Toward the end of my time with pirate RPG Pillars of Eternity II, one of my crew members, foul-mouthed furball Serafen, presented me with a gift.

Pillars of Eternity II is a sprawling pirate RPG that, depending on how many side quests you choose to do, can last well over 50 hours. This guy found a way to beat it in 26 minutes, using a clever mix of sequence breaks and exploits to slice through it like butter.

Role-playing game: "A rolling vista full of danger and secrets lies ahead. Adventure awaits. Which party members will you bring along?" Me: "Uhhhhh, can I get back to you in a few minutes or weeks or years?"

Pillars of Eternity II is aptly named. Fifty hours in, I feel like I've only just gotten started.

When it was first announced, people asked a very basic question of EA's Origin Access program: if you weren't a big fan of FIFA or Battlefield, what was there? But month by month, the program has grown to include a range of blockbusters and indies from outside of EA's patch.

The upcoming role-playing game Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire will let you helm your very own seafaring vessel, and seeing it in action makes me want to quit my job and take to the high seas. Sorry, Stephen. I'm a pirate now.

In what will probably be the first and last time I'm excited for anything involving Rabbids, the biggest release this week is comfortably the unusual cross-over between Mario and Ubisoft.

But the list of big hitters doesn't stop there: the first episode of Life is Strange: Before the Storm drops this week, ARK: Survival Evolved comes out of Early Access, and RedOut gets a well-deserved console release. It's a big week in games, people.

Pillars of Eternity is coming to consoles, following in the footsteps of other big isometric role-playing games like Torment and Divinity. It will be out for PS4 and Xbox One on August 29.

The second Pillars of Eternity is aiming to be the Baldur's Gate II to Pillars of Eternity's Baldur's Gate. And if that line makes no sense to you, here's another selling point: It will let you helm your own pirate ship.

We've almost survived E3 2017! Just a couple more weeks to go. Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason sits down with two more game developers: The director of South Park: The Fractured But Whole, and the executive producer/lead programmer of Pillars of Eternity 2.

News about crowd-funded games destroying their targets isn't as exciting as it once was, but it does show that the Kickstarter / Indiegogo / Fig train hasn't left the station just yet. The latest of prosperous developers is Obsidian Entertainment and its campaign for Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, which is currently sitting at $US1.52 million, about $US400,000 over its initial goal.

Like any good story, Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity journey started with failure. And not any kind of failure, but the worst kind that game developers experience - layoffs.

Once upon a time, Pillars of Eternity and Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian was working on a major Xbox One RPG called Stormlands. Then it got cancelled, and Obsidian had to lay off 30 people, a large portion of a relatively small staff. Turns out, Tyranny, Obsidian's new RPG in which evil has already won, partially emerged from Stormlands' ashes.

Let's get this out of the way upfront: Tyranny is not Pillars of Eternity 2. It's a different animal, a decidedly more sinister one. But the gulf between them is more than skin-deep.

The story of Pillars Of Eternity's development has passed into legend. Beginning life as a Kickstarter campaign, the game amassed more than $4 million which made it the highest funded video game in the site's history. Obsidian Entertainment has chronicled the whole story in an online documentary that you can purchase for under $2.

February saw the first of the year's major AAA titles land -- or at least the ones that were delayed from 2014 -- but March was when gamers truly got to get excited. Sony got some more exclusives. Indie darlings dropped their long-awaited sequels. Some long-awaited Kickstarter projects were finally released to the public, and there was even a new Mario Party to crow about.

Briefly: There's more Pillars of Eternity coming, with The White March -- Part 2 scheduled for January. Besides new quests and abilities, there's also a higher level cap and something Obsidian is calling "story time" mode, which lets "players experience the incredible narrative of Pillars of Eternity at a faster pace."

It's almost become a ritual at this stage. Double-click the name of the game on Steam. Watch the intro animation. Click "New Game" on the menu. Go into the character screen -- and then fire up a web-browser so I can see the most optimised character creation guide.

It's happening every time I try and fire up a traditional computer RPG. It's ruining my experience. So why can't I just play without risking the bad choices, or the suboptimal builds?

It's finally released on Steam, although it's worth noting that the second half of the expansion won't appear until "this Winter".