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RPG veteran Josh Sawyer says that scheduling issues ahead of the "demoralising" launch of Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire meant that he ended up mistreating his staff until he could force studio execs to push the project back.
In an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Sawyer outlined the difficulties he faced in the run up to the CRPG sequel. "Even though some studios have very strict no-crunch policies, people are still being asked to do either impossible things." For Sawyer, it was clear long before the launch of Pillars of Eternity 2 that "we were in a position where we knew that we did not have enough time, nine months before we hit that wall."
Sawyer says concerns were raised with management, with the team stating that "the options were either to invest more time in it, or to cut scope and staff." Obsidian execs declined to do either of those things, and things got worse when Sawyer's team was forced to keep a major feature in the game against their will, and then again once a commitment to voicing every character in the game was made.
"It was that feeling of accelerating towards a brick wall," Sawyer says, admitting that "I and a lot of other people on the team became really harsh, and were snapping at people. I didn't really recognise myself at a certain point because I had very little tolerance for time being wasted and questions and things like that. I was pushing people in a way I had never done on a game before."
Eventually, Sawyer forced the studio's hand, securing a delay by refusing to return to the office unless he was given more time. Pillars of Eternity 2 eventually launched in May 2018 to good reviews, but poor sales. That muted reception was "very demoralising" for Sawyer, especially when he reflected on his own leadership of the project: "I was like, 'Damn, I was this huge, awful asshole to this team'. And it felt like a big waste."
As a CRPG series, Pillars of Eternity seems to be on ice, but Sawyer has says he'd make a third game if he could get a Baldur's Gate 3-sized budget. For now, the series lives on as Avowed, while Sawyer worked on Pentiment, a project he recently described as one of the most relaxed of his career. In the past few weeks, he's also described burnout as a bigger potential issue for the games industry than crunch, which seems particularly telling in the context of his time on Deadfire.
