    P-n-P is designed to work with a human DM (and creative group of human companions). DM is there to correct, interpret or simply remove the rules that spoil fun. He is there to help the group to solve the quests, to create the adventure. When you remove that DM and leave rules only, observed by a computer, you get what many call “unbalanced difficulty”, that in reality is simply a bare ruleset. All things DM would do – giving hints for the nature of the future encounters, description of atmosphere, directions for the party, so it would not wonder somewhere they should not have, ability to assess the danger by different means, creative use of skills and abilities, even simple things like to be able to “take 20” on a skill check – nothing is there. It’s just an animated basic rulebook with all variations and interpretations cut off. And the difficulty level is adjusted by universally hated bloating HP of the mobs and shifting probability of dice scores.

    Developers said it was done to accommodate the ability to save/load. The problem is, save/load was left as THE ONLY mean to get anything done in the game. You want to open the chest? Better save before, because you have only one chance to roll the dice (and the roll is not in your favor, and as I said, you can not “take 20”). You see a monster or expecting one? Save! There is no way to check his stats and it’s not what “monster manual” (not existing in the game, btw, use the book) will tell you. The fact that this little goblin in front of you has Strength and Dexterity of a young dragon, you will learn only during the fight.

    It would not be even that bad, if not for the engine problems. Owlcats used Unity – same as Obsidian for PoE (many features from PoE too, but not enough, unfortunately). However, they did not have enough skills/time/money to optimize it. Meaning first and foremost lag and long-long-looooong loading screens. So, you can (and you have to!) constantly save/load, but you will be swearing every time you do it, because of a long waiting time. Btw, those loading screens are everywhere and you will be swearing endlessly anyway.

    Kingdom management could be fun should there be any synergy with adventuring. So far one is always on the way of another. Add to this many artificial restrictions within already very restrictive system of kingdom management, many bugs and bad communication (a lot of things happen without so much as warning) – and the fun can be gone pretty fast. Again, faithful to PnP campaign but without DM. To their defense, there is an option of “automatic management”, that you might consider to use at your first run to see the plot.

    Speaking of plot – you would not really see it. It sure exists (!) but you will be too busy fighting the game (and the monsters to some degree) to notice it. And as in a campaign itself, it’s very discrete – to let you wonder around like you do in Skyrim, for example, forgetting about the main goal, yet, because of computer limitations, very strict – you have to do everything in a specific order, or you will ruin not only the current quest, but some quests after that you do not even know about yet. Somewhere in that plot supposed to be bits from Chris Avellone, but aside one companion (not typical for Avellone either) it's hard to find any. Well, at least Zhur’s music is there for sure and it's beautiful. Though, I can not help but wonder what if they spent money on a rules adaptation and the engine optimization instead of expensive luxury like famous writer and composer.

    Anyway, despite everything above, the game is good enough (or will be after bug fixing) to entertain CRPG lovers. Give it half a year and buy!

    P.S. IGN reviewer described problems very accurately.    … Expand
  44. Joewashere
    Aug 10, 2019
    8
    Plagued on release by ridiculously long loading screens and a plethora of game breaking bugs, Pathfinder: Kingmaker hasn't been warmly received by the mainstream. Once you get past the technical issues, though, you will find an extremely ambitious spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate series.

    Kingmaker is more than just a clone, however; it adds a few twists of its own. Most notably,    Plagued on release by ridiculously long loading screens and a plethora of game breaking bugs, Pathfinder: Kingmaker hasn't been warmly received by the mainstream. Once you get past the technical issues, though, you will find an extremely ambitious spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate series.

    Kingmaker is more than just a clone, however; it adds a few twists of its own. Most notably, there is the kingdom management system, where you build and upgrade your towns, and assign NPCs to solve various problems or participate in numerous projects. Also, the game finally solves the rest spamming problem the Infinity Engine games always had, by combining heavy and costly camping supplies with (fairly generous) time limits, thus giving you the incentive to make as much progress as possible before replenishing your health and spells. Finally, the Pathfinder ruleset allows for a wide variety of builds, making character development more involved than the game's major source of inspiration.

    While most technical problems have been fixed since release, the quality of the game still sharply drops in the last two chapters; the good parts, however, still offer more unique and interesting content than most other RPGs, and I can wholeheartedly recommend Kingmaker to any fan of Infinity Engine games.    … Expand
  45. Efelatte
    Jun 28, 2019
    9
    Such an amazing game. I've played the latest version (2.0.3) and I haven't encountered any serious bugs, only few minor ones. Scope is amazing, big kudos to the developers.
  46. ikaragi
    May 26, 2019
    10
    I have been a fun of CRPGs many years now and I have played all major titles that our out there.

    Kingmaker is a truly great game, nothing else is like it. I don't remember enjoying so much a game since maybe BG II or the original Fallout series. The game is very stable at its current state. It is a shame the release was buggy leading to the game not getting all the attention it    I have been a fun of CRPGs many years now and I have played all major titles that our out there.

    Kingmaker is a truly great game, nothing else is like it. I don't remember enjoying so much a game since maybe BG II or the original Fallout series.

    The game is very stable at its current state. It is a shame the release was buggy leading to the game not getting all the attention it deserves. On the other side the game mechanics are really complex and I find it really impressive that a small development studio managed to create something that great. Having a lot of experience in software development myself, I understand that it is simply impossible to the create a game from scratch with so many features without creating bugs.

    Plain 10/10 for me, I am eager to see future work from this studio.    … Expand
  47. OleBergstedt
    Oct 24, 2018
    1
    Sadly, this game is a scam. It has huge potential but by all Desperation for a new cRPG, one should not ever Support the way this game was published. Small summery:

    Kickstarter asking for 500k, got ~900k - Devs knowingly released the game in an utterly broken state because the ran out of Money - reminding they nearly took twice as much as they asked for and cut A LOT of Content. The    Sadly, this game is a scam. It has huge potential but by all Desperation for a new cRPG, one should not ever Support the way this game was published. Small summery:

    Kickstarter asking for 500k, got ~900k - Devs knowingly released the game in an utterly broken state because the ran out of Money - reminding they nearly took twice as much as they asked for and cut A LOT of Content.

    The devs are simply not competent enough to ever finish this game. They release Hotfixes every 3-4 days which break significantly more than they actuall fix.

    They did NOT learn from releasing this broken game in a rush, now they try to fix it in a rush. They are simply bad coders.

    Sad for the massive potential.    … Expand
  48. Chashm0dai
    Dec 14, 2018
    0
    Full of bugs. Constantly updating with several GB of files each time, yet no big improvements. They're already selling DLCs even though the game is obviously far, far from finished. They also ban people from their Steam forum for nothing. Critique is silenced quickly. I think that has to do more with whatever idiot they hired as moderator, rather than the developers themselves.
  49. rpggamer2015
    Jan 26, 2019
    9
    As for writing and story this is certainly a great game. Character development is fun.
    Bug's count has been reduced greatly with the latest updates.
    Yeah, combat can be pretty punishing in a number of ways, but for those who feel that it's too hard, why not go with lower diffuculty settings? That's exactly what I did and gameplay didn't suffer for me (dialogue checks can still be a    As for writing and story this is certainly a great game. Character development is fun.
    Bug's count has been reduced greatly with the latest updates.
    Yeah, combat can be pretty punishing in a number of ways, but for those who feel that it's too hard, why not go with lower diffuculty settings? That's exactly what I did and gameplay didn't suffer for me (dialogue checks can still be a little too high, though).
    I would probably complain about top levels and 9th lvl spells as I played wizard, but it's getting better with each patch.
    This game is certainly in one league with BG2 and NWN for me - and I do really hope for more content coming later.    … Expand
  50. MinionX
    Dec 14, 2020
    8
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. (1) First & foremost.. the AI system only has an on/off button, so the AI system of this game is literally ¡TRASH!
    (2) During the Amiri & Armag duel a BUG happens that ends the duel abruptly, which makes that part of its plot LAME, because it doesn't look good in the slightest.
    (3) At certain points.. all the options have the same result, such as.. if the player refuses to exterminate the Trolls.. the same 'll forcibly lose Ekundayo & it doesn't matter what one answers to him, like really.. what's even the point of having magical abilities like hypnosis.. if one can't just brainwash someone like Ekun.. ¯_ツ_/¯
    (4) Owlcat Games really messed-up my boy "Lander Lebeda" in this game.. like seriously.. ¿WTF?
    Lander Lebeda is a fairly decent noble.. in fact, his alignment even is Lawful Neutral, not Chaotic Evil, & not just that.. but Owlcats even turn him into a ¡BACKSTABBER! (╬ಠ益ಠ)    … Expand
  51. theirrelephants
    Dec 8, 2020
    10
    Played in in 2020 without any of the bugs it had on release.

    Absolutely brilliant game and rpg. Some of the best writing I've seen since before Bioware turned into a children's playhouse for mongoloids. The only downside of the game was its abysmal 'kingdom management' system, which can be solved by putting it on 'effortless' because the only alternative is either savescumming or    Played in in 2020 without any of the bugs it had on release.

    Absolutely brilliant game and rpg. Some of the best writing I've seen since before Bioware turned into a children's playhouse for mongoloids.

    The only downside of the game was its abysmal 'kingdom management' system, which can be solved by putting it on 'effortless' because the only alternative is either savescumming or putting it one difficulty lower and missing content.

    My only complaint was the lack of party banter.    … Expand
  52. blubberguts
    Mar 6, 2019
    7
    I was really attracted to this game and wanted to play it back when it came out. I liked the look, I liked the system, it was so pretty, and I was hooked storywise from the start by the treachery of Tartuccio.

    But bugs. So many bugs. So I put it away and waited..until last a couple of weeks ago. By then the games was up to patch 1.16d. Surely by now I could enjoy this great game? No.    I was really attracted to this game and wanted to play it back when it came out. I liked the look, I liked the system, it was so pretty, and I was hooked storywise from the start by the treachery of Tartuccio.

    But bugs. So many bugs. So I put it away and waited..until last a couple of weeks ago. By then the games was up to patch 1.16d. Surely by now I could enjoy this great game?

    No. At one stage, the "i" for inventory button stopped working and i was unable to see the inventory ..then all the other hotkeys stopped working too...loading an old save did not fix this. In the end I had to exit out of the game and restart before the keys would work again.

    Sometimes enemies become invincible - for example there will be a set of goblins on a map and you will kill most of them easily but the last one will be invincible...you will hit and hit but nothing kills him and finally your entire party is wiped out...so you reload from an old save, go back in and discover he's just an ordinary enemy this time and wiped out in seconds...

    There are items that give bonuses like "ac+1" - now i know these don't stack; for example if you have two items that give "ac+1" on one character then only one of the bonuses will be applied...(you can see this by inspecting the armour bonus; it will list in green all the bonuses that got applied and red all those that were not applied)

    But i got one item that was NEVER applied, no matter who I gave it to, and didn't even appear in the listing, red OR green....it may as well have been a piece of fluff. (I guess it was a cosmetic item!)

    I got my entire party up to level four and was able to wipe out several sets of bandits....one set included a warrior, a necromancer, an archer and a thief but I got them all..then entered the next map and was wiped out by a single "mature leopard" who was apparently invincible...I watched the combat log and noone in my entire party, even the magic users, got a single hit against him until he eventually wipe us all out... a single leopard!!

    If they ever get the bugs out, it could be a good game...but will they? It's been six months and from what I've seen for myself and others it's still a buggy mess, even to the point of game breaking bugs....

    I'm giving a seven, because it's so beautiful and when it works - when combat isn't bugged and hotkeys function and monsters aren't invincible and your party ai works - it's fun. I hope they do a better job next time - guys, whoever did your coding needs a kick in the ass. Fire them and keep whoever did the music, the graphics, the story writing and music and item design.

    Better luck next time deepsilver.    … Expand
  53. Arilian
    Jul 23, 2019
    10
    An absolute gem, refreshing old style game. Everything is really great, it is challenging, requires planning, knowing your characters, spells or abilities, but nowhere near as difficultly as some negative comments mention. It does not hold your hand, and can be played very differently. I wish there was more games like this.
  54. Nozomu
    Oct 4, 2018
    5
    To understand the severe issues with Pathfinder: Kingmaker we just have to look at what the Baldurs Gate and Neverwinter Nights series from BioWare did right: lots of character portraits, able to access character customization in the game, access to specific AI scripts for all your characters and lots of customization options on how you avatar/characters should look regarding the in-gameTo understand the severe issues with Pathfinder: Kingmaker we just have to look at what the Baldurs Gate and Neverwinter Nights series from BioWare did right: lots of character portraits, able to access character customization in the game, access to specific AI scripts for all your characters and lots of customization options on how you avatar/characters should look regarding the in-game model.

    Pathfinder: Kingmaker is rushed out the door in a terrible "alpha stage" (read the game-breaking bug reports on steam and it becomes quite evident that the game was not even in a BETA stage at release). The design concept regarding "timed quests" all over the board does not fit the game style at all.

    However, despite the current issues with Pathfinder: Kingmaker, it's a good game. Give it some months for "real patches" to kick in and I am sure the game will be "playable" and well worth your time. Until then you should not support the developers at all!!!    … Expand
  55. gunther_nt
    Oct 16, 2018
    6
    I had to restart the game 4 times (new character, repeating all quests) and today I just gave up - it's broken again and I can't continue it past Act 4. That's it, I'm done.

    1) Buggy as Hell, basically unplayable. 4 times re-rolled, still unable to finish it. All hot-fixes are on. 2) Terrible loading times, 1+ min on a machine capable of running Witcher 3 on High 3) Almost every    I had to restart the game 4 times (new character, repeating all quests) and today I just gave up - it's broken again and I can't continue it past Act 4. That's it, I'm done.

    1) Buggy as Hell, basically unplayable. 4 times re-rolled, still unable to finish it. All hot-fixes are on.
    2) Terrible loading times, 1+ min on a machine capable of running Witcher 3 on High
    3) Almost every location requires a loading screen to enter or exit
    4) Difficulty is not high or low, it is just ridiculous and stupid. You can wipe 3 monsters with ease, and in the next room you will be killed by one monster of the same type. DnD has always been about random rolls, but there is no touch with reality in this game.

    And still I liked the game, but I will never recommend it in THIS state.

    When tech is fixed it will be solid 7.    … Expand
  56. Cb11106
    Oct 9, 2018
    7
    I'm biased being a backer of the game, so keep that in mind.

    To me this reminds me of those sandbox games of yesteryear, all the Pathfinder core classes (D&D "3.75" for the uninitiated) are there, plus a bunch of archetypes for each. There are also a handful of prestige (advanced) classes. The area(s) you explore are fairly big, loot a-plenty. While I like the game overall, there    I'm biased being a backer of the game, so keep that in mind.

    To me this reminds me of those sandbox games of yesteryear, all the Pathfinder core classes (D&D "3.75" for the uninitiated) are there, plus a bunch of archetypes for each. There are also a handful of prestige (advanced) classes. The area(s) you explore are fairly big, loot a-plenty.

    While I like the game overall, there were balance issues & I still have some issues with kingdom building. The good & bad in equal measure is/are that OwlCat Games are addressing the issues. They've been releasing hotfix patches fairly often. Today they released the largest one yet (1.07 at 5.4 GB). That in itself is a potential problem, no one in their right or wrong mind wants to play a "buggy mess".

    My opinion as it stands, keep an eye on the player reviews on both Steam & GoG, as well as any game streams. They're currently mixed, but steadily getting more positive as time goes on. Once you see that that patches have essentially stopped then check out the title.    … Expand
  57. Leandhart
    Oct 15, 2018
    2
    There are very few redeemable features to this game.

    Given the sheer amount of bugs, this game should have stayed in early access, releasing this as a full-fledged product is practically making buyers into testers. At every corner, it feels like the game is far from finished...from minor text errors to bugs times a thousand, unpolished game mechanics, extreme poor balancing of    There are very few redeemable features to this game.

    Given the sheer amount of bugs, this game should have stayed in early access, releasing this as a full-fledged product is practically making buyers into testers.

    At every corner, it feels like the game is far from finished...from minor text errors to bugs times a thousand, unpolished game mechanics, extreme poor balancing of minions/boss difficulties, to poor quality of life/game design...it doesn't matter if the story would have been epic, the process to get there has been unnecessarily torturous and this makes the game as a whole one thing = bad. *Do not buy unless it is on sale or many months down the line when they finally fix it to playable levels.*

    There are many other games made by small companies that did it right, rather than this one that did so much wrong that it feels like they didn't care for it's fans or customers. In my 20 years of gaming I have rarely seen a screw up of this magnitude.    … Expand
  58. Quakespeare
    Sep 30, 2018
    2
    In a game that was hyped for potentially great writing, the very first things you read in this game, in the character creator, are things like:

    "Everyone around target must succeed on a Fortitude save or become Nauseated for 1 round per 2d6+4 damage that alchemist bombs usually inflict. " There's no explanation what "2d6+4" means (I googled it; it means "6-16". Seriously.), nor what    In a game that was hyped for potentially great writing, the very first things you read in this game, in the character creator, are things like:

    "Everyone around target must succeed on a Fortitude save or become Nauseated for 1 round per 2d6+4 damage that alchemist bombs usually inflict. "

    There's no explanation what "2d6+4" means (I googled it; it means "6-16". Seriously.), nor what a "fortitude save" is. You're bombarded with literally 300 word spell descriptions, full of cryptic spell descriptions that are indecipherable to anyone but an actual tabletop D&D player - and even then the length of the descriptions is preposterous.

    If that's the first thing they're showing a new player, I have no interest in the rest of the game.    … Expand
  59. coredumped
    Oct 14, 2018
    1
    If you like reading the word "miss" on your screen, this is the game for you!
  60. stanrm
    Oct 10, 2018
    1
    epic bugs and as of now the game is broken....worst RPG game I've ever played
  61. Trypsinogen
    Oct 24, 2018
    0
    Do you like paying developers to beta test their games for them? If so, then go for it.
  62. Greenbob
    Oct 21, 2018
    0
    As the game stands right now, its really fun if you are into crpgs, but i can't recommend it, as it is not a finished product. you can really build up a group with great combat synergy and it gives you enough options to mold all the companion characters around your select characters role. Combat is fun and as fast or methodical as you need it to be. However the game has a plethora of bugsAs the game stands right now, its really fun if you are into crpgs, but i can't recommend it, as it is not a finished product. you can really build up a group with great combat synergy and it gives you enough options to mold all the companion characters around your select characters role. Combat is fun and as fast or methodical as you need it to be. However the game has a plethora of bugs and inconsistancies that pop up hindering your progress until you screen the forums for a work around or learn that you just have give up on some parts of the games stories and side quests. Its enough to make it not fun and pull you out of the experience as you always go back to wondering on whether or not you are doing things that are closing off options to you in game due to faulty coding on the developers behalf.

    Edit, having gone further into this misery Ive found an intellectually insulting kingdom management system. Like really... 'management" is, all it is.

    You gather BP "bp being, the currency you spend to manage and upgrade your kingdom." And I use the word, "upgrade", for the only other way to describe this process is "a measured exercise in doing something while you are breathing"

    Ohh dear reader i hear you say,
    "why do you gather BP?" to which I say,
    "so you can spend it" to which you say,
    "what do you spend it on" to which I say,
    "upgrading your ability to gather BP" to which you say,
    "well why do you need more BP if all you do is spend it to get it back." to which i say,
    "I dont rightly know, and neither does anyone else."

    during this whole process you are locked into countdown timers that will end the cycle of your kingdom unless you use Advisors to investigate events and reveal pertinent information as where to go on the map to prevent such atrocities happening to your kingdom.

    The problem with this, the game doesnt distinguish what is impending doom over what is a group of merchants just wanting a chat, thats right. youll have about anywhere from 5 to 15 of these " timed events" that youll have a very limited amount of rescources to investigate. All so you can figure out which one is related to the main quest and ultimately stave off that game over screen.

    That brings me to increasing your kingdoms stats, there are various kingdom stats that upgrade due to you building stuff in settlements you have founded, these settlements are generally a 3 by 3. grid with each cubicle representing a possible building that you can select to build. certain combinations of buildings side by side concede additional bonuses per month to the kingdoms overall stats. Stats upgrade in level every increment of 20. still with me? good. Now when we upgrade a stat, we have to choose an advisor to oversee the upgrades of these stats.

    In turn, this advisor requests you to oversee him, overseeing the upgrade in stats, which will advance time in game by so many weeks , so naturally, you click accept... and you get a F-cking game over screen because one of those events that kills your kingdom happens within this 14 day span and you werent even allowed to intercept it.

    So you do some save scumming, some testing, the days go by. you figure out a good date on which you can upgrade your Kingdom. you reload from a save file predestined to do exactly what you know will happen, Heres the big moment, you click accept, it completes, one of youre 10 seperate kingdom stats is now level 2... And you get nothing, nothing changes, no epic items, no visible upgrades to your kingdom, no extra dialogue. In fact you remember now that this is a crpg that has combat and tactics and trolls and fire spells, and you wonder... why the f-ck am I even doing this.

    To end, the kingdom management part of this game is so seperated from the game entirely it can only be described as ""a measured exercise in doing something while you are breathing".
    as for you, please dont be me.    … Expand
  63. Spiral
    Oct 14, 2018
    0
    Kingmaker is a great game in concept only...sadly, the release version does not do the game justice. I would be very highly suspect of anyone who has voted this game higher then a 5; they honestly must not be actually *playing* the game.

    First off, the game breaking bugs and terribly limited game design decisions...there are thousands of people stuck halfway through the game, including    Kingmaker is a great game in concept only...sadly, the release version does not do the game justice. I would be very highly suspect of anyone who has voted this game higher then a 5; they honestly must not be actually *playing* the game.

    First off, the game breaking bugs and terribly limited game design decisions...there are thousands of people stuck halfway through the game, including myself. Quest scripts are horrendously buggy, and if they break, they cannot be continued to allow access to later chapters. I havent been able to continue for over a week now, heh. Also, the choices the devs have set up in encounter responses FORCE you to take take actions that are not in accord with your characters alignment...it results in shifting your alignment rapidly. Want to play a Paladin or other alignment restricted character? Good luck with that.

    Secondly, nearly every aspect of the games core rules is broken in some way. More then half the feats dont interact with the game in the way they should, or with certain race/class combinations. Many of the spells are the same. The game even references some spells that are, apparently, not even in the game yet...sigh. With everything being a crap shoot as to whether its working or not its very hard to understand how the game in its current state was a release candidate. Monster stats...ah the monster stats..lol.. Okay, so in this game, "normal" difficulty has the NPCs sitting with at least +5 to +10 on most attributes...that means they deal TONS of damage and are almost impossible to hit with spells and effects due to having absurdly high levels of saves. Greater Owlbears have, no lie, higher stats in this game then Ancient Dragons do in the Pathfinder rules. Yep. Fortunetly there are difficulty sliders you can adjust to reign some of this stuff in, but in effect it makes the whole game feel bad from a player perspective... NORMAL should be core base rules and not having the stats of EVERY NPC bloated beyond reason.

    Thirdly, id like to touch on the Kingdom Manager aspect of the game, which is what sets it apart from the other 3d iso's out there currently. It too, is broken. Advisors that have maybe a plus 6 to plus 10 are excepted to make DC 30 tests. Sometimes the events bug out and pile up in your quest log causing a Game Over scenario with nothing you can do about it. The game literally locks you out of playing it for 14 days if you choose to do some of the event cards. If an event that requires IMMEDIATE attention pops up while your advisor is on a 60 day improvement quest, well sorry...your effed, as the advisor is LOCKED into there quest and cannot pause or end it to pursue something thats more pressing. This may not have been a problem IF you got more then 2 advisors that can qualify for doing the task......there is a severe shortage of advisors...severe. Your kingdom also currently does not improve in any way, not even visually, even with stats over 100! It doesnt bring in gold, no new vendors show up, nada.....In fact, the only bonus you get is to have the Artisan crafter occasionally gift you with something, which you will likely sell anyway.... The whole system is rubbish.

    So, if everything else is poorly implemented....The game must have excellent combat mechanics, right? No...nope. There is no agro management in the game. No scripts to tell your guys how to act within the combat system. Unless you micro everything you will surrender about 90% of your guys combat abilities......Rubbish.

    COMMUNITY SERVICE MESSAGE: Those who have voted the game 9 or 10, and have written one or two lines of review are paid reviewers. There reviews simply DO NOT reflect the current state of the game. Since its launch, 3300+ bug reports have been generated.

    Lastly....loading screens....Once you hit the Kingdom Manager about half the time will be spent in loading screens...there is just sooooo much screen flipping, ugh....Something must be done about loading screens.

    In closing, id just like to say that the Devs are working to correct the biggest issues, releasing one or two patches a week to solve the game breaking/ending bugs.. However, I as a player, I did not appreciate there "Studio Vision" posting on the steam forum....Its a load of drek which basically comes down to "We know better then the Players do". No, no you do not Owlcat. I wish they would just come about with something to the effect of "Hey, guys...we know we @#%@% up but had to release to keep the lights on. Our vision for the game and what the expectations were did not meet up, and we will do our best to fix it."....Sadly, nothing like this culpability statement has been posted.

    As it stands, Pillars of Eternity 2 has a much better feel to it and is the closer spiritual successor to BG 3 and the NWN nights series.    … Expand
  64. luke0r
    Sep 28, 2018
    9
    Even thoug I like the game, the question whether I would recommend it is not easy to answer. Before I write anything about the actual gameplay I have to say that I did not encounter any of the bugs many player's mention, yet. But I hope that those bugs are going to be fixed soon, so that everybody will be able to enjoy the game if they want to. Some of them seem pretty critical andEven thoug I like the game, the question whether I would recommend it is not easy to answer. Before I write anything about the actual gameplay I have to say that I did not encounter any of the bugs many player's mention, yet. But I hope that those bugs are going to be fixed soon, so that everybody will be able to enjoy the game if they want to. Some of them seem pretty critical and definitely a reason to be angry about.

    Being a D&D pen&paper fan, familiar with Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and comparable games like Divinity Original Sin and Pillar's of Eternity, I did not struggle with some of the problems the other players who criticise the game have. Nevertheless, it is a tough game, where you need to think a lot about group composition, which skills to pick and how to prepare for a fight. You won't be able to take all the fights right away. Consequently, you will reload a lot and you will have to postpone quests you are on in order to level up before you can face and defeat some of the enemies. Sometimes you simply cannot outsmart your enemies or outskill them, you just need better stats or success will be a matter of luck.
    In addition, the game does not have many comfort features, players are used to have nowadays. You will have to read the conversations and you will have to remember some of that stuff or you will be wondering how to defeat some foes or where to go.

    I personally like all of those challenges because they make a game interesting and challenging, while many rpgs nowadays are rather boring. The story seems to be ok so far, nothing special but nothing bad either. What I like a lot is the fact that many of your decisions actually matter. Certain dialogue options will make other npcs joing your group. Depending on where you go first, some encounters will change and thus the development of the story will change. The possibilities in the management of your kingdom seem nice, even though I cannot finally assess those.

    To put it in a nutshell, if you want to play a casual rpg which is totally polished and balanced, do NOT buy this game (or at least wait, the designers have already said that they will take a look into the balance and difficulty levels). If you want to play an oldschool rpg, which might be frustrating sometimes, this game might be a good choice for you.    … Expand
  65. kt6193
    Sep 27, 2018
    4
    There's no huge fundamental issues with P:K, just a bunch of small things that begin to add up to a less than enjoyable experience at times.

    I'm about 2 to 3 hours in the game (not counting the 2 hours I spent making my character), and have experienced just as much frustration as enjoyment. Overall I can't give this game a bad rating as there are definitely fun and awesome things about    There's no huge fundamental issues with P:K, just a bunch of small things that begin to add up to a less than enjoyable experience at times.

    I'm about 2 to 3 hours in the game (not counting the 2 hours I spent making my character), and have experienced just as much frustration as enjoyment. Overall I can't give this game a bad rating as there are definitely fun and awesome things about it. Like I mentioned, I spent 2 hours making my character, but that was completely by choice. You can blaze through the character creator super quickly if you want (even by just choosing a pre-made character), or you can sit back and read about everything and choose, change your mind, consider other options, etc etc.
    After the creation I noticed one of the very trivial issues with these types of games: while the voice acting is great, there is no narrator. This results in having only part what's typed out said. You'll have typed out dialogue that features speech, narration, and then more speech, but due to the lack of a narrator you'll just hear the voice actor, and tiny pause about a second, and then the voice actor again. This causes the player to either have to read the narration super quickly (often while the voice actor is speaking) or waiting till the audio is done so they can go back and read the narration. I resorted to turning off voices to fix this issue as I'd like to get the whole picture of whats happening...not just what's being said.
    The next two issues are somewhat related to each other. The camera is fixed to an exact angle. I've personally always hated this as it quite literally hides things. Specifically this fixed angle—along with the fog of war—effectively hid the only way to progress out of the building my party was in. We walked down a hall way and into a room with a puzzle involving swords (don't worry I won't spoil anything) and couldn't see the door we could open due to it being hidden by the fixed camera angle. In similar isometric CRPG where you can rotate the camera this problem would never have happened for obvious reasons: the rotation of the camera! Because of this not only did I think we HAD to complete this surprisingly tough puzzle to progress, but I also became completely lost and confused when I eventually finished the puzzle and still was stuck in this building. Eventually after watching a few youtube let's plays, I found the door that was hiding in plain sight. This would be fine if the door was supposed to be hidden but when you spend 20 or 30 minutes looking for a door that you'd see in 0.1 seconds with a rotating camera that's no longer the player's fault....
    Lastly, and very briefly I experience a camera lock issue where I couldn't pan the camera in any direction and the only way to move it was to double click a character's portrait. So if they ran off the screen you'd have to double click each time they ran off the screen... A complete restart of the game fixed this issue though.

    All in all It's roughly worth it's base asking price of 39.99. I personally wouldn't bother with the more expensive special editions you can buy, but at the end of the day it's your money.    … Expand
  66. marc5477
    Oct 24, 2018
    6
    Should be called Roguefinder: Sneakmaker. Why? Because of its insane bias towards sneak attack.

    But 1st let state the obvious. There are a lot of new accounts on metacritic reviewing this game with 9s and 10s... think of that what you will but to me this says the real score is about 2 points lower than stated and that the group is either paying for reviews or making accounts to review    Should be called Roguefinder: Sneakmaker. Why? Because of its insane bias towards sneak attack.

    But 1st let state the obvious. There are a lot of new accounts on metacritic reviewing this game with 9s and 10s... think of that what you will but to me this says the real score is about 2 points lower than stated and that the group is either paying for reviews or making accounts to review it themselves.

    Apparently, Pathfinder rules removes backstab immunity from everything and gave dexterity full damage bonuses via "agility" weapons. This renders the strength stat practically worthless by comparison since you also get armor class with dex as well as range weapon flexibility. They also added backstab feats to any class (precise strike). This is terrible design, for the obvious reason that is forces you to balance the entire game around backstab damage and that is exactly what they did. In this case, they overtuned enemy stats and sadly, this pigeonholes you even farther into sneak attack classes.

    Full caster can eventually do some damage at high levels but that comes very late in the game when you no longer need them to do damage. Before then, casters are very weak due to mediocre spell damage and high resists. Case and point, playing on normal, my level 5 sorcerer with greater necromancy feats tried to cast blind on a bandit lord, a not so strong enemy. Again, this is around a level 5 encounter and I beat him easily... but his fortitude save at level 5 is 40!!! To give a comparison, my dedicated tank units barely have a fortitude of 9 at the same level. A paladin may has about 14 or so tops at that level. I was able to land a hideous laughter on him after 4 tries (his will save was 23).

    On top of gimping every other non-thief class, this video game makes backstabbing ridiculously easy. You only need 2 units engaging an enemy in melee. Once the 3rd melee attacker engages, all 3 units can backstab with impunity from any angle... So basically, if you want to do any meaningful damage in melee through most of the game, you have to take thief or hybrid thief classes (trickster or that alchemist subclass) or backstab feats. Even a caster cant do anything without backstabs from touch spells for 80% of the game so you really need to take a rogue splash and the trickster class for damage.

    I did try a optimized high strength 2H build at one point just to see how it works out and as expected it has many weaknesses, the biggest is that it cant do any major damage until about mid way through the game. The only reason that short trial succeeded is because I got everyone a companion pet which doubled my party to 12 units. It was very sad to see that the extra 6 pet units barely made up for 2 rogue units on a previous run in terms of damage output. Its really ridiculous how powerful rogues are.

    Other issues to note. At hard and unfair difficulty, game devolves into a slot machine. Completely dependent on random roles for success for at least 6-7 levels before you have enough hit points and gear to survive a few bad roles. Dont be surprised if your custom made tank dies in 1 hit the 1st 4 levels because enemies have such high stats that even a dagger wielding kobold can kill anyone with 1 critical hit. It it manageable if you cheese via pets and all archers but it gets boring fast. How bad is it? At level 2, a bandit at one of the starting areas (just a regular bandit) has a attack of +17!!! At level 2 lol. My 2 hand weapon specialist with max strength and rage and charge barely hits +11. If I throw on a bard and bless we get up to +13. When my guy hits, he does so for about 6 to 18 damage on average with a greatsword. The bandit, who was asleep on the floor when the fight began, stands up, takes one whack and averages about 20 per hit and crits about 25% of the time for over 40. I should know, i had to save scum that fight about 15 times. His sidekick rogue backstabs on every hit for about 18 and has an AC of 28 lol. Yes, this is level 2 in a game where resting (which does not even completely heal you) is punished by invisible timers. It can be done, but the design is atrocious, depending too much on luck and specific builds.

    One of its biggest features was kingdom management which is completely broken and poorly implemented. Its not playable right now (prevents finishing the game) so just set it to easy so that you cant fail (failing = game over).

    Aside from the above issues, the game is actually ok. It is definitely not as good as the old infinity engine games and it has other annoyances like MEGA TONS of bugs and A LOT of slow load screens (actually stopped playing a few times because of this), but its still a fun game overall. You can still build traditional stuff but you need to be mindful of design biases and plan around them. I would say that in time, once everything is fixed, the game will be worth a play and is definitely more fun that most of the drivel being peddled by the big companies.    … Expand
  67. Gradstudent
    Oct 28, 2018
    10
    I've played every RPG you've ever heard of, and this is better than all of them. An incredible achievement in video games. Not just game of the generation, but game of the century.
  68. Fidi
    Jan 15, 2019
    0
    Too many poorly designed encounters that are guaranteed to be a TPK unless they player was lucky enough to accidentally bring the right combination of classes. Dying over and over again until you go back to an earlier save game and switch to a different party is "Replay value" according to Kingmaker.
  69. MikeVentris
    Jan 7, 2020
    10
    By now it's the best CRPG I've played for long time.
    I know, it had a lot of bugs at release, but now most of them fixed and this is really must-have game.
  70. Lobby
    Sep 4, 2020
    9
    First thing to mention. The game was patch and changed hugely so lot of older reviews speak about quite different and worse game from one or two years ago so don't let them discourage you.

    I would say this is very good isometric RPG with real roleplay. The story is good and lets you do enough decisions and side quest are nice. It may not be equal to master of the genre as Planscape or    First thing to mention. The game was patch and changed hugely so lot of older reviews speak about quite different and worse game from one or two years ago so don't let them discourage you.

    I would say this is very good isometric RPG with real roleplay. The story is good and lets you do enough decisions and side quest are nice. It may not be equal to master of the genre as Planscape or Kotor, but it still better then most.

    What I really liked is turn based mode that suite well to PnP based RPG games, but is often omitted in many games like this. You can at will switch from turn based to real time with pause, so everybody can pick their preferred mode or use one that is more suitable at the time.

    The game is not holding your hand and you need to think a bit and do some exploration as you don't have an all knowing compass.

    Dialogs are well written and gives you choices that are better then just bad/good and contains lot of check for your non fighting skills. If you are mage, you will be able to solve problem differently to rouge, fighter or druid.

    Fights are good mix of challenging, medium with occasional super easy that let you enjoy your superior power. I got only one really frustrating early in the game against some swarm, but it could been avoided.

    The quest are quite good and they have their meaning not like in many modern open world games where huge portion of them is just filler. Some of the guest are time dependent or exclusive, so the order of completion will lead into different results. This is quite nice for immersion and replay value

    TLDR:
    Very good game. Must have if you like this genre. Improved a lot from release so don't take old reviews too serious.    … Expand
  71. sundog005
    May 23, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Cannot recommend this without mods...if you buy it check out Nexus for some game fixing mods that rescue it... as usual it seems lately with many RPG's. The default companions are irritating aswell like PoE and PoE 2. My advice make your own party and don't worry about the *companion stories* they mostly aren't worth the effort of doing and the XP for them is skippable. My personal pet hate is the half orc sadist sorc....
    Sledgehammer difficulty spikes are apparently Owlcat's idea of making the game more challenging as well, severe absence of subtley in writing and design like i said get some mods to smooth the ride if you are determined to finish the game...i got as far as the *EVERYTHING in the Universe is trying to destroy your Kingdom!*, events and got tired of it personally. I mean whoever is behind all those over the top, even if you win you lose problems has to be some godlike mofo....at this point you can have the Stolen Lands it ain't worth the hassle, i'm off to play an actual good game :p...Sorry to say it but this is what happens when you give a big potential project to an amateur outfit like Owlcat.    … Expand
  72. cavafis1979
    Jun 1, 2019
    9
    One of the best roleplaying games of the last years. Dificult and challenging for old players, like me, who enjoyed Baldur’s Gate, Eye of the Beholder I, II and III, or the old TSR series. The game demands strategy and intelligence in everh encounter, and to know the rules of Pathfinwr gane. I really love ir.
  73. Valarian25
    Apr 10, 2019
    10
    Not gonna make a horrible long review.

    Look, this is the game Bioware should have made.

    The people who made this must have played allot of baldurs gate + neverwinter nights :D

    No really if you like RPG games this is a must, you wont regret it, 1010 (based on budget and scale)
    I have not had this much fun since the Witcher 3.
  74. huepkes
    Nov 9, 2020
    9
    excellent roleplaying game with high replay value because you can have different endings. you can also lead the kingdom in different ways and there are many side quests. And there are more modes which are also interesting.

    For the price definitely a buy recommendation and except sometimes the complex mechanics and some bugs but overall a very very good and great story.
  75. Carewolf
    Jun 14, 2019
    9
    Based on the Enhanced Edition (2.0), this is a fantastic game. It still has some minor issues here and there, but they have patched all the big things. Damn thing is consuming all my free time :D
  76. Arcane_Ape
    Apr 18, 2019
    8
    Very buggy mess at release but the devs have worked overtime to keep the patches coming and have brought this game not to just a playable status but to an enjoyable one. Great story and true adaptation of the Pathfinder pen & paper system now in a computer game. Really enjoying the experience and so much replay value based on all the different story options you can choose which can vastlyVery buggy mess at release but the devs have worked overtime to keep the patches coming and have brought this game not to just a playable status but to an enjoyable one. Great story and true adaptation of the Pathfinder pen & paper system now in a computer game. Really enjoying the experience and so much replay value based on all the different story options you can choose which can vastly change the world and story.… Expand
  77. Soreel
    Jun 10, 2019
    10
    I purchased this game three weeks ago and have logged 60h into it so far. While I think a lot of the '2's that this game received in the past may have been true at the time, I see a vibrant DLC community and I dont see the bugs that are discussed here, aside from my game not closing elegantly. The graphics are good enough - they arent beautiful but as a former game designer and scripterI purchased this game three weeks ago and have logged 60h into it so far. While I think a lot of the '2's that this game received in the past may have been true at the time, I see a vibrant DLC community and I dont see the bugs that are discussed here, aside from my game not closing elegantly. The graphics are good enough - they arent beautiful but as a former game designer and scripter for the SSI Darksun series and tester on the gold box series I understand the tradeoff between breadth and depth in art production investment. Whats most important -- the things I would have my character do and by and large supported. The conversations and situations are nuanced and not at all childish / black&white, the characters display in conversation that actual amount of depth that is supported. What I admire is the care the developers have in not overwriting what is in fact not supported. I love the town building, character development, the difference int he value of loot to different people. I love the combat. Its all good.… Expand
  78. Falcone
    Mar 13, 2019
    10
    Pathfinder: Kingmaker is one of the best cRPG games I've ever played.
    If you like this genre you must play in this masterpiece.
    Thank you guys from OwlCat games, I'm waiting for a sequel.
  79. hiruvan
    Aug 22, 2019
    9
    Awesome game oldschool rpg. It's much better then tyrany or divinity. Cute design, interesting plot, quests and gameplay.

    -1 for sjw propaganda lol. All, its not a joke, companion quests are about noble fight for liberty and equality.
  80. Lucky_Nike
    May 4, 2019
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. When I look back after 140 hours of gameplay, i see no fun but rather pain. Version 1.2 - 1.29 or something like that.

    Game has cca 10 maps/dungeons that are worth to play and those take cca 20 hours of 9-10/10 rating gameplay. Those dungeons/maps are really original or at least ideas are combined very well. Some ot those dungeons takes some time to figure out what to do or how to beat it.

    Story is something I have seen in many games or movies, but can be original for many so np with that.

    All the rest is pure waste of time. Artificial prolonging game can be seen in almost every aspect of game.

    Some players say Kingmaker is like Baldurs Gate. Forget about it. Only because its similar in graphics and battle system doesnt mean its like Baldurs Gate. BG has great maps, basically every screen brings something new. Just imagine first map with Irenicus and all what happened there. Pathfinder has nothing like that, only max five maps are closer to this and those areas are spread all over so you waste your time by walking. You are revisiting same places with same graphics just only of sake to be something in game to visit.

    And now why this game is so pain and deserve 5/10?

    Simply because there are too many small things that adds to each other to the point you simply dont like it.

    Gameplay is very slow so Unity cheat program with speed hack is a must otherwise the game is boring and is waste of time.

    Kingdom - the way you take throne and how npc see you as their king is absurd. NPC bow to you like you are some kind of god and managing kingdom is simply clicking on cards and wait what happens. You can not affect results by yourself going to places cards are talking about. Basically its your kingdom, but everything is done by somebody else. If you stay at your kingdom for too long, you will loose and you have no idea, why is game over. It brings nothing to game and literally is not worth your time, there is no reward and no purpose, no sense. Better make computer take care of your kingdom and play game with your party. Nevertheless you still will have to go to city to click here and there. Garbage.

    Moving on map is another artificial pro-longing game. Why it is in game is question. Its waste of time. It brings really nothing, zero. And its slow even with speed hack.

    Loading and resting. OMG that is the worst thing about game. You load with every change: load map, load resting, load playing area.. Loading in this game is like 20% of game time (SSD), 20% is looking at big map and moving on it, 50% is in your kingdom and moving from place to place and only 10% of your time is real gameplay. This game utilize only 4 giga of ram - loading, loading, loading. I have no idea why you have to load traveling map or when your rest. And if you have party of pre-made NPC and you rest they start to talk crap and you waste minut(es) just by waiting till they finish their "bla bla bla" include waiting for info how long u hunt, if u coocked good meal etc. (and dont forget another loading screens). Garbage, garbage, garbage.

    Side quests of your party imo brings nothing special, but why not. Nevertheless only reason why you do them is xp.

    Replayability: zero. There is no challange and once you finish game you already know everything about game. I drop at lvl 9 with "perfect" party.

    If game had no loading screens all time, no moving on map, no kingdom management but pure isometric walking from map to map, game could be 8/10 maybe 9/10. But in the state it is now even 5/10 is really generous. Game was released 25 september but at the same date people give it 10/10 - its absurd as to finish the game you need minimum 50 hours even if you know everything about the game.

    SPOILER about gameplay:
    Gameplay is something like: "spoiler ahead": ............................................ you basically buff your characters, move tank or two to the front and rest is beating mobs to death. That is all, nothing more in this game. It can be fun in some parts of game but because of other game mechanics even that starts to be bothering. You can do some micromanagement, but you will find out soon its annoying so basically you buff and slaughter everything. Otherwise you are slaughtered.    … Expand
  81. Cyberevil
    Dec 28, 2020
    3
    To summarize this game in one sentence: Critical socjus does unbalanced RPG that gets annihilated by a broken kingdom management sim doing piggyback.
  82. Prometheus1241
    Feb 1, 2020
    8
    Since a year after release, Pathfinder:Kingmaker have become a good, playable game. It takes a lot of good ideas from other CRPGs and releases them in unique setting, which has not been used in games. Plot of Pathfinder is really good, characters are well-written, but yet, companions of main hero are not good enough to be remembered. Gameplay is classical for this type of games. Graphic isSince a year after release, Pathfinder:Kingmaker have become a good, playable game. It takes a lot of good ideas from other CRPGs and releases them in unique setting, which has not been used in games. Plot of Pathfinder is really good, characters are well-written, but yet, companions of main hero are not good enough to be remembered. Gameplay is classical for this type of games. Graphic is good.

    I think, that the main reason to buy this game is plot. it is really good, i liked it a lot. It is based on one of Pathfinder's series table game. I want to say that it is, perhaps, one of the best plots in RPGs i have seen, i really liked it all.

    So, in the end i want to say, that it is 8/10 game and i can recommend it to those, who like CRPGs. But yet, if you have not yet played games of this genre i recommend you to start with other games, like Dragon Age: Origins or Divinity:Original sin 2 because it is really hard to cope with local fighting system.    … Expand
  83. Hexen-Slayer
    Sep 8, 2020
    1
    This game was released in 2018 - it's been 2 years, it's still an unplayable buggy mess. The devs have announced a sequel - and this garbage isn't even fixed yet!
    Expect crashes, quests not to trigger, area transitions not to trigger, also an error in the encumbrance system had all my items gain weight overnight - dropping the entire inventory and standing butt-naked didn't change    This game was released in 2018 - it's been 2 years, it's still an unplayable buggy mess. The devs have announced a sequel - and this garbage isn't even fixed yet!
    Expect crashes, quests not to trigger, area transitions not to trigger, also an error in the encumbrance system had all my items gain weight overnight - dropping the entire inventory and standing butt-naked didn't change anything (no affliction, 16 strength fighter).
    Even if all the bugs would be fixed, this is average at the very best. PATHFINDER: KINGMAKER is basically a BALDUR'S GATE / ICEWIND DALE / PILLARS OF ETERNITY clone with a tacked on kingdom management system - which I disabled since I had zero interest in that kind of things. If you played the mentioned above games, why should you play PATHFINDER: KINGMAKER?
    You shouldn't!
    First off, the COMMAND & CONQUER combat system with pausing is obsolete. Either go DIABLO-style clickfest or go DIVINITY: ORIGINAL SIN 2 turn based combat (which would be my preference), but this combat system is garbage.
    Secondly, events with time limits are an absolute no-go! The first task has a time limit, run out of time: game over!
    Three: include the ruleset! Former RPG games of the 90s like EYE OF THE BEHOLDER had in-depth description of the D&D ruleset (on which PATHFINDER is based), even though that game only used a very simplified variety to them. Here you better have some knowledge or you're poop outta luck.
    Graphics and art style are ugly. Add terrible voice acting (Linzi, shut up!) but at least it has the typical "only every first line of each paragraph voiced" novel-length dialogues, so you won't have to put up with too much of it (Linzi ended up not in my party anyway). Sound effects and score are serviceable, but nothing more than that.
    Character portraits are a joke! Only a handful to choose from and not one was visually pleasing.
    A repetitive gameplay loop (especially if you've played the afore-mentioned games) with a copy & paste job of the HUD had me wanting to uninstall this garbage after only a few minutes.
    If you must play one of these COMMAND & CONQUER-RPGs, pick BALDUR's GATE II if you must, or PILLARS OF ETERNITY I & II to get the best of this type, but avoid this bugged, boring and bland BG-rip-off like the plague (you'll be glad you did!).    … Expand
  84. letefte
    Feb 4, 2021
    10
    This game is probably the single greatest Baldur's Gate inspired crpg ever made. Yes it is even better than Pillars 1 and 2 combined. The bugs that plagued the game at the time of release have, for the most part, been fixed. It is an epic journey that will ask much of you, but will also give much back in return. It is also probably the longest game of it's kind, with a single playthroughThis game is probably the single greatest Baldur's Gate inspired crpg ever made. Yes it is even better than Pillars 1 and 2 combined. The bugs that plagued the game at the time of release have, for the most part, been fixed. It is an epic journey that will ask much of you, but will also give much back in return. It is also probably the longest game of it's kind, with a single playthrough taking well over 100 hours. The writing might not reach the heights of BG 2 but it is still engaging. If you like a more traditional take on crpgs then this is your game. And now it even has a turn-based mode!… Expand
  85. GreyFox_7
    Nov 3, 2018
    0
    The game is too broken to enjoy. They keep releasing 'fixes' that they don't test not 1 bit. Each 'fix' breaks other items, quests, NPCs, really anything that can be broken will be broken.

    If this wasn't a Pathfinder game it may well have a 0 score from everyone. People like the base module and many users are liking the game just because it's "dnd"
  86. abedalov
    Oct 9, 2018
    0
    The game is full of mistakes, the characters are boring, fixing mistakes brings more mistakes than fixes. the quests are boring, the mechanics of the D20 are redone to nonexistence.
  87. LazerRaptor
    Nov 15, 2018
    10
    I believe this game is a living classic, so I can't score it below 10/10. I'm not going to say much about why this game is so great, you can see it even in some negative reviews. I can't but admit that there are some technical issues. The most annoying thing for me was continuously appearing loading screens in some particular locations. I didn't run into any game-stopping bugs though (II believe this game is a living classic, so I can't score it below 10/10. I'm not going to say much about why this game is so great, you can see it even in some negative reviews. I can't but admit that there are some technical issues. The most annoying thing for me was continuously appearing loading screens in some particular locations. I didn't run into any game-stopping bugs though (I completed the game playing 1.02 build) , maybe I was lucky. Another big complaint about the game is that it's unbalanced. It's simply not true. In fact it's one of the best balanced D&D based RPG ever made. But if you want to play it on challenging or hard mode you really need to figure out how things work in this game. It's very complex and deep. Even though I considered myself as an experienced D&D player, I did it on normal and even had to lower game difficulty at the end. But that was the fair punishment, since I was really careless leveling up after like lvl 10. And you know what? That's why this game is so great. I didn't care about my further level progression because I expected that the game won't let me screw up since I went so far. This logic works in most of the games actually. But not here. Don't take this game lightly. If it warns you that hard mode is for reruns, you better believe it. I love the fact that you can fail even on normal, since potential of failure make things more interesting. You are always able to lower difficulty level and make your kingdom unbreakable to finish the story line. There is acutally nothing wrong with it.
    The most of the modern games are made to be rewarding rather than punishing. Why? Look at those reviews where people say something like "The game has a great potential blah-blah-blah I ran into some encounter and got rekt! The game is so unbalanced!". So they score it 1/10 even though they partially admitted that the game is great. Clearly, they didn't like their punishment. I believe the developers could expect this outcome but they still chose to make this game as it is. I respect them so much for that.    … Expand
  88. abowman
    Sep 28, 2018
    10
    I'm not a "Fanboy or Paid Shill" but the game is definitely 10/10, especially for 40 dollars. 35 hours in and loving every minute of it. I will admit the beginning of the game on hard mode is basically reloading over and over until you get good rolls.

    There could be some adjusting on the difficulty towards the first 3-5 hours of the game or so because have no options to improve your    I'm not a "Fanboy or Paid Shill" but the game is definitely 10/10, especially for 40 dollars. 35 hours in and loving every minute of it. I will admit the beginning of the game on hard mode is basically reloading over and over until you get good rolls.

    There could be some adjusting on the difficulty towards the first 3-5 hours of the game or so because have no options to improve your situation. To be fair however, there's not hard limitation on when you can adjust the difficulty. Folks can just adjust the difficulty down to challenging, clear the first part of the game, and then bump it up when the game takes off. Once the game opens up it becomes much more balanced.

    This is the closest thing to Baulders gate i've played in years. I'm personally having more fun with this game than I did with the Pillars, or Divinity Series. I've personally experienced very few bugs or issues during my 35 hours of game play. If you're a fan of crpg's (baulders gate, Neverwinter, ice wind Dale, etc) than this game is a no brainier. I would of gladly paid 60 dollars for this game.    … Expand
  89. Whiskeyjacker12
    Sep 29, 2018
    6
    Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a faithful adaption of the pen-and-paper that seeks to emulate the old golden age of isometric RPG's such a Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, and in this it is successful for better or worse. The game definitely gave me a nostalgia trip, the writing and combat are very much reminiscent of the games it seeks to idolize. But as a fun CRPG competing with the likePathfinder: Kingmaker is a faithful adaption of the pen-and-paper that seeks to emulate the old golden age of isometric RPG's such a Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, and in this it is successful for better or worse. The game definitely gave me a nostalgia trip, the writing and combat are very much reminiscent of the games it seeks to idolize. But as a fun CRPG competing with the like of Pillar's of Eternity and and the Divinity: OS series it kinda falls flat on its face. The difficulty level is extremely variable between instances, you can easily carve your way through two dozen bandits without one tactical pause but god help you if you run into a spider swarm or any creature with poison or level drain because the incredibly fast stacks of these effects will wipe out even a high level party in a few paltry seconds. And in explaining these effects and how to counter them, the game does an extremely poor job. I found myself trawling through game books and bestiaries just so I knew what exactly the my poor characters was rolling against as the in-game bestiary is all but useless leading to more than a few frustrating moments where spamming healing spells and potions were all that got me through a 5 minute slog of a fight. Which brings another weakness of the game, a poor combat UI. Oh, you can easily see when your own characters health is going down, but trying to see if that wyvern you're attacking is nearly dead or if you're spell had any linger effect on it and it turns into a guessing game. In comparison to Pillar's of Eternity and it's open and helpful stream of information, I felt like i was flying in the dark for most fights. In this it definitely sticks close to it's pen and paper roots, but in a modern computer game it feels dated and a little cruel, though I'm sure old CRPG fans and Pathfinder fans will beg to differ. The only thing more frustrating than getting a party wipe are the quest bugs that prevent you from finishing a quest in the first place, twice now (30 hrs played) i've seen questlines break or otherwise railroad me into a decision just so I finish them without the game glitching out. The counter intuitive usage of the kingdom management section also irked me. Several timed missions may give you a year to complete it's conditions but will only lay down the quest strings for it's completion 3 weeks before quest failure, the lack of side quests in between these sporadic bursts of questing are a dull drone of aimless exploring and waiting for events and projects to complete improving a kingdom stat that... really doesn't change anything but does mess up the tension and pacing of the story. In conclusion, the game has promise. It's balancing issues and bugs aside, the aesthetic of the game and writing are beautiful but are dragged down by balancing issues, bugs and poor implementation of the kingdom management feature. I'll aim to complete this run through but I can't see much of a draw after to turn around and do another run through.… Expand
  90. Doma
    Sep 29, 2018
    10
    This is as close as we are ever going to get to a proper Baldurs Gate 3.

    Recommend to play it on a difficulty above Normal and just nerd out like crazy.
  91. MyBestFriend
    Oct 14, 2018
    6
    It is incredibly complex and lacks a meaningful tutorial where character progression and classes/races would be explained. The gigantic "encyclopedia" only complicates everything. I found only later that the game is based on a table game. So I guess that's why I was so frustrated with the whole combat system and character progression.

    So I guess it was targeted to the players who    It is incredibly complex and lacks a meaningful tutorial where character progression and classes/races would be explained. The gigantic "encyclopedia" only complicates everything. I found only later that the game is based on a table game. So I guess that's why I was so frustrated with the whole combat system and character progression.

    So I guess it was targeted to the players who already played the table version of it. It does not mean It does not need to have better tutorial for complete newbies.    … Expand
  92. Mystic_Quest
    Jan 3, 2019
    10
    It blows PoE and D:OS out of the water when it comes to RP, choices and consequences. Skills matter, choices have impact, the game isn't afraid of letting you fail. The only reason it has such a low score is because it was released in a terribly buggy state. At the moment, the vast majority of bugs have been fixed and the game is nothing less than a perfect crpg.
  93. Augusto1000
    Oct 8, 2018
    10
    Good game, great gameplay, need some balancing though, some patches, the rest all good.

    P.D. :this game is not for sissy boys!!.
  94. Valko
    Oct 25, 2018
    1
    I was hoping this time new promising game from Ru/Cis team will be a masterpiece, something better than we had before from ru/cis devs, but...We wanted the best, but it turned out as always (c)
    The game was and is swarming with bugs and glitches, it has several new patches in a week even after 1.5 month. It's hard to play at least several hours withour regular crashes or critical bugs.    I was hoping this time new promising game from Ru/Cis team will be a masterpiece, something better than we had before from ru/cis devs, but...We wanted the best, but it turned out as always (c)
    The game was and is swarming with bugs and glitches, it has several new patches in a week even after 1.5 month. It's hard to play at least several hours withour regular crashes or critical bugs. Moreover despite all that someone from dev team recruited incompetent brainless community moderators who ban everyone on Steam discussions whose point of view they don't share. For example I was permabanned for statistical data about game revenues per country. If you like Saudi Arabia or North Korea you can risk to communicate there. Or if you feel nostalgic for old forums where forum owners could ban everyone they didn't liked.
    In the end I can't recommend to buy PF: Kingmaker in it's current state, best choice to grab it with 75% discount during some sale much later.    … Expand
  95. cowboysquid
    Sep 28, 2018
    9
    Much better than what the **** will have you believe. Very fun game, been playing it non-stop since it came out.
  96. manukosta
    Oct 25, 2018
    10
    This game is great, if you like RPG, Baldurs Gate or NWN, its a must buy. Most negative opinions are due to bugs or crashes, which are getting fixed (a hotpatch comes out every 2 days), so this game should really be rated a lot higher. Its just that people have very shortsighted reviews. This kind of complex game requires a lot of coding, especially considering all the character buildingThis game is great, if you like RPG, Baldurs Gate or NWN, its a must buy. Most negative opinions are due to bugs or crashes, which are getting fixed (a hotpatch comes out every 2 days), so this game should really be rated a lot higher. Its just that people have very shortsighted reviews. This kind of complex game requires a lot of coding, especially considering all the character building options, kingdom events, etc....so its natural that it wouldnt be perfect at release. Give it some time and it will be one of the best CRPGs ever out there.… Expand
  97. rusty_drow
    Oct 7, 2018
    8
    Correct title should be Pathfinder: Load Screen maker. It's a great game. At the current state it is still under development and it will take some time until it will be patched up entirely, but the devs doing their best every day and i have no problem with that.

    The problem starts with the amount of loading screens we have to go through to get to the tasty part (ruling your kingdom).    Correct title should be Pathfinder: Load Screen maker. It's a great game. At the current state it is still under development and it will take some time until it will be patched up entirely, but the devs doing their best every day and i have no problem with that.

    The problem starts with the amount of loading screens we have to go through to get to the tasty part (ruling your kingdom). Let's count: Throne room - kingdom panel - building panel - back to kingdom panel - back to throne room - out to town and finally go back to world map. 7 loading screens to get on with your kingdom. And every one of them (with just one exception) take up to few minutes. I dunno but for me it's little bit wrong.

    Besides that the games is GOLDEN! It is the best DnD experience i have since BG2 era. It is actually the Baldurs Gate of 2018. I couldn't imagine a better classic rpg game. The writing is exceptionally good. The lore is deep. The number of events and quest is overwhelming. Companions are lively and unique. Mechanics are proper d&d 3.75 (it is unique to pathfinder if i'm correct) ruling set, which is the best out of what d&d can offer.

    If they ever fix that ridiculous loading screens and bugs i'll change the score to 10. And one more issue i have with the game is that, there could be more descriptions and infos about the mechanics, effect, stats etc. The game is too complex for some people. There should be more info for players non familiar with the pathfinder or dnd in general.    … Expand
  98. stylusnix
    Sep 25, 2018
    10
    Just started the game but love how its true to the pen and paper version of Pathfinder. I love how it has the various combat tricks from Pathfinder - INTIMIDATE a foe to get a bonus or CHARGE to get another bonus. So far so great!
  99. Kraehe
    Sep 28, 2018
    10
    Reminds me strongly of Baldur's Gate. It is almost like the Pen and Paper Pathfinder System and feels great. I love it!
  100. umbershap
    Sep 26, 2018
    10
    Great game like old crpgs. Class customization, skills everything is so detailed.
    World setting is what I want to see in crpgs. I hope this title succeed.
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Awards & Rankings

14
#14 Most Discussed PC Game of 2018
100
#100 Most Shared PC Game of 2018

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
73

Mixed or average reviews - based on 33 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 33
  2. Mixed: 18 out of 33
  3. Negative: 0 out of 33
  1. CD-Action
    Feb 13, 2019
    75
    Pathfinder: Kingmaker offers an interesting world to explore along with satisfying combat, and the first half of the adventure is top-notch old school fun. Unfortunately later the game loses its momentum and becomes boring. Anyhow, it’s a solid RPG that should keep Baldur’s Gate’s fans happy for many hours. [12/2018, p.86]
  2. Games.cz
    Jan 15, 2019
    80
    A great adaptation of the original Pathfinder gamebooks. The story is sidelined by tough tactical combat - its steep difficulty may be daunting to genre newbies, but D&D veterans will be delighted. There are technical problems, yes, but those are overshadowed by refreshing kingdom management and interesting companions.
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  3. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Dec 31, 2018
    80
    RPG for the hardened. Get used to loadings and getting lost in the rules, get ready for an ok storyline - and in the return you will enjoy a deep level of challenge and great management of your own kingdom. Obsidian has a new competitor. [Issue#290]
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