The Divinity series began over a decade ago and while it was never as a popular as Diablo, the Divinity franchise has a strong fanbase and has done well for itself over the years. Larian took to Kickstarter to get the ball rolling for the latest installment, and have since released a roughly fifteen hour Alpha build that showcases a fraction of the game’s total content, but gives early adopters enough to get a good feel for the game. New to both the Divinity franchise and more or less this vein of RPG genre in general, DOS has proven to be a “time-vampire.” In other words, you may only intend to play a few minutes, but the open, freeflow design encourages creativity and exploration, and it’s pretty easy to get hooked in.
The experience begins with a basic character creation screen that, I believe in the final version will likely get far more customizable. As it stands now, you don’t have a lot of options for setting up the default male and female character, both of which you have at your disposal from the start. In single player, you can switch between these two with a simple click of their icons on the left side of the HUD. One of DOS’ primary features is support two player online co-op so that you can team up with a friend (and other AI controlled NPCs) to not only engage in combat against the CPU, but also participate in duel dialogue. The duel dialogue element can be turned off for single player, but its purpose is to get both players invested into the numerous choices the heroes encounter. Whether to escalate an inconvenience or argument with an NPC to combat or let cooler heads prevail is one of many scenarios that will be in play. Interestingly, these duel dialogues can yield attribute points for virtues like compassion, intimidation, charm, etc.
That said, once your characters are created, you find yourself in the large coastal town of Cyreal, part of Rivellon, which is the world that I believe all of the Divinity games are set in. As Source Hunters, you are tasked with learning more about the mysterious death — murder, suicide, accident? — of a noble council member. This is your main quest, but right off the bat you’re free to explore, talking to every NPC you come across, many of which you can instantly engage in trade with (although at least for now, most characters don’t have anything to sell, but will buy). There are plenty of NPCs to talk to, and you’re able to ask them basically the same questions (who they are, what the latest gossip is, what they think of the murder, and so on). I’ll admit that even as a dialogue-heavy point and click adventure gamer, I got to a point a few hours in where I stopped talking to every single NPC because it became too monotonous. I appreciate Larian’s effort to provide so much well-written, unique, and even humorous dialogue (where appropriate), but at least for the purposes and time constraints I put myself under for this preview, I skipped a lot of these conversations. I also stopped checking every single crate, barrel, and box for items too, as most turned out empty. Still, for the hardcore and those players who have a lot of time on their hands, being able to interact with some many NPCs and items is certainly a plus.
Exploration and interaction are constant and already-well developed elements of DOS, but it wouldn’t be an RPG without some combat. DOS utilizes a turn based style of combat, but it’s got a little more seamless, flowing nature to it than you might be thinking. I’m happy to say that it’s not hexagonal based, although there is a action meter and you can only move your character “so far,” or execute x number of attacks depending on, obviously, a variety of conditions. The speed of the turns tends to be pretty quick, generating an outcome at a comfortable pace. Battles are random and you can stumble into an area that you’re simply not ready to handle (quick save/load to the rescue). I’ve only seen a very small sampling of the weapons and the magic powers that can be wielded, and the variety and opportunities afforded by these is pretty exciting.
Regarding the presentation, DOS looks beautiful. The artwork is fantastic, the animations are great, and the variety of characters, items, and environments you encounter gives your eyes plenty to look at. I like the HUD design, including X,Y coordinates just below the mini-map so you can easily know, and share, exactly where you are in Rivellon. The HUD is streamlined to make all of the important, common, and even not-so-common commands readily available w/o cluttering things up. One small note on the animations actually, characters can interact and move objects and often there will be a significant space between character and object that doesn’t look right. The sounds thus far are a positive, the music perhaps the most impressive part of the audio package at this time.
Divinity: Original Sin is, if I had to guess, a good six months out from release, but the Alpha offers a very enjoyable experience right now. Hopefully Larian Studios can keep the positive momentum going on this one, as it’s looking like a winner.
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