Divinity 2 Preview

Read our other Penny Arcade Expo 2009 articles here.

Once upon a time in 2002, a little miracle of an action RPG was brought forth into the world under the bewildering name of Divine Divinity. Although rumors and speculation swirled around its involvement with the U.S. Department of Redundancy Department, the game was actually developed and wrought from the chocolaty-rich nether-regions of Belgium by a little company called Larian Studios. Stealing Combining the frantic finger-numbing mouse clicks from Diablo along with the lighter elements of fantasy staples such as Baldur’s Gate, it was a freeform multi-class barbarian magic castin’ awesome-fest of awesome. Wizards could wield crossbows and broadswords, and rogues could summon gigantic fiery demons. If you even remotely consider yourself a veteran RPGer and you’ve never heard of this game, a shard of your soul has now been  permanently lost from not playing it.

And then the semi pseudo-follow up Beyond Divinity came out a wee bit later. And booooy was it terrible. The entire game centered on one unspectacular environment, the “optional” randomized dungeons were directly proportional to an afternoon stroll into the 7th circle of hell, and upgrading your characters was needlessly complex and agonizing. Not only that, if one of your two avatars perished (which, due to abysmal NPC A.I., happened often) his counterpart would kick the bucket as well. Fun.  Not surprisingly, the Divinity franchise soon limped off the playing field, cradling its wounds, bandaging its ankles. And like that… it was gone.

Queue to 2009. What’s happened since the fall of the once magnificent Divine Divinity? As it turns out: quite a bit. At this year’s Penny Arcade Expo, Game Central bumped heads with Swen Vincke, Larian Studio’s CEO, and got some good old fashioned hot preview action with the full-fledged sequel, Divinity 2: Ego Draconis (or Divine Divinity Squared Divinely, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing). And from the looks of things to date, it appears that Larian has successfully rectified the powerful stinky that was Beyond Divinity. Unlike the first two games, Divinity 2 is multi-platform. But fear not: we witnessed both versions side by side, and rest assured, the PC is still the master and commander. Graphics were almost twice as good compared to the Xbox 360, and the character inventory is unrecognizable when put next to the consoles. This is not a lazy port posing as a PC exclusive, this is a game made by people who understand the strengths and inherent advantages of our cherished hardware.

Story-wise, Divinity 2 takes place 90 years after the events of the first game. Damian, the prime antagonist to the hero from Divine Divinity, has managed to escape his hellish shackles and hijack the Dragon Knights (stupid-powerful dragon-morphing badasses who wear comically gigantic shoulder pads in human form). By controlling these hybrid warriors, he succeeds in curb-stomping the hero that once banished him. Rivellon’s dragons, once so benevolent, peaceful, and generally lovely smelling, are now the hated enemy. The population is pissed. The more motivated of the masses have decided to dust off the armor, grab some nasty weapons, double up on the cod-pieces, and enlist in the dragon-bashing business. This is where you come in.

To get it out of the way, this is not an MMO. It’s not even multiplayer. And frankly, all the better; Larian has focused 100% of their efforts on making the single player element polished and vibrant. There’s been some serious control redesign as well. No longer do you manipulate your character through a top-down point-and-click perspective. It’s WASD and mouse to move and interact, viewed from a standard 3rd person camera angle. While the new scheme does function well, I was a bit disappointed to see the old Fallout-esque POV get the executioner’s axe. The benefit of the new controls, however, is that physical combat doesn’t grow stale and repetitive. You can roll, jump, and unleash devastating spell and melee combos on wayward foes. You can even pause the fracas and commotion to issue commands. Plus, now you won’t have to amputate an index finger or toss your mouse in the trash after a hectic battle.

Perhaps the most unique new feature witnessed was the “mind-read” nuance. Basically, through the spirit of the dragon, your character has the ability to see through other people’s lies, cover-ups, and deceits. Any time you converse with an NPC, you’ll be given the option to mind-read each and every response. This allows you to get info you’d normally never have access to, and the way a quest or plot may or may not progress can often hinge upon the usage of this undertone. But naturally, activating this trait ain’t exactly free. It costs experience points to instigate, and depending on the difficulty of the mark, it can be damned expensive. The concept seems interesting, but spending XP rather than rechargeable skill points is a somewhat questionable avenue; generally, sacrificing experience in an RPG just plain sucks, regardless of the cause. I’ll also be curious to see if the trait’s visual layout and amalgamation gets tweaked before the final release, because as is, the usage of a recurring and unintuitive mind-read button in every dialogue tree is rather clunky. I would much prefer a more seamless and organic integration.

But of course, the main sell of the game is the ability to transform your character at will into a huge-normous flame-belching dragon. According to Swen, it’ll take some time to unleash this power (you have to become a dragon knight first), but once you have it, you can expect to play at least 50% of the time as your new scaly doppelganger. There’s no health penalty for morphing back into a homosapien mid-flight and falling 200 feet to the rocks below, and there’s no time limit or restrictions when you spread your leathery greenish wings and take airborne. But certain quests that propel the main story arc must be completed while in your human form. You can expect quite a few puzzles that will revolve around switching embodiments back and forth as well.

As character development goes, Divinity 2 wisely stuck with its roots. Wanna dual wield some long swords but conversely cast healing and recovery spells? Go for it. Fancy stealing folk’s wallets while swinging a club with the strength of an ox? Sure thing. Divinity is all about personal play choice, not one-dimensional class restrictions like your typical hack n’ slasher.

Does Divinity 2 look like it’ll manage to top the original? Probably not. Will it be a crap-ton of fun to play? Unless something changes drastically, hell yes. Look for it on shelves in December of this year. As for me, I’m already setting aside the hard drive space.