Tyranny is the kind of RPG I’ve been waiting for: richly fleshed-out, crammed with lore, packed with fun mechanics and so generous in terms of its choices that you may need three or four playthroughs before you grok the depths of what Paradox and Obsidian have offered.
You start off choosing your character’s backstory and their decisions in the conquest of the Tiers. There are lots of decisions, all of which change the shape of the world you encounter later. This little section, where you basically choose your own adventure, is insanely fun for no reason. You really feel like you’re a big deal as you make your choices: set the forbidden library on fire, tell one army to do this, ignore the other army as it does that… the opening bit is an awesome way to hook the player.
The plot’s simple: you’re a cog in Kyros the Overlord’s machine of evil and conquest, which has rolled over the entire world of Terratus, leaving only a region known as the Tiers untouched. Now, Kyros’ smoldering eye is turned upon the Tiers and sends two Archons to complete the conquest, but the two Archons are squabbling and their armies are at each other’s throats. Fed up, Kyros sends you to proclaim an Edict upon the entire area: if a representative of Kyros does not claim rebel stronghold Ascension Hall in one week, everyone dies. You must cast your lot with the psychotic horde of the Scarlet Chorus or the medieval fascists of the Disfavored…
Or you can cast your lot with the underdog, the brave resistance of the Tiers. Or you can cast your lot with yourself. Or you can cast your lot multiple times in both directions, just for kicks. You can always betray your alliances. There are, in fact, a lot of ways for this game to go. And if you want to be good, you have to have a spine of iron. There’s no “pick the blue option every time for angel points” here; Tyranny makes good much harder than any shade of evil.
You have six companions to choose from of varying backgrounds and alignments, which they will tell you at length about. Your reactions cause them to accrue either Fear or Loyalty, sometimes both, based on their personality - for example, Lantry’s not one for chaotic decisions, while Kills-In-Shadow has no patience for sucking up. However, their intricate backstories can never be resolved because there are no companion quests. Poor Barik is trapped in his armor until a DLC frees him. It’s a shame because the companions are each quite interesting and well-written, so you really do want to help them with their problems and have more of an effect on their lives than a Fear/Loyalty meter can show.
As far as those meters go, there’s plenty of them. Different factions also have Favor/Wrath meters under the reputation tab in the menu that let you track exactly how each faction feels about you and why. Each faction has two special abilities locked under different Favor/Wrath requirements, so whichever way you go, you won’t feel like you’re losing out. And there are nearly a dozen factions, as well as your companions, as well as your Artifact weapons (which have Renown-based abilities that scale up based on how many times you’ve killed with them) and even the opinions of your Archon and his team. You know how everyone is feeling about you at all times and why.
You also collect Spires throughout the game – incredibly tall bulwarks that you can outfit as infirmary, training ground, forge or library. These are only slightly useful, as you can only rest at one without using your Camp supplies. They’re cool in that you can teleport instantly from one to the other, but after Act I, you no longer have a time constraint, so that barely seems to matter. Their potential feels squandered, especially considering how exciting the lore you get after unlocking one is.
Level designs are aesthetically pleasing, with each level looking and feeling very different from the next. You can hit “+” to enter “Fast Mode,” which I highly recommend, since your party members trundle about pretty slowly. Just be wary of traps. Some designs are more functional than others – running all over the Stone Sea is such a pain with all the ropes and circuitous paths – but I liked the art for all of them, especially the loading screen stills. Each area feels flavorful and distinct from the next.
I never played Tyranny ’s famous predecessor, Pillars of Eternity , so I began my journey with some trepidation about that complicated, intricate-looking combat. It turns out I was worried for nothing: all I had to do was enable Normal difficulty, one step up from Story mode, and I could fall asleep on the keyboard and still win my battles (once I got access to healing spells - it was a little embarrassing until then). The only issue I ever had with party AI was that my party members could not figure out how to maneuver in narrow spaces, so I had to take over a few times to move my mage and archer out of the front lines so my bruiser could rush in and take the blows, causing the mage and archer to receive free “disengagement attacks” from the enemy.
I never figured out how to customize the hotkeys, but since the tactical combat is highly dependent on pausing to figure out your next move, I just selected moves with my mouse when paused. There are so many abilities that can’t fit in a neat row of hotkeys, anyway: not only can you craft magic spells, you can also carry Artifact weapons with their own Renown abilities, you can carry out Combo abilities with other party members and you have Fear/Loyalty abilities available as you reach those prerequisites with your companions.
My favorite part of Tyranny ’s combat is probably the magic system, which allows you to craft any spell as long as you’ve purchased or found the sigils for it. You build spells by selecting Cores (the school of magic, like Stone, Fire or Atrophy), then Expressions (area of effect? Cone-shaped effect? Single target?), then Accents (this spell is super strong! This one adds bleeding). You can literally see the resulting sigil you build as a result, and it’s so fun to change components around and see what happens. Fire + Directed Force + Bounding Bolts II = a line of twisting flame that ricochets from one enemy to the other? Awesome .
However, I do have to say this: my game didn’t… end. At the conclusion of Act I or II, there are vignette cards that explain what’s happening in the world. In my game, I eliminated one of the Archons, got the other to swear fealty to me, got my own boss to swear fealty to me, and then… nothing. No active quests left, no hint as to how to move forward. Other folks have reported that the ending felt abrupt and that Act III felt much shorter than the other two Acts. Act III does feel shorter, but without an ending I can’t comment much further.
I will point out that everyone is swearing fealty to me as an Archon and possible replacement Overlord when I was careful the entire game to toe Kyros’ line, never speaking against Kyros and always respectful of their power. Why can’t I just want to be Kyros’ Next Top Archon? Why do I need to want to overthrow our glorious Overlord in favor of myself?
This game-halting issue did happen to me once before – in the mission “A Breach Between Worlds” – where I couldn’t move the game forward after acquiring the Stalwart Insignia. It turned out the quest instructions were a little unclear and I had to talk with the Disfavored folks at the Breach before moving forward, but in this case, I don’t even have unclear quest instructions to go by. So I’d love to comment on the ending, but I don’t, uh, have one.
That being said, I’m still going to start another playthrough. And if I get an update on what happened with my missing ending, you’ll hear all about it.
Tyranny is available on Steam here. Missing ending, funky pacing and all, I still sunk 50 hours into a 20-hour campaign and highly recommend that any fan of great writing, dense lore and branching paths spend some time in the world of Terratus.
