Ultimately, this stands as a testament to how time, wisely invested, possesses the power to transmute a mere stone brick into an astonishingly extraordinary gem. When I purchased this gem, I did so on a platform called "Desura" way back when. It was around the same time Project Zomboid was in its infancy. The launcher is now derelict and Underrail made its way to Steam. Years went by during which I largely ignored this game. My first impressions from back then were very grim and overly negative. The animations were uninspired, the graphical style was very bland: I did not have a great time with it. Fast forward to 2023 and I can gladly say: Man, did it pay off to wait. What this game offered was nothing short of awe-inspiring excitement, accompanied by a few headaches along the way.

The first character I created (and shortly scrapped) was a psionic mastermind. However, stepping foot into the all-dreaded Depot A for the first time shattered my excitement. This was in 2020. So, once again, I laid my intentions of ever finishing Underrail to rest, until 2022. I started anew, this time on the hardest difficulty. My character was a pickpocketing, shotgun-wielding stealth psycho. I get it: Psionics are cool and all, but I never saw the merit in it. Blasting away with a short-barreled shotgun was just so much fun. The area of effect damage, coupled with my sneaking as close as possible to a group of enemies, was pure bliss.

The thing with Underrail isn't just that it is heavily inspired by classics like Fallout and similar CRPGs, but rather that it is its own distinct creation. It possesses a vast and inspiring lore, originating from the mind of a Serbian man, inspired by all kinds of distinctive worldviews and impressions. If you could say anything at all about Underrail, it's the fact that the narrative that holds everything together feels fresh and devoid of the usual tie-ins into acceptable political frames or commonly accepted "You can't say that" nonsense, which is the usual go-to for developers nowadays. Something one could only find from an Eastern-European developer nowadays, sadly. The factions have their reasons and believability is always at the core of every well-crafted and beautifully written character. And then, there's the attention to detail. Allow me to recount a minor incident that occurred during my time at Tschortist University: Whenever I entered a place after finishing a quest, I would click on random NPCs who would provide blurbs and comments with neat little speech bubbles above their heads. There was this one laboratory assistant who told a joke to my character. It wasn't even part of a dialogue or anything, just one of those throwaway blurbs that NPCs give off. But to my surprise, this seemingly insignificant blurb allowed my character to tell the same joke to various characters across the university grounds, each with their own distinctive and unique reactions—some loved it, some hated it, some probably thought less of me. But that's not all. If my character had learned ANOTHER joke earlier in the journey, I would get a unique interaction with one of the professors who already knew the initial laboratory-themed joke. But I could anticipate that and tell him ANOTHER joke I had heard from someone else in Underrail, which created a beautifully unique interaction. Underrail is filled with such intricate details. Even minor changes in the story lead to previously-met characters providing new input and commentary, should the player seek it out (and you really should).

And here lies Underrail's biggest problem: When I read about Underrail in the community forums, I would never have expected the writing to be anything remarkable. The community, sad to say, is focused entirely on builds and combat, which gives people the impression that this is all there is to Underrail. In fact, a few reviewers even pointed out that "there aren't even that many quests in Underrail / it's combat-focused," and I couldn't disagree more. In fact, I believe this attitude of the community largely led me to avoid this game for the longest time since I am much more interested in narrative-focused CRPGs. Well, I can dispel that notion after playing 166 hours of it: The narrative is great. There are TONS of quests. You would be gravely mistaken if you come away from Underrail thinking it is merely a "combat-focused game with no remarkable narrative."

So, this is also my fear for any future continuation of Underrail: Will the developer take his combat-focused community's input to heart and disregard his REMARKABLE writing talents for a more thought-out, combat-heavy experience? I hope he doesn't because he can write! The characters I've met in Underrail easily rank among the most well-written personalities I've encountered in gaming. Some of them possessed such complexity in their ambitions and deceptions that I could truly feel myself being deceived on a personal level. And that's just one example. Humor abounds as well. These characters, in their own right, deserve to be called nothing short of iconic (like "Dude," Grim, Jon the Beautiful, etc., etc.).

Please, please, please, focus more on the narrative than on combat. Because here's the deal, man: The combat is passable. It's not bad at all. But there are games that handle combat in this setting much better than you. Like a million times better. And if you focus on it instead of expanding this amazing, breathtakingly detailed world, you will end up producing something unremarkable.

Even your most elite, dominating players (on the Styg forums or YouTube) will admit that this is a quickload simulator. And it's basically a game mechanic. Nobody denies this. I just don't see the appeal. If you build your whole combat system on being unforgiving—which is completely fine and I doomed myself by playing on DOMINATING—you run the risk of people seeing savescumming as the most viable game mechanic. Got the lowest initiative result? Quickload (otherwise, guaranteed dead). I don't see the appeal (And I acknowledge that in this Underrail community, I am a huge minority).

However, the developers have definitely expanded the difficulty settings beyond purely combat-based challenges. Puzzles and secrets were harder, bosses actually posed a challenge (what a surprise at the end...), and they even added secret bosses and quests! I suck at these games, but even I could cheese the combat on dominating, given enough time. It was all about cheesing. Cheese is your game mechanic, man. I just don't like this very popular sentiment. And that's precisely why you don't have an Ironman mode. F5 / F9 is a combat mechanic. What's the point? It's like rigging the game to win it.

The Expedition DLC:
It offered cool and integrated mechanics, jet ski combat, a huge expansion on the Underrail (Waterways) and a whole new region with 250 new locations, lore, quests, unique items and secrets! But to be perfectly honest, this is exactly what I said before. They probably got the impression from their overly combat-focused fanbase that they just needed to focus on that, and that's what we got with "Expedition." A mostly combat-focused DLC. Though, in its defense, the story it did have was nothing short of intriguing. Especially the decisions you had to make, all under a hidden timer! The waterways were also interesting to explore. You could even gamble on cave-hopper races (or even sabotage them), which was neat. Overall, Expedition was "good", but overly combat-focused.

The Deep Caverns are the epitome of what I was talking about. Uninspired battles, yet with a satisfying ending. The intrigue and secrecy—or the whole mythology in Underrail—were what fascinated me to keep going, even through all these boring waves of similar enemies. It paid off, but I will never do it again. 166 hours is more than enough, even though I would love to experience alternative outcomes with all these unique characters and personalities I came to love.

The thing is, Pillars of Eternity 2, in spite of its length and rich content, feels like a slight excursion in the grand scheme of the Lore and World-Story introduced in PoE1. I had a lot of fun in this one, can't lie. The combat has been perfected, the graphical presentation clad in new, shiny and polished sceneries, atmospheric lighting, high definition textures: A much needed fresh paint to improve upon the already gorgeous first game.

The sound design was already magnificent in PoE1 and here they managed to top that one with a whole voice cast. You will be immersed as soon as those notes hit and the narrator starts introducing the world to the player.

But, as I said in the beginning, the story arc and main plot characters leave much to be desired.

I have a comparison here for people who are familiar with the game Gothic. While Gothic's storyline (1&2, with the Night of the Raven expansion) was a story-arc of world-ending proportions, PoE2 - despite also dealing with a world-ending event - just feels like "Risen". A small island off the main story, an off-shoot.
The companions, despite a huge chunk being just a carry-over from the first game, made me less invested in their ultimate outcomes. Eder felt like a husk of himself, Pellagina, no matter what you decide, barely has any sway in the grand scheme of the storyline. Even Aloth, a staple of the franchise, is relegated to a almost sidekick backseat.

PoE2 is a great game. One of the best Nu-CRPGs out there, no doubt that - at least in its gameplay - easily lives up to its inspirations. But as someone who was heavily invested from day 1, religiously played PoE1 and wanted a conclusion to their favorite characters, you will get nothing but a snack. The grand revelations will be left out. The story is still compelling, but the world and the huana-centered story-telling in particular, just left me wanting to return to the Dyrwood. It is a good midway stop until the final destination.

I hope PoE3 will show us Old Vailia and get back to what really was the heart and soul of this world. We don't need half hearted ship-fighting mechanics that are easily skipped by an OP party, which lets you just board even the strongest of ships - clearly just created as an afterthought. Also, the Megabosses were just an insult to longtime fans. The fascination in destroying the Alpine Dragon in PoE1 was the story behind it.

A black blob (one of the megabosses introduced in PoE2) on some coast, with no story, dialogue or background tied to it, is just a very insulting blurb in an overall grandiose experience.

Ultimately, Pillars of Eternity 2 was a great game. An amazing CRPG. Definitely a huge gift to the RPG community. But please, lets get to Old Vailia, Yezhua or at least let me return to my dear Dyrwood - with a bit less of this Huana nonsense.