Pillars Of Eternity Will Get No More Patches On Switch, Despite Unresolved Issues

Wait, the Ranger's pet doesn't appear? Holy cow, that is a bug!

I'm glad I played this on PC!

That's...pathetic

This is shady. There is no reason why these issues cannot be resolved, and I doubt it's a hardware issue.

I see NintendoLife remembered to compare markets that aren't comparable. Whether or not this game is overpriced on the eShop has nothing to do with its price elsewhere.

Something not appearing when it should sounds code related to me.

Pillars of Arse.

welp, that sucks. these are some pretty large bugs though, (by looking at peoples response to this) these should have been straight up cut or replaced from the switch version if they could never be fixed for bugs.

What a terrible move by Versus Evil. Don't start selling a port on a console unless it can reliably run on that console. Is it at least playable or are bugs game breaking/significantly detrimental to gameplay?

So what they’re saying is I should never buy a game published by Versus Evil.

Not sure what to think about this. Sounds a bit dodgy to me.

Absolute crooks.

I got PoE the day it came out and it remains the only game I've ever asked for a refund for on any platform I've ever owned.

How much money have they cost Obsidian through their incompetence?

Yeah, so why did you amd all the other big review sites give it a 9 despite knowing about the plethora of bugs and glitches? That sounds like misinformation to me.🤨

Warning to consumers against this publisher, but more importantly, a warning to developers not to use them.

@SeantheDon29 indeed

Metascore of 82 and user score of 2.6 (seems high) on Switch

So why did NL give this game a 9/10? The review actually made me buy this faulty product instead of warning against doing so.

This is just scummy to the extreme. To outright imply that it is impossible to resolve known issues is either pathetically disingenuous or display of pathetic incompetence. I'd believe both.

Customers should vote with their wallets and not support this kind of behaviour.

“Unable” to patch... or unwilling?

If I had a dollar for every time a publisher had an issue with the switch hardware, man I’d be a millionaire three times over.

A lot of games release very buggy on the eshop. I wanted Vigil but it still hasn't gotten patches that optimize it, nor the extra content patches on PC.

No excuse.. Bad developer!
A bug can't be a hardware issue.. As a programmer you must find a way or a workaround to do what it must be to do!
I'm a programmer so I know very well these type of problem eheh

The bug with the cow in a mission that stopped you from completing it stopped it for me.

@Bydlak because they paid well.

Always be careful with ports. I don't buy any tinyBuild games based on how they handled Mr. Shifty at the start of Nintendo Switch (https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/6573rr/before_you_buy_mr_shifty_look_at_how_the_devs_are/). I don't know if this reddit was around at the time but I remember seeing these responses commonly on twitter and it was a trash way to handle a poor port job. Meanwhile Panic Button is kicking butt up and down the street with their ports.

@JokerCK

I didn't want to say it as I don't have any proof but, indeed, the reviewer's credibility might be questioned in this case.

@lampadablu They seem to have exhausted the resources to be able to sink more time into the issue. as a programmer I’m sure you understand that some of these things fall on higher management, and not the coders themselves.

NINJA APPROVED

Remind me to never buy anything from this publisher again.

@Bydlak @JokerCK Let's not accuse journalists of unethical behaviour when the reason is probably far more likely to be that they didn't experience as many bugs in their playthrough. I assure you, reviewers are not trying to swindle you - we have no reason to do that.

@BloodNinja yup, I imagine this is a case of Obsidian not wanting to dedicate time and resources to something like this when they have new games to make. I also imagine they analysed the cost-benefit and came up with the answer of "not worth it".

It sucks for people who were waiting on patches, and it sucks more generally for Switch owners who don't have the option (or simply don't want to play on PC) because this kind of behaviour makes it clear that they aren't a priority.

@SuperWeird I definitely won't. This is good to know they aren't capable of supporting the system properly.

I bought the game and I was so disappointed. I tried to get a refund from Nintendo but they refused. Despite the fact that the game was in a really bad state a few weeks after launch.

Never ever will I buy a full-priced digital game again. I learned from that.

@KateGray

Dear Kate, like I said before, I'm not accusing anyone as I have no proof of any unethical behaviour. Actually, I respect the NL authors and enjoy their writing, your own included.

However, when the issues are as serious as in this game, how careless a reviewer must have been not to see them? Especially that the reviewers' copy must have been performing even worse than the current build. Is not evaluating the technical condition of the game one of the reviewers' duties? So, even if, as I want to believe, it was not a swindle but a mistake based on too little experience with the game, it is still the reviewer to be blamed here, I'm afraid.

@Bydlak I recall reviewing AC: Unity a while back, and thinking it was a pretty solid game with a few bugs here and there. When it came out, millions of people played it, so of course they're going to find things that I never saw.

My experience wasn't invalidated by other people finding worse bugs than me - after all, I'm a reviewer, not a QA tester!

I know it's frustrating to read reviews that don't cover some aspects of the game, but we're often limited by time, word count, and sometimes even by the very copies we get, which are occasionally slightly different from the version that gets released, especially if there's a Day One patch.

It's a tricky balance to get right!

I mean I would hate to classify this developer as “EA Level” but they are making it really easy.

Drop the game to $10, refund everyone who has purchased said game at least $20 or $30.

as we used to say a lot at my old workplace "A bad workman always blames his tools"

Let's not forget that this was made by obsidian. I love obsidian but they release some busted-ass games. Even pillars 2 has some serious issues on ps4 so I'm guessing there's only so much versus evil can do when working with something so fundamentally broken.

As for the good news, I bought this game on PC years ago and bought the switch version at launch for portability... switch at launch was BAD. To their credit, they did fix a lot and six months post launch I would argue that the switch version is perfectly playable if a bit unpolished.

Epic gave away PoE for free just before Christmas. I won’t be double-dipping on Switch.

I kind of get where the devs are coming from, though. It’s a late port of a niche title that lacks the name value of a Baldurs Gate, for example. I bet the sales are barely into six figures. That simply doesn’t cover the cost of turning out patch after patch - and it’s not like they’ll sell another 30,000 copies because the pets turned up. The only reason to do it is to protect the brand and not alienate the audience - but the key audience for CRPGs is not on Switch.

Sad, but this Is market forces. Guess I’ll just go boot up Divinity: OS2 instead.

Eesh. Glad I played it on PS4. It was still rough and the loading times were insane but at least it was playable.

I started the game but barely made it out of the first area where you have to head to town. Guess I missed this entire genre having been on consoles for years now. It's cool I guess but not going to be picking up more games in the genre

Good , was never interested, I'll stick with my divinity 2

There is a way to go about tackling difficult development decisions like these from a marketing standpoint, and this is not exactly the way. The technical reason provided is nonsensical, needless to say. There is no magic line of hardware-specific code exclusive to the Nintendo Switch that prevents the features in this specific game from functioning. It is a glitch that can be addressed with time and resources, as you do with glitches, which is the actual problem. It leaves a more honest impression to simply state that your development priorities lay elsewhere than it does to put down a platform (a platform that is apparently not quite good enough to run this particular piece of software, but its users are more than good enough to milk cash from) while also informing the paying customers on that platform that they will not be getting their full money's worth, which is where some reasonable gesture is needed to maintain at least the impression of good will towards those users (a partial refund, an eShop credit, a permanent price decrease on the affected platform, etc.).

I wonder if the issue is more its just to expensive to justify patching the Switch version. I’d like to know who thinks Divinity: Original Sin 2 runs just fine, my copy keeps crashing and if there’s fire all over the place and there often is the Switch struggles.

Really a shame, as I was genuinely waiting for patches to pick this up. Bad look though, to blame the Switch hardware. They’ve done all they WILL do, not all they CAN do. Meanwhile Divinity 2 continues to be one of my favorite RPGs on Switch.

Good to know, I will make sure to avoid any product from this publisher.

Paying since 2019 someone to correct errors... Probably there was not enough buys to justify... probably not a technical but profitable. Forget the 2.

No need for an upgraded switch.

Anyway... It was the best bought I made, I learn how to play Baldurs gate, and since then, I have really fallen in love with this kind of game.

And won’t be buying this or the sequel now. Oh well.

Article is missing relevant information. This game was released August 8 2019.. It was released in the most broken state imaginable (worse than cyberpunk by 1000%) it's taken over a year and a half for them to get this far and it's still a buggy mess. The poor consumers in the Versus Evil discord were beta testing this product for them... This is no joke. All bug reports came from consumers and consumers spent hours of their time doing unpaid testing. The fact they canceled more patches is just icing on the cake. Never EVER buy a product from Versus Evil... Not only did they scam, lie, and mishandle everything , but they also banned their consumers, and deleted comments anytime they voiced their frustration. The versus evil discord isn't for updates... It's so they can have consumers engage in free beta testing. This has gone on not only for this game but other games they have released too... Had this been an AAA game, the company would be bankrupt. Hopefully more truth and awareness comes of this and the company gets law suits. The switches hardware is more than capable of this game. This was Obsidian and their publisher Versus Evil cheaping out and using one of the worst porting studios ever Grip digital<<<.

I have a feeling they are either crooked or bad business people and they are out of money. Nintendo should buy All rights just the list the game and give everyone refunds. It's BS...

Crazy. And at the same time Titan Quest got two big addons that nobody ever mentioned getting released.

the only limitation is the weak support from publisher and lack of work/resources on the project not the hardware. They lie to our face and insult our IQ. We didn't ask for Ray Tracing but to fix their mess. Time for a refund.

I'm glad I picked DOS2 over POE when I was shopping around for a big traditional CRPG. Like the article says, the games are very similar in concept and scope, but DOS2 runs flawlessly - at least in the few hours I've played, as I've yet to find the time to really dig into it.

The Switch isn't a powerhouse by any reasonable definition, but if your isometric RPG won't run on it properly, you done messed up somewhere along the road.

Developer admits incompetency. That's what this article should be titled. Much more demanding games run on Switch without the issues I'm reading about here.

@JasmineDragon just wait till you or your enemies start setting everything on fire or you get to the last chapter you’ll have problems.

@SeantheDon29
What? Did you think these sites actually play these games on the Switch when they make a review? Nah man, they all just piggyback off other site’s reviews, even if it’s on a different system and call their review “done”.

Never buying games by this publisher again.

I don't blame them, many games have terrible performance on switch for whatever reason. Civ 6, My time at Portia, Forager, Cities Skylines...just to name a few. The console is a pretty jank device to develop for.

I'm sure it's a simple matter of cost vs benefit, and the Switch version hasn't been getting enough sales to justify keeping up support. Even so, I'd say they haven't even hit the bare minimum for their product here and their refusal to fix it speaks volumes to what they really care about. Certainly won't be buying anything from them now, no guarantee they won't ditch other games they publish when it doesn't convenience them anymore.

@-Juice- If we're not talking about cost concerns on their side then I'm guessing they ported the game in such a way that there were some code in the game that they forgot to make "patchable" and I agree I think it's not the hardware's fault. I remember there were some games that were re-released in the eShop just because of this problem since they couldn't normally patch the game the first time.

Perhaps the sales weren't good enough.

Meanwhile Diablo III still get content updates on Switch like other systems.
D3 is a lovely port on Switch and even supports one Amiibo.

I wonder what that means for Pillars of Eternity 2? After this, I can't imagine it being an easy sell...

To those commenting that NintendoLife's review didn't talk about the serious bugs enough, I want to point out that I've encountered similar issues with Civilization 6 on the Switch and Book of Unwritten Tales 2 for the Wii U also having serious game-breaking bugs that weren't brought up in the reviews on this site. I think some reviewers might cut corners. They don't really have the proper time to fully play every game they are supposed to and will write up a review based on a few hours of play and consensus from other reviews that are out for previously released versions of the game without the same issues as the port.