Divinity: Original Sin 2 launching properly in September
Unleash the kraken!
As Divinity: Original Sin 2 [official site] charges screaming through early access, developers Larian have announced a release date for the full version: September 14th. For early access roleplayers, though, Larian have released a hefty update including the tutorial with a fight against a kraken, the new home base on a captured warship, new areas, improved AI, and plenty more. You can see some of all this in a new dev diary if you aren't distracted by how swish their offices are:
Gosh! What a building.
Anyway, the game. How come a (possibly supernatural) warship is your home base this time? Larian explain in an accompany post:
"That's a change from what we originally planned (the Hall of Echoes as a home base) but while playing you'll quickly understand why we went for the Lady Vengeance in the end. All the home base functionality that was planned for the halls is there but more importantly - the Lady Vengeance requires no level switching which means you can split the party between home base and another piece of the map. That's much more convenient than having to gather your party and loading a new level. It's also a much better setting for some of the relationship building that we added to the game.
"In case you are wondering, the Hall of Echoes is still part of the game - you actually visit it in in act 1 already - we just moved the home base functionality away from it."
No, that's fine, please do let me live on the sea.
Full patch notes for that early access update, which is now live, are over here.
Our Adam recently had a play of Original Sin 2's Gamemaster Mode, coming away impressed.
I have visited Ghent, where Larian's office lives, and was delighted to go to St. Bavo's Cathedral and see a reliquary in the form of the solid silver severed head of John the Baptist on a plate resting atop four angels. The relic itself, which I half-remember being a knuckle bone, lived in a little panel in John's forehead. It's a pretty amazing cathedral.