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Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous devs on creating a vast choice-driven world

We recently spoke to the developers at Owlcat Games about the intense effort that went into the vast narrative branches of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.

TJ Denzer

February 10, 2022 11:10 AM

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Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is an extremely choice-driven world. From the moment you create your main character, the choices you make in their design, class, race, alignment, religious leanings, and more already ensure that your narrative path could be vastly different between playthroughs. Then there are the many choices you make with your various party members along the way. Designing this tapestry of narrative is no easy task and recently we got to talk to Owlcat Games creative director Alexander Mishulin about how it came together.

According to Mishulin, narrative and choice implementation was a huge priority of Owlcat’s design efforts in coming from Pathfinder: Kingmaker to Wrath of the Righteous. The team wanted to ensure that as much choice as the players have, those choices would matter well down the line from the point at which they were made. Nailing down that permanence and the consequences of player decisions is a huge part of what earned Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous the Shacknews Award for Best RPG of 2021.

Another major part of Owlcat’s approach to Wrath of the Righteous was a larger focus on feedback from the fans. Kingmaker had a pretty dedicated player base and their criticisms and suggestions helped Owlcat to finetune its approach to the sequel to make sure it addressed any issues players had and to make it an overall better game. A cursory glance over at Steam player feedback and its Very Positive rating would suggest. And with the game coming to consoles soon, a whole new base of players will be able to see what Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous serves up.

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TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.