Obsidian Entertainment and Paradox Interactive have announced that The Road To Eternity, a documentary exploring the story and struggles behind the making of Obsidian’s critically-acclaimed, crowdfunded RPG Pillars Of Eternity, has been fully released today on Vimeo to be enjoyed by fans worldwide.
Previously only available as a reward to those who helped fund the game on Kickstarter, The Road To Eternity starts off with the studio—the same one behind much-loved RPGs such as Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Fallout: New Vegas, and South Park: The Stick Of Truth—in one of the worst financial situations it had ever been in. In March 2012, after a big budget, next-gen game that the company was working on got canceled, Obsidian was pushed closer and closer to the edge of bankruptcy. When things got worse with forced layoffs, the studio was looking for a lifeline. Thankfully, one showed up in the form of Kickstarter.
Spurred on by the success of the Double Fine Adventure campaign (which eventually resulted with Broken Age), the developers decided to put their faith in the fans and launched their own Kickstarter campaign. It certainly paid off, raising $4.5 million overall.
The documentary features interviews with Pillars Of Eternity director Josh Sawyer, programmer Adam Brennecke, and Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart, all sharing their behind-the-scenes trials and tribulations on the journey to making their Baldur’s Gate-inspired opus.
The Road To Eternity presents one of the greatest comebacks of the year in the gaming industry and is a celebration of how crowdfunding can give independent developers the opportunity to unleash their creativity out into the world. The full hour-and-a-half film is available to watch now on Vimeo for $1.00/£0.66, while Pillars Of Eternity is available to play on Windows, Mac, and Linux.