Pillars of Eternity’s game director says that the decision to set the game within a very normal, or even boring, RPG Setting was intentional. In an interview with Josh Sawyer, he told us that the standard setting was “intentional.”

Pillars of Eternity 2's ship combat is an excellent game within a game.

Sawyer says “I made no secret about the fact that the first place you go to in Pillars of Eternity is very standard fantasy. It’s western European, there’s forests, there’s meadows, there’s people that seem vaguely English.” That setting, despite some criticisms “was very intentional.” Sawyer says “a lot of the appeal of Pillars was built on nostalgia, and The Forgotten Realms [the world of Baldur’s Gate] was a very standard fantasy setting. We wanted people to feel at home when they came to it.”